ClumsyMonkey.net

Why has political stuff seeped into the public school system? A history teacher is telling 13 year olds that the government is lying and that the people no longer own the government but the government owns us...

Can he do that?!

I think that to a point it's okay. In this case it isn't. Obviously a 13 year old doesn't actually know what is going on in the world, and for a teacher to plant his beliefs in the shild isn't right.

I think something that should be done when a student reches around grade 6 (so maybe 11 or 12 years old) is the implementation of newspapers within the classroom. As much as papers are biased, this at least opens up the student to issues, and I doubt the biases will stick with the child anyways.

I know during the federal election in 97 (at least I think it was 97... could be off by a year) our teacher had us make a scrap book of the election, and every day we were to bring in a newspaper (or multiples) and cut out any pictures, or articles pertaining to the election, and highlight the key points of the articles. In a way I think this helped spark a bit of interest in politics, even though I was too young to really be motivated about it.

I think he is just trying to get you to question things. Not necessarily take his opinions. If you don't question things and rebel against whats wrong with the world how do we attempt to improve upon anything?

ya but the kids are only 13...

i was a freshman in high school at 13.

Why is this in the SPAM forum! It hurts my brain!!!!!

Me too, Lando... me too. I'm way too tired to think right now.

.....my niece is getting kind of sort of political? scary.

J-Neli wrote:ya but the kids are only 13...

13 year olds aren't really that impressionable. My social-studies teahcer talks about politics in our class quite often and usually it's because someone in the class brings it up, and almost everyone seems to have their own opinion...

Well either way though a teacher shouldn't be forcing his views on his students. Technically he shouldn't be giving his own opinions, UNLESS other opinions and options have been offered and studied.

what the hell?

our teachers are supposed to be emotionless, opinionless robots now?
if they have something to say how come they don't have the right to say it unless we do first? how are you supposed to start a discussion.

And why are we assuming that he was forcing this onto the students? I can think of a lot of teachers of mine that would say something like that. It all depends on the context, and right now we are assuming a context. That isn't really fair either.

Even if there wasn't a discussion about politics before he said that, what if he was trying to start a discussion and he wanted people to disagree? You need to hear something you have an opinion on in order to have an opinion so why is this all of a sudden off limits if the guy was trying to stimulate his class?

Though I usually don't get into political debates, I can understand why politics would be brought up. I don't know why we are jumping down his back.

Its not exactally feeding propaganda to kindergardners or anything.

I agree that teachers should voice their opinions in a mature, respectful way that won't skew the student's view of the situation.

I remeber when I was 13 I was starting to be fairly mature, so I say 13's a great age to start introducing kids to politics and events around them.

I'm all for political discussion in the classroom, and I'm all for teachers being able to voice their opinions. I just don't think it's fair to voice opinions to 13 year olds who don't know any other side of the story. If you're going to make it fair on the children, get them newspapers and have them read for themselves. Then Debate. It's plain and simple.

Ahh, this reminds me of my 7th grade teacher.. She was such a biased cow i could not stand it. She always sided with American Politics *AHHHHH* and when the Twin Towers came down, said that Islam was to blame. Thats fucking scary man.

eh.....i think it's good that he brought it up to my niece's class. makes her think about stuff like that.

that and i want someone to argue politics with when she gets older.

J-Neli wrote:I'm all for political discussion in the classroom, and I'm all for teachers being able to voice their opinions. I just don't think it's fair to voice opinions to 13 year olds who don't know any other side of the story. If you're going to make it fair on the children, get them newspapers and have them read for themselves. Then Debate. It's plain and simple.

Your still assuming that 13 year olds don't know other sides of the story and don't already have their own opinions. I know a lot of 13 year olds who have strong opinions on politics and things like that.

Most 13 year olds are still playing video games, or are just starting to hang out at malls. By no means are 13 year olds talking politics during their daily discussions. You may be a unique case, but I'm willing to bet if you asked most 13 year olds a political question, they would have no clue.

I wasn't actaully talking about myself... but while I sort of agree with you that about half the 13 year olds are like you just described, a lot aren't and personally I think the most of ones who don't know much about politics would just sort of shrug it off and not let it become their opinion, depending what context the teacher said it in, of course . . . it also sort of depends on what subject the teacher was, like if an anti-candian math teacher (stupid Riche..) or home-ec teacher goes on about canadian government screwing newfoundland over or something, the students who are actually listening would probably take it more as that teacher's opinion, rather than fact, than they would if it was a Social Studies teacher.

I don't care how politically minded a 13 year old seems to be. They simply have not lived enough to know what is going on. They don't pay taxes and they are rarely affected by the decisions made by politicians. Adolescents seem to look at things in black and white. They may generically feel one way about somethign but they don't understand the full issue. And I know some 13 year olds are going to come back and say, not all 13 year old are like that. Well, sorry to break it to you, but yes they are.

thank you.