Should teachers keep political views to themselves?
BY SUSAN LaHOUD / SUN CHRONICLE STAFF
Sunday, March 11, 2007 11:56 PM EDT
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| Retired Seekonk High history teacher Gil Woodside says he always tried to present both sides of controversial topics. (Sun Chronicle file photo) |
Having served as a marine in the Vietnam War, newly retired Seekonk High School social studies teacher Gil Woodside holds very strong opinions about that historic and controversial part of United States history.
Woodside, who headed the successful creation of a Vietnam Veterans Memorial in his town, taught a class specifically on Vietnam for 20 years.
"It is a sensitive topic," admits the longtime educator, who retired in early February after more than three decades in the classroom and continues to contribute to that Vietnam War class, showing students a video and leading discussions about Agent Orange.
"But what I always, always tried to do," Woodside stressed, "was present both sides."
Indeed, he brought into his classroom people who had protested the war so students could hear their perspectives as well as those of veterans.
Discussions over controversial issues within high school classrooms can be tricky. Teachers want to stimulate students to discuss "hot button" topics but can find themselves walking a fine line, especially when they are themselves passionate about a particular issue.
How teachers broach sensitive subjects in the classroom became a prominent topic of discussion last month after a King Philip Regional High School social studies teacher went on a self-admitted "rant" in class one day over the issue of gay marriage.
It prompted a few students to write about the issue on facebook.com, extolling their teacher's stand in favor of legalizing gay marriage and criticizing in sometimes profane terms state Sen. Scott Brown for his opposition to the idea.
Brown subsequently addressed an assembly of students at KP High, singled out the students who wrote the criticisms and read out loud the profanity-laced entries.
Teacher Joe Ferreira said he had not been aware of the students' postings, but added he had not used profanity while addressing the issue in class. He also said that he was just being passionate and was not trying to influence his students.
But when students are at an age where they form opinions about pressing or controversial issues, a teacher can certainly play an important and influential role, said veteran teachers and educators interviewed for this story.
And with all of the important issues being debated in the world, the high school classroom is a prime place for exploring those topics, especially if they are contentious, they said.
However, the approaches teachers take can differ widely.
"If the kids asked me, I told them my opinion," said Woodside, whom the Daughters of the American Revolution named the state's History Teacher of the Year in 1997. "But I always made it clear that it was not doctrine; it was my opinion."
Paula Sollitto, a history teacher at Attleboro High School who was an educator for 35 years before retiring in 1994, said the best compliment she got was from a student who said, "You know, I don't know what your view is."
And that's how Sollitto kept it.
"You're not supposed to," was her reply to the student.
"I think there are two schools of thought," she said. "There are those people who let issues be worn on their sleeve. My style was, I just tried to get out of students what their views were and get them, working together, to form their own views."
"I didn't want to overshadow their views with my own," said Sollitto, who was active with Attleboro High's student council and tennis team, among other activities.
She said she directed students to research all sides of an issue and then would draw them out to debate or discuss them in the classroom.
Often times, Sollitto said, students cite opinions that are not based on fact. The idea is to lead them to make informed opinions.
"You don't want to let the students get off the hook" by issuing a simple statement without backing it up, she said. "And it worked for me, but I know there are people who have a frame of reference that they want to advocate."
Not that she didn't find that tempting a few times.
"Sometimes I thought I should stick to my own values," Sollitto said. But she found safer ground in getting students themselves to argue the merits of particular issue, even if it meant arguing the opposite side of the argument, going against what they believed.
Part of the lesson is also getting students to learn how to respect others' opinions.
Sollitto recalled a discussion about gays in the military under President Clinton. She told students that she wanted them to express their opinions, but also to remember that there were students who could be gay or who had parents who are gay, and that people should not be singled out.
"I wanted to get students to walk a mile in someone else's shoes without pointing at someone in particular," Sollitto said.
Some topics can be very difficult to deal with in a classroom, just as they are in society at large. But the solution is not to simply ignore them, Sollitto said.
"We're not just seeking little robots falling into line, but we do want people sensitive to others' opinions," she said. "It's more important now than any time before that we should be encouraging discussion of different points of views in the classroom. There's a load of issues everyday."
Bob Hill, former head of the social studies department at Attleboro High School who is now a teacher at the MATCH charter school in Boston, agrees that no debate should be one-sided, and that students should be engaged in debates over today's issues.
But he lets his students know where he stands.
"I don't shy away from controversial subjects," said Hill, who is an Attleboro School Committee member. "(And) with a lot of the issues, I try to be up front with students."
He admitted that at times he does feel a "bit defensive" as his more conservative views tend to clash with his students' more liberal leanings. "It can be easy to let your emotions get in the way or have too big of a role," he said.
But Hill doesn't see a problem sharing his views with students on pertinent and newsworthy topics.
"To me, a history class is useless if you cannot apply it to current events," he said.
But he also ensures that other views on those issues are presented. "Ideally, you do want to be balanced."
Hill particularly loves to play devil's advocate.
"The best part is arguing a point, getting everyone to agree with you and then coming from the other direction," he said.
The key for Hill is welcoming students' criticism, as long as they can back it up with information.
"You don't want to put down what students say or have them afraid to voice their views," he said.
And, Hill stressed, a teacher should not underestimate his or her potential influence on students because "the things you say can be taken as fact."
"It's a big issue for teachers," said Thomas Brady, professor of secondary education and professional programs at Bridgewater State College. "How much of yourself do you let out there?"
The worst thing a teacher can do, he said, is "create a toxic environment for the students."
"Balance is a very important thing," Brady said, adding that the most important lesson is teaching the students to think and be able to make judgments.
There's a difference between teachers letting students know how they view a particular issue and skewing students' opinions.
There is a theory that when a student sees a teacher approach a concept in a certain way, the student is most likely to repeat that approach, he said. Therefore, when a teacher gives his or her opinion, it becomes the student's opinion. Or, conversely, a student who may not like a teacher might then take the opposite view.
In any case, teachers can have a profound effect on their students, and the approach they take on hot button issues, can have unintended ramifications.
There are some useful strategies to avoid this, such as playing devil's advocate, said Aeon Skoble, associate professor and chairman of Bridgewater State College's philosophy department.
"It might work if you get a pro-war class. But that can also be tricky, depending on how passionate the teacher feels," he said. "If you feel passionately about an issue, it's hard not to say what you feel. But as an educator, you should be trying to get students to analyze an issue with coherent rationale behind their statements as opposed to parroting back what they hear."
"You draw the line and sometimes have to step back," said Woodside, the retired Seekonk High teacher. Otherwise, "it's not a learning experience, it's just me stuffing it down their throat."
He said that he would always forewarn students about the last question on the test at the end of the term in his Vietnam class: "Was the war in Vietnam justified?"
"Any answer was the correct one as long as they backed it up from what they researched," Woodside said. "I can't recall anyone ever getting it wrong."
SUSAN LaHOUD can be reached at 508-236-0398 or at slahoud@thesunchronicle.com.
