Monday, March 13, 2006

Propaganda in the classroom

Quite a bit of rhetoric has been spilled lately over the habit of some teachers (and professors) of using their classrooms to share their political points of view. Cases in point include a geography teacher in Colorado, who used his class to promote Marxist economics and his theory that Bush is a new Hitler. The general response to this man is that teachers don't have a right to share only their own views.

While this is certainly true, I think that this misses the bigger point; that merely sharing political views isn't education at all, but rather indoctrination.

Which is, sad to say, one of the few things our government schools excel in doing. The teacher in Aurora has ably lived up to the mission assigned him by Dewey and the NEA.

7 comments:

Shawn said...

...can't dispense ideas w/o worldview; it's just more apparent and outlandish sometimes. (is really only a problem when i disagree with the worldview basis from which ideas are sent out...)

Bike Bubba said...

Quite true--what I'm getting at here is that if you teach the conclusion without teaching the method by which you got there, you have utterly failed in the business of education.

Of course, even "classical education" of grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic might be seen as a worldview, but I'd dare suggest that it would be in a broader sense than the teacher's Marxism is a worldview.

Shawn said...

ah....didn't see "conclusion without method" in your original post....thought you were complaining solely about content/methodology.

i've always wanted to teach...and i'd love to be able to go: here's a, b, c, and these are (by and large) why people believe x. I, however, and many others, believe y, because of this; and here's how we string the thoughts together.

it's very cognitive, but...well...that's the point; method/process, not destination. (which is what i think you're saying).


and...interesting...how's CE a worldview? would it be the 'rational method' that you necessarily employ and rely upon to support CE? myself; i'd see CE as 'relatively' innocuous...BUT, once you employ that rational method to begin discussing topics, THEN you've entered into worldview mode. up until the ?mid-school? years, it's just memorization (though, i guess you could say that even the selection process of what facts to have kids memorize would be worldview driven)...

...so, at the end of the day...i still say it's all inextricably linked to worldviews.

i'd actually be more interested in how that teacher treated dissention within the class, or even encouraged it. now THAT would be interesting.

Bike Bubba said...

Shawn--visit "Credenda Agenda" if you want to understand how many view classical education as a worldview. Doug Wilson says it far better than I.....

Shawn said...

nah. more interested in having a conversation than cramming facts in.

Bike Bubba said...

Hey--now there's a topic for thinkin' about; "more interested in having a conversation than cramming facts in." May I "double dog dare" you (and myself) to do a bit of thinking on that topic & post later today?

Shawn said...

well...i've somewhat already talked about that, but i can think some more on it:

My Disclaimer.