Anomalous Data - Politics in the classroom.

Saturday, November 26, 2005

Via The Moderate Voice, I get an article about a Teacher Under Investigation for Alleged Liberalism.

This makes me laugh a wry and cynical laugh. I remember with little fondness, my English Teacher in tenth and twelfth grade who would single out “liberal” students for abuse and ridicule on a regular basis.

Any child who wasn’t a good old redneck or yuppie was a “loser”, and was openly and publicly labeled so…and the students who were “winners” never let them forget it all the day long. “Winners” were people predestined for success and wealth, and the “Losers” were predestined to be the human chattle of the “winners” and rightfully so.

He had us do grammar worksheets that were excerpts from Zig Zeigler, Ray Kroc, and Dale Carnegie books. He would take out the punctuation marks, for example, and have us put them back in.

On a couple of occasions, he openly talked about God and the importance of being a Christian in the classroom (or at least about how being in a church could help you with success). He let us know that money and success only came to “winners” who believed as he did. He once went on an extend rant about how unions were destroying free enterprise in this country (ironic, as it was most likely only union power that kept him in a job).

He’d say sexist things like “Women shouldn’t wear red to work, because you can only sell one thing at a time”

Oh yeah, and he advertized and conducted his personal business (selling Herbalife) on school property and during school hours.

He didn’t get fired until he called an African-American child in my sister’s class a “nigger”. Even then, he was around long enough to figure out it was my sister who had complained about it, and physically intimidate and threaten her over it.

I suppose his being fired is an example of the “liberal bias of our education system“.

Really, there’s no place for that sort of behavior in the classroom, and if that’s what this “liberal” teacher was doing, then he should be canned as well. You can have spirited discussions, and you should…but having a classroom atmosphere that stifles dissent and is meant to only indoctrinate the pliable and destroy the resistant should not be tolerated.

Saturday, November 26, 2005 10:45:42 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00) | Comments [1] | Political

Monday, November 28, 2005 12:21:54 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

God, do I get this.

Waaay back in the mists of pre-history (or, as I'm wont to call it, the early nineties), I was enrolled in a Women's Studies class at my alma matter. The instructor and I rubbed each other the wrong way from day one. It didn't take much to make this happen: My instructor just strode into the classroom, smacked down her books, and began her lecture with this little gem:

"All men are rapists."

My eyebrows made a bee-line for my skull cap, and my mouth dropped open. Then, unbidden, the following words dashed out of my mouth:

"And all mothers kill their babies."

The instructor glared at me, angry. Undaunted I finished up with: "Both statements are equally untrue."

Yep. Battle lines. Drawn. Check.

The instructor had us read all manner of Women's Studies material, and required us to keep a journal about our thoughts about the reading. We would then turn in said journal after two weeks and be graded on our writing. Since I was pretty comfortable with the whole "stringing words together" gig, I was actually excited to see her comments back about what I'd written. Imagine my surprise when I saw a big frigging "D" on my first round of entries. Whole passages were lined in red with comments like "You've missed the point!" and "Try thinking through that again!" It was horrifying.

Despondant, I considered dropping the class. I mentioned this to a fellow male student who had taken the course the year before, and he laughed. "Just write everything she says in class," he said. "You do that, and you'll get an 'A'."

This, of course, pissed me off. How could this be possible in an instituion for higher learning? We were there to learn, to develop critical thinking skills, not to regurgitate some party line. Determined to prove this guy wrong I did as he said. I recycled her comments made during lectures wholesale into my journal entries and handed them in. What I expected was another "D"; what I got was an "A". More horrifying was this little phrase at the end:

"It's so good to see you coming around."

Oh, yeah. This was total bullshit.

So off to the head of the department I went, journal in hand. I sat down, showed the passages I'd written, and the ones I'd regurgitated, and offered up this analysis:

"There is a fine line between instruction and indoctrination, and this course crosses it."

Happily, the head of the department agreed. The instructor was counseled, and glared at me any time she saw me from that point forward. I ended up leaving the class with a "B", but it felt good to stand up and say "No way; not with me in your room you don't."

Tony

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