Shots Across The Bow

Bravo Rich! Wonderful job giving you daughter the facts and allowing her to make her own decision. After reading various articles over the years concerning the testing/re-testing of teachers for proficiency it doesnt surprise me in the least bit that someone so ignorant could be looked upon as a factual source of information. By the way, do your children go to a Knox County school or private school?

The more I see of public school, the more I like the idea of home schooling. There's no excuse for the ignorance and bias this teacher showed.

Teachers are people, too. You don't want teachers using their classroom as a pulpit when they should be teaching, but a little opining is inevitable.

Would you still be complaining about "bias" if your daughter had come home saying how she thought GWB did the right thing by invading Iraq?

The point is, I think homeschooling is an interesting alternative to public or private schools in many ways, but to me, the reason you cite as wanting to pull her out is the one area I think it's most valuabe: encountering other people.

Probably the most valuable education I got in the public school system was not from any of my classes, but simply in the arena of social interaction. I learned to deal with people that were different from me: geeks, jocks, loud-mouthed bullies. I also learned that people in authority can be fallible, vindictive, and obstinately arrogant (i.e.: human)

You may not agree with your daughter's teacher but it seems to be that by wanting to protect her from things like this which are inevitable in life you'd be doing her a disservice. Educate her (which you've done) and let her make up her own mind and deal with it as she may.

Chris, I would agree with you except for two things.

1. She was expressing her opinion as fact, and her facts were wrong.

2. This was an English class, not a history class.

Unfortunately, what occured with your daughter isa common occurence in public schools and it only gets worse in college.

Sadly, most of the left goes by the idea that lies are alright so long as the intentions are good. And, despite facts that oppose their arguments, they will continue to resite lies as facts to support their arguments. And, when eventually confronted with the fact that their ideas are false, they will continue to support their ideas because they sound good to them and the intentions are good.

I am sure that the forest fires out here in southern California have done little to quell that attitude, unfortunately.

You make it sound like the left lies and the right is the good guys that always tell the truth. The fact of the matter is the both sides lie when the time suits them and on side is just as bad as the other side.

Now here is the thing with public education. Yes, a teacher may spew out propoganda in order to sway students beliefs but it doesn't just happen with the teachers that lean to the left. Guess what? It happens both ways and accurately represents the way real life is. You may not like that in this case one of your daughters (my sister) came home with an opinion formulated from fact that are not true, but you must realize she is going to have to deal with this as long as she has ears. She will hear things and have to decide whether she believes it or not. Public education does a good job in preparing kids to do these kinds of things. It introduces children to many different points of view which they wouldn't get accustomed to anywhere else.

Isaac, nope, I didn't say that at all. Re-read my piece. Nowhere did I suggest that only the left does this. I documented two specific instances from one teacher. Read particularly the last sentence.

"There's no excuse for the ignorance and bias this teacher showed."

That would apply equally as well to a conservative teacher spreading right wing propaganda.

Your statements, on the other hand, are certainly open to challenge.

Document instances of right wing propaganda being taught in schools as truth. Also, demonstrate that it is just as common as left wing propaganda. Based on the easily verifiab;e fact that the majority of educators in the public school system are liberal, particularly in higher education, I believe you'll have your work cut out for you.

AS for the rest of your argument, teachers bear a special burden as they are a prime authority figure in an environment where questioning authority is actively discouraged. As such, it is not a level playing field where the student is free to question the pronunciations of her teacher; instead, it is in her own best interest to accept those pronunciations in order to get a good grade. Whether the teacher would actually downgrade a contrary opinion is beside the point; the mere possibility that it could happen exerts a chilling effect.

Given that a teacher is in that position, it is her obligation to present a balanced portrayal of the facts. If she is not capable or willing to do so, she is not a teacher, she's a propagandist.

Based on the easily verifiab;e fact that the majority of educators in the public school system are liberal

*doing my best sociology teacher impression*: Where's your data?

I would recommend private school as your first alternative before home-schooling. I have no doubts about your abilities, but from what I've seen first hand of some home-schooled kids, you can understand why some parents aren't necessarily qualified to teach their children everything they need to know.

Chris,
for starters

The union's polling shows a third of its 2.2 million members are Republican.

The article is from 1996, but I doubt that number has changed all that much. Add to this that in that year, the NEA provided over 400 delegates to the democratic national convention, and only 34 to the republican.

Here, we find that a survey of voter registration rolls finds that 84% of college teachers voted for Al Gore, and that, at the university level, the overwhelming majority of teachers are registered democrats.

Here's a link to one of the pages that comprised the study.

So, both internal polling, and external studies indicate that liberal educators far outnumber conservatives.

Thaks for making me look it up. I knew I'd read it before, but it took me a few minutes to find. Now I have it handy.

