When I was a middle school student, I was educated by a teacher who had extremely progressive political views. The subject he taught was “Global Issues”, and we, the students, used to spend a huge portion of our school class hours being educated with his notions regarding policies and the presidential administration. Many of us also started to possess his perspective of the world. Considering this personal example, it is easy to conjecture that instructors inside classrooms should not present their social and political opinions to students when they are teaching. The rationale behind is that such expressions of opinions are against the teachers’ obligations and furthermore limits the students’ views.
Foremost of all, political and social comments during class hours divert the teachers from fulfilling their duties. The original duties which all educating teachers should serve are to deliver factual information for the students, and in case of some teachers who are in charge of student behaviors, to educate the primary principles of the society to the students. However, commenting on social and political issues and presenting opinions about these actually block the teachers from truly fulfilling their requirements as teachers. This is mainly due to the teachers giving biased information, rather than factual information to the students. Plus, teachers do not have much time to explain about their intended lessons for classes as political and social views take up a huge proportion of their class hours. For instance, one of my friends in our school had problems with her Economics teacher since she mostly spent her class time talking about her own views regarding some current issues of our society. This actually led to the teacher not being able to give all the lessons for my friend’s class before the final term, and her personal opinions being dominant over the factual lessons of the class. She had to complain about the issue and obviously, the Economics teacher was not so successful with her classes for that term. As it can be seen, political and social view should not be expressed in classes because such expressions hinder the teachers from fulfilling their mandates.
In addition, instructors’ expressions of opinions which are political or social narrow the students’ perspectives of the world. When teachers discuss their political and social views in classes, they are highly prone to present biased information and aspects of particular issues. As the students who are usually vulnerable get exposed to lop sided data and analyses of certain issue, it is very easy for them to believe only in one side of the issue. Eventually, the students are likely to have similar opinions when compared with their instructors, and they are limited with their own chances to independently think about a problem or an issue. This means that sometimes, students can be deprived of chances to objectively view an issue. When they should actually be educated to widen their perspectives on issues, they are being restricted with their thoughts without acknowledging the silent influence of their teachers. For example, my social studies teacher at school talked about her own conservative views and criticisms against the new progressive policies of a certain district’s educational policies in Korea during an NIE activity. After her discussion of personal views, the students of our class who listened to her opinions were told to express our own opinions regarding the issue with an essay. Surprisingly, except four or five students out of twenty five students, I and my classmates criticized the new educational measures of the district our teacher talked about. Likewise, teachers expressing their own personal views about political and social problems affect the students’ views as well.
In lights of all perspectives, teachers should not discuss their own opinions concerning political and social matters owing to the following two reasons. It becomes highly difficult for the teachers to satisfy their mandates and duties as teachers, and they are extremely prone to implement biased perspectives about issues in students’ minds. Above all, teachers should be real instructors, encouraging their own students to learn and think, not ones who enforce their own views on students. |