Grayson Stallman
11 April 2019
The Need for Both Sides in the Classroom
The American education system was never designed as a political forum. Many of the country’s founding fathers including Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin all asserted that the schoolhouse should be free of distractions from the political sphere so that students could focus on their studies of reading, writing, science, arithmetic, commerce, and all subjects needed for a stable academic foundation. This is not to say, however, that there was a preference for the youth to be oblivious to their government, quite the opposite. Today as in the founding decades of the United States, there is much to be gained from student involvement in government as well as student organizations that mimic government. Of course there must be government and law classes to compliment the history courses students take. These are all wholesome pursuits and should not be discouraged in the least. What has to be discouraged, however, is a singular political viewpoint being perpetuated on students by their instructors. Over the years, and for a wide variety of reasons, the teaching profession at public schools has manifested into an unrestrained forum for these instructors to espouse their almost exclusively leftwing views on their students in the form of assignments designed to show them the “correct way” to think about the world. The question is then, why not prohibit them from doing this so students can focus on their studies? The short answer is that it will take more time to sort out the issue of the students’ right to free speech versus the teachers. Thus the only solution is to mandate that both views on all political topics are presented in equal proportion so that the students, who will eventually be voters that decide the direction of the country, can decide for themselves.
Regardless of one’s beliefs, both sides of the isle have agreed for quite a while that public school teachers are left leaning, to put it mildly. There is debate as to why this is so, but in objectivity they are mostly financial; public school teachers are all part of a teachers’ union and their salaries, benefits packages, vacation time, etc. all tend to increase with a rise in government spending and an increase in the government’s size. This would seem perfectly logical. After all, who wouldn’t do what they could to increase their paycheck? The issue arises when these views are forced upon students, admittedly without intending harm most of the time. No student has a choice as to whether or not they go to public school and if their teachers are this polarized in their instruction, they have no choice but to hear onside for twelve years. Furthermore, when teachers incorporate their views as the only correct interpretations of material, this is especially problematic with literature and English instructors, a student is in effect punished with a poor grade simply for disagreeing. By definition, this is suppression of free speech and thought.
The only hope of inserting the other point of view into Americas 130,000 public schools is through direct engagement with their administration, who are not bound by their unions and are elected directly by the local populace. While perhaps counterintuitive, this is should not be a split between right and left, but between free speech and suppression. In the United States no student should only hear one side of the story. No student should fear stating that which they believe to be true even if their teacher disagrees. All students should be allowed to question ideas. This would seem like common sense. Educational institutions are supposed to promote free thought and safe expression. This should not continue to be sacrificed simply because public school teachers are concerned about their benefits packages. No student is in a position to fix their personal financial issues, nor should they be responsible to. A student’s job is to learn the truth, the unabridged or skewed truth, about their material. This will never be accomplished if only one idea is ever presented in a favorable light.
There are those who may wonder as to how conservative voices can be reasonably presented in a classroom if the vast majority of public school teachers are committed to the far left. Their answer lies in technology. There is no shortage of conservative media that is easily accessible for instructors to present to their classroom. Over forty years of conservative network broadcasting, hundreds of years of conservative literary works, and an infinite supply of online material created by conservative authors. In parallel, if a topic truly can only be presented from one point of view, then it is the instructor’s responsibility to balance it with a topic of equal weight that can only be seen from the opposite point of view. The key is balance.
The best way for students and parents to get involved and change the current ideological imbalance in the American education system is to get on the phone with their local superintendent, vote for advocates of free speech in the classroom, and continue to question until the alternative viewpoint is made clear. Even though it can be immensely difficult for conservative students to tolerate the seemingly endless stream of liberal views from their teachers, they must seek change in an orderly manner that does not interfere with the learning process of their peers. They should always take comfort in the idea that the real-world outside of academia does indeed have another view. On the same note, current public school teachers would do very well to practice better tolerance of differing ideas and work on encouraging free speech rather than enforcing suppression. If done correctly and gradually, balance can be restored to ideological nature of the American public school system.
Sources:
https://thefederalist.com/2020/02/26/why-public-schools-are-so-likely-to-teach-leftist-propaganda/