Take care

I appologize. The comment refering to the left was towards Bastard's comment and not refering to your right up. Next time I will try and make it more clear of who I am commenting on. Anyway, you would like me to document a right wing teacher spewing propaganda, so be it. First of all, I will give my disclaimer. I consider myself niether right wing or left. My political views know no boundaries and are formulated on the basis of my perception. Each political issue I take into account my morals and my beliefs to form my stances. Now on to the documenting.

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Here is a case of a conservative teacher in Illinois that is against the miss america pagent http://www.illinoisleader.com/news/newsview.asp?c=9578. An exert from the article:

Alton teacher Annice Brave wore a sash reading "UN-MISS AMERICA" while teaching classes last week, with the sign above her classroom desk saying, "Caution! We are currently under Miss America alert status."

Brave said that in Harold's case, "The message is the messenger." A self-proclaimed feminist, Brave admitted she is "one of those types" according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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You can find another case here http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36091.A dropout-prevention counselor at a North Carolina high school has been suspended for reportedly sharing Scripture with a student who was struggling with homosexuality.

That person sounds very conservative to me... Now I am not saying it was right to suspend the counselor or not, but she still shared her conservative views with the student.

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The fact of the matter is this and you may not agree or not. Students in highschool today (I am speaking from experience) try their best to hook the teacher and reel them off their lesson plans to talk about things other then "school stuff". More times then I could count discussion would turn to things that hot topics to talk about and things that were going on in the political world. I heard teaches talk about the rebel flag. I heard teachers talk about elections. I heard teachers talk about Sept. 11. Guess what? Not all the teachers carried liberal points of view. Actually, there were more conservative teachers that I came in contact with.

As for some numbers of conservative compared to liberal. I went to the National Education Association. If you look here http://www.nea.org/edstats/images/status.pdf, it shows that 60 - 70% of teachers that took the survey consider themselves as conservative.

There are two sides of the political fence and only walking one side of the fence is rather boring.

In the case of the teacher against the pageant, show me where she was teaching opinion as fact. According to the article, it is pretty clear that she was expressing an opinion, and designated it as such. In your next example, what you didn't say was the student asked what the bible said about homosexuality. Additionally, this was not a classroom situation, but a counseling one, where different standards apply.

And third, it would be very interesting to find out why the survey indicates middle of the road, yet voter registration indicates highly liberal. Self deception perhaps?

When a teacher expresses his or her opinion in the classroom, it does a very good job in effecting the students' views so I see no difference in expressing opinion and fact. Teacher's are authority figures and even their opinions can persuade students into believing their cause.

Yes, the student asked for biblical references. Was it the counceler's job to comply without informing the parents to what she was telling their child? I don't see how it is different from the teacher presenting supposed "facts" about invading Iraq to the students. I bet that if you asked if a student inniated the conversation about Iraq, you would see that it was a student just hoping to get out of work. Students try to get out of work daily. So the student then inniated the conversation about Iraq and the teacher gave facts they believed as true. That is no different from the Bible example. One being a conservative point of view and the other being a liberal point of view.

There is a difference between being a "liberal" and being a "Democrat". There's also a difference between the rank and file and the leadership's positions. Just because the teachers union sends many delegates to the Democratic convention, it doesn't mean that teachers on the whole are liberal. Personally, I think it has more to do with economic self-interest (i.e. opposition to school vouchers) than anything else.

If I remember correctly, nationwide, both Dems and Repubs have about 1/3 of the population registered as such, so there is nothing that says teachers are more Democrat than the rest of the population.

Just curious: when you were giving her "all the information," did you tell her that there is NO reputable evidence from ANY intelligence agency linking Saddam to 9/11?

Did you explain to her how overthrowing Saddam has been a goal of Wolfowitz & Co. going back more than a decade, well predating 9/11, and that the administration immediately sent out talking points to its minions to link the two without evidence?

Did you explain to her how the decision to take over Iraq diverted resources from Afghanistan, where Taliban warlords -- the folks that directly supported al Queda, the folks that attacked us on 9/11 -- are making such a comeback that last week the U.N. told us that if security didn't improve they were going to have to evacuate the country?

Did you explain to her how much money we're spending in Iraq, and how Mr. Bush has decided that he'd rather have her pay for it -- and his tax cuts -- decades from now instead of spending the political capital to actually pay for it now?

Did you then explain to her how little we've spent on Homeland Security, and how we still have college students carrying weapons on planes to show the FBI how lax things still are?

Did you tell her how many soldiers have so far died in the deposition of this tyrant that had nothing to do with 9/11 and who, we know now, seems to have had no weapons with which to threaten us?

Did you tell her how many soldiers have been wounded?

You told her how to look up articles on "conditions in Iraq." Fine. Did you tell her how to look up articles on conditions in Africa? North Korea? China? Or in Saudi Arabia, for girls like her?

Then did you explain to her why, if "conditions" in Iraq are a valid reason for taking action, we aren't pursuing similar policies elsewhere in the world?

I didn't think so. After all, that would be so... complicated.

Im from Ireland, and it would be worrying for our families if children came home and said "I love GW Bush" Thats a scary thought. But thats when we'd be questioning teachers.