My professionalism allows me to objective when teaching; politics does not enter my decision making overtly. (Surely my subconcious bias can and probably does affect what I teach and how I teach it, but to assume I am trying to indoctrinate students is pretty laughable. My job, as an American history teacher, is to teach our complicated past, the good and the bad. The only indoctrinating I'm doing is (hopefully) giving my students a habit of questioning and analyzing, with the ultimate goal to think for themselves. My favorite quote in the article was from the 16 year old student from New Jersey, Emma Chan: “You can love a country and feel it’s worth defending and still criticize it." Exactly. This student echoes a quote from the Constitution's preamble: "...in order to form a more perfect union." Evolving and growth is the march of civilization and this country (hopefully). Have you felt indoctrinated by your schooling? Is there a liberal bias in American education in your experience?
Considering what we are learning at the moment, the thought of a federal committee regulating what is being taught in our classrooms in terms of perspective is really scary. From my experience so far, the goal of our AP US History class has been to present the evidence, help us to comprehend it, and teach us to be skeptical of just accepting what others have told us. Having this "1776 Commission" dictate what is being taught in our classrooms is akin to censorship, something usually only seen in less democratic governments. While in my experience, despite the fact that most of my teachers have been left leaning, I have never felt a liberal bias, nor have I felt indoctrinated while in the classroom before, but this new commission makes me fear what will happen in the future.
ReplyDeleteCurrently have not felt indoctrinated by my schooling. I also do feel as there is a slight liberal bias in school, but I think its more from talking to my peers and other students and not the system. As of now all my History classes seem to be very non bias and have ussally talked about some of the benifits of a certian event as well as some of the negatives. I think one best examples would be most history classes ive taken had us read multiple sources from different perspecitves ussally in a pro con fashsion and had us write a thesis about what we thought. I think this allows for a non bias history class. Textbooks however I do occasionally see a textbook write about the south fighting for states rights so that could be a sign of bias.
ReplyDeletePascal, we'll definitely read some excerpts of textbooks from southern states that still sugarcoat the Confederacy. If anything, I see conservative views more supported in textbooks (in certain areas of the country).
DeletePersonally, I do not feel that any teacher has really pushed their own political agenda on me throughout my schooling. Yes, I do think there is a slightly more liberal bias less in terms of stances on politics, but more stances on more social stances (i.e. how we view our president, how we view BLM, etc.). I still don't necessarily believe this is because of school or teachers, but rather our environment, considering we live in California and are at the age where we are well aware of what's going on in the world and are able to have meaningful discussions with our teachers about them. Again though, I think this liberal bias I've experienced stems more from our circumstances rather than what school we go to.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that I have been indoctrinated by my schooling; I do not feel as though my teachers have imposed their own political beliefs in the classroom. I think that history classes could suffer from indoctrination, but my experience is that I have learned history, and how to learn about history and think and analyze it critically in non-biased ways. I do think there is a slight liberal bias in the school social environment, but not in the formal classroom learning environment. I would not say this is true for all of American education, as we live in California which is known for being quite liberal, and there are other states that are known to be more conservative. It’s also difficult for me to gauge how liberal-leaning my education has been sometimes because of the way I have grown up; what others may view to be very progressive, I may not because I have grown up in a pretty liberal area and so I may carry inherent bias that I myself are unaware of.
ReplyDeleteDon't you wonder how the experience would be different if you suddenly moved to a conservative area and took US History? I think about how I would need to navigate students will a more conservative lean. All in all, I wouldn't change any lesson, but I know I would need to address views that I don't normally get here.
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