How much
should teachers avoid controversial topics?
Should teachers be able to express their opinions in the classroom, or
to make them public through something like Twitter? Should the money that students and investors pay to support the
school have an influence on what is taught and how it is taught? If money’s influence on education is
negative, what can be done to minimize it?
To start off, I am really glad this article was written by a person who works in a school system and thus knows how the system he is writing about works. If I was forced to put my whole opinion on this subject in one sentence, the sentence would be an excerpt of the article “Teaching should be about broadening minds, not narrowing topics.”
ReplyDeleteI think the case of Mr Salaita and University of Illinois is astonishing and I strongly disagree with the opinion U of I has stated. However, let´s break it down. I understand that the whole controversy is centred around the fact whether teachers should be allowed to express their own opinion on a subject even though they may touch sensitive topics. Firstly, to be fair, teachers are still ordinary people who have their own opinions and ideas about the world and considering we still have freedom in this world, there should not be a single problem in expressing their own will. Well, does not everyone do that? As a continuing of this point, considering cyber bullying possible in Mr Salaita´s case is outrageous and as the author nicely mentioned “not the case of Mr Salaita”. Furthermore, he, as a Palestinian, surely should be allowed to say what he thinks about government and situation overall in his home country, Palestine.
Secondly, narrowing students´ minds and not “bothering” them about certain controversial and thought-needy topics as sociologist Tressie McMillan suggested, is, I would claim, wrong. As an example, take our school. In our school, teachers have constantly been trying to give us as much ideas about things as possible. Not the whole “here is a perfectly uncontroversial fact and that is how it is”, but more of a “here is a completely controversial idea, think about it and make your own judgement about it.” And this has been working out amazingly.
Thirdly, I feel obliged to react to peculiar statements and behaviour of the chancellor Mrs Wise. Mrs Wise, who really vehemently called for teachers using social media, reacted promptly to teacher tweeting about Gaza, but has not reacted at all to sexist and often racist comments on her own office. Is that just double standards or is it that companies and donors for universities have actually seized such a power over schools.
From my point of view, Peter was right in his ideas, I feel that way too about the issue. Anyway teaching is very difficult and important job. Teachers are meant to contribute to child's healthy growth and lead them towards knowing and using their own minds to, as Peter wrote, ʺmake their own judgement about a problem“. This verifies the sentence Peter nicely used: ʺTeaching should be about broadening minds, not narrowing topics.ʺ with which I fully agree. In my opinion controvesal topics simply belong to the school. But presenting teacher's opinions infront of students in the classroom is responsability, so the teacher should be careful how they will express their thoughts. However theachers are normal people with every right to display their opinions as they want outside of workpace! I ,as Peter, personally also disagree with what University of Illinois have done. The donors simply should not have such a big influence. Opinions, teaching and curicullums are one thing and money and business are other. It is not supposed to be mixed.
DeleteAlexandra Rampašeková 3.Ag
Absolute freedom of speech is I believe one of the most principal cornerstones of functioning democracy. It is defined as a free will to express your opinion, unless it is not directly harming individuals or groups of people, everywhere and under any circumstances, social networks included. However, seemingly there are several legal ways to omit this principle in order to maintain financial benefits and stabilised situation in which controversy does not take place. Independent education, on the other hand is the vital body of every developed state, thus this leads me to a question what happens when education is narrowed only to socially acceptable topics which raise no controversy and have minimal impact on students´ critical thinking connected to opinion forming on moving topics.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, let me explain why it is necessary to provide students with huge variety of topics, which can be also sometimes alarming. In order to explain world functioning to young people, it is inevitable to introduce them into the real world, which sometimes is not as hostile as it should be. Furthermore, by not talking about problems of global extend schools will not erase these problems, it only makes it harder for students to actively anticipate into current affairs and form a funded opinion based on logical steps. Discussing these topics in schools, whether physically or on social networks majorly correlates to the students´ involvement and also to intellectual growth. I strongly disagree with the phenomena of censuring information and ignoring the necessity of broadening minds on this level, but honestly it seems to me mainly problem of The United States. The US despite being very developed country still troubles with accepting students´ involvement in controversial topics such as slavery and discrimination which according to them may harm someone. However, in my opinion this topic narrowing only serves as camouflage of sins and deeds made in the past by the country itself.
Next, I would like to react to Mr. Salaitas´ of The University of Illinois, case. To understand the complexity of the case we need to look at three factors which actively participated in the case: teacher, students and institution. At first, the analysis of teachers position, teacher as somebody with relative power over opinion forming, is definitely someone who should be very cautious about what he states, mainly on social networks, because once something is written on the internet it is never completely forgotten. On the contrary, it is also someone with the same right to express himself one every level. So there is the need of fine balance between propriety and freedom of speech. Although we live in very liberal era, the elimination of opinion flow amongst teacher is necessary in order to protect students from forming opinions based only on teachers´ self-expression. Now, I have come to the point, where I can talk about students. I do not agree with the suggestion that students are afraid to speak their minds about topics on which their attitude differs from the teachers. It is mainly because of the huge variety of opinion parties that allows self-definition and self-determination in every sphere of life and is acceptable everywhere, so it should be in school premises. And here comes the role of the institution which should respect everyone´s opinion, unless it does not bully or directly attack somebody, because primary role of school is not only teaching us mathematics and other exact sciences but bringing up people with sorted and defined values.
ReplyDeleteLast but not least, I feel the urgent need to react to the idea of student- customer model mentioned by sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom. This model does not actually fulfil the definition of school and stands against the principles of education itself. School as a preparation for life, needs to provide students with debates on current or controversial topics. Of course, in extend with the least possible troubling of the student psyche, but still openly tackling given issue so there is a space for student to draw his own conclusion.
Vanessa Maderová
Education's main goal should be to teach students how to think because that is the only way to raise intelligent citizens who will do sensible decisions in their future. However when we look at our schools we can see that teaching the students how to think does not often find a place in the curriculum.
ReplyDeleteI think that controversial topics should be discussed in high school classrooms since students are old enough to think critically by then. However these discussions should have some rules and there should be always present a trained teacher who would know how to handle these lessons. The teacher should not state his views on these lessons because he would influence the students and therefore they might not form their opinions by analysis of information and different perspectives of the problem but just by adopting the opinion without really understanding the problem. I think that the teacher should lead the debate by asking the students questions that would help them to look at things from more points of view. This way they would think about the problem while seeing all its pros and cons and deciding what is their opinion on the issue.
But is it right for the teacher to share his beliefs on this topic online? I think that teacher has the right to express his thoughts and feelings on the internet but not in the way that any other person does. I am referring to the professor from the article who was not accepted to the university because of his tweets about Israel. Even though the university is criticized I think that it was the right decision. The teachers should share their thoughts in more sophisticated manner that using twitter. If they feel like sharing they can do it by writing columns or articles on the internet in which they would show why they believe in a particular thing. The main benefit of this is that the students reading their blogs would understand them even though they might not have the same opinion and the teachers would be still able remain a respected authority. Offensive one sentence tweets from the teachers should not be tolerated because this way they just support creating strong feelings about the subject in their recipients without them actually understanding it, which is the thing that they as teacher should find against.
I agree with Roman on the fact that controversial topics should be discussed at Universities. I believe it is as important as classic fact learning, as it broadens your mind and allows you to understand or even approve of different opinions. As a student, I want to be the one deciding which topics I do approve of and which not. However, I do not find the term "trained teacher" a solution. Who is a trained teacher in discussions? Who approves him? I can imagine the person giving the "certificate" being either too liberal or too conservative in these questions. Therefore all teachers should be allowed, or even encouraged to discuss controversial topics.
DeleteEveryone should have the right to state his own opinion. Even teachers. I do not find it problematic if a teacher tells us his thoughts about any topic. The important thing is he can not persuade us it is the right opinion. But I agree that he should be only the moderator of the discussion, and leave students to express freely.
Last of all, I do not understand why teachers should not tweet their opinions. Does a personal blog have more "dignity" than a Twitter account? Is it more sophisticated? Is it wrong that the pope and many world leaders use Twitter as well? In my opinion - no. A blog is good when you regularly post articles. But this teaches just stated his thoughts. And I do not find them too offensive, especially if the U of I believes he is mistaken. Then she should have been just a guy with a wrong knowledge about one topic, but not about his subject.
The purpose of social media is to express freely and instantly. No matter if you are a student, teacher or a president. There are some rules, however I do not believe the teacher violated them. This is a case of pure fear of others opinions.
This comment has provided us with essential arguments supporting a reasonable opinion. It is evident that students should be taught how to think at school, which could be done by discussing various problems (even controversial). However, I consider highly important to define a role of teacher in the context of discussing an issue within the class. I agree with Roman that a teacher should control development of discussion that everybody would express his thoughts including arguments which led him/her in forming his/her opinion and that he/her would not harm others. Basically, the teacher should try not to present his/her own ideas but teach the students to find the truth by rational argumentation and understanding different opinions, which would result in forming a compromise.
DeleteNevertheless, I do not regard withdrawal of job offer to Mr. Salaita (mentioned in the article) as the best step the U of I could do. I agree that the way Mr. Salaita expressed his disagreement with the situation in Israel could have been considered as slightly aggressive and might have posed inappropriate example for students. Furthermore, his behaviour represented neither characteristics of an educated person nor a good teacher, although, I think he should have been afforded a chance to explain his tweets in appropriate language including apologise for harm he could have caused to the readers. Moreover, it is possible that his commenting the situation could be connected to his background (maybe also his family as he is a Palestinian-American) so that he knows the situation from different point of view and not everybody understands it. Therefore, he should have got an opportunity to explain it so that everybody would understand justness of his thinking. If he had done so, he could probably regain the status of teacher because he would prove his ability to support his ideas by arguments and also that his intention was not to harm anybody. Moreover, it may happen to anyone that he/she expresses his/her feelings extraordinarily especially if he/she feels something unfair, bad.
All in all, I share with Roman the opinion that also controversial issues should be discussed at schools. Additionally, I agree that the teacher should be in a role of a discussion moderator. However, I disagree with U of I cancelling the job offer to Mr. Salaita without giving him an opportunity to explain his statements.
We are living in a state organisation called democracy, and in the majority of rules of this political system figures the word “freedom”. Whether it is the freedom of religion, travelling or choice, as well as one of the anchors of democracy - the freedom of expressing oneself publicly. Thus, it is a fundamental and inevitable part of nowadays world, and also one of the vital human rights. Once someone is denied to have any of the mentioned freedoms, the term democracy should lose its validity, and from my point of view, a similar action happened on the University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign. I found the reaction of the University absolutely non-democratic towards Steven Salaita. To put it precisely, I am not of the opinion that someone like teacher, who can represent a great impact on student’s viewpoint, can obtrude his pupils with his opinion only. That is not exactly democracy. The most accurate approach would be exposing them to various sides of that particular problem, allowing them to form their own opinion from the ones offered. Of course there are certain topics which should not be discussed, like propaganda of racism, fascism and violence, however these are marginal. I therefore think that controversial topics should not be a taboo, as soon as there are several points of view presented to the students.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, if the democracy truly exists, why students should not be confronted with controversial topics and people’s opinions on them in the school? Why should the issues such as slavery or discrimination, mentioned by the author, be hidden from them? If the mission of education system is to prepare students for life, why should it forbid confrontation with certain issues of today’s world? It seems to me a little bit unnatural to cut the students off certain things just because they are considered as sensitive or can potentially harm somebody. In my opinion, teachers, as intelligent human beings, have a great impact on students’ opinions. Therefore, considering that they are educated and mature enough, it should be their duty to offer the students plurality of perspectives; to make them think about the problem and then encourage them to form their own opinion. After all, isn’t that at least equally important part of what school should offer to the students?
Revocation of professor Salaita is therefore a somewhat unlucky step made by the university. Instead of encouraging the teachers to take part in public discussion and lead the students to follow, it rather instigates them to say “either nothing of value, or nothing at all.”