Q: Teachers should not make social and political views known to students in class.
It is often argued that teachers should not make social and political views known to students in class. Even though the jury is still out, I strongly agree with the statement. The rationale behind this is that the principal role of teacher is for students to have their own insights. Moreover, teachers have an legal mandate to be in the position of neutral in most countries.
First, teachers have to help students to develop their own insight, which is one of the most essential goals of education. However, if teachers have a certain social and political views in class, it hinders students from having their own view. Since students are vulnerable to opinion of older people, especially adults who have an authority, teachers need to be cautious when they impart certain facts to the students. For example, the report recently conducted by the Ministry of Education shows that students take an same position on the certain issue taught in class as their teachers have. The underlying cause of this is identified to be the fact that students cannot help but follow their teacher's opinion without contemplating it on their own. This clearly indicates how important it is for teachers to maintain the neutral view in class.
Additionally, actually in many countries, teachers have the duty not to instill any point of view on the social and political concept. This is for the sake of maintaining the social order by preventing deviant group behavior. Without this legal regulation, the society would have been thrown into confusion. For example, according to the many prominent scholars on the history, a lot of disturbance which causes the war or thousands of people's death springs from misguided idea instilled by leader. This again clearly demonstrates enormous negative effects when the leaders or teachers are willing to impart knowledge leaned toward certain view.
In conclusion, I wholeheartedly believe that teachers should not have social and political standpoint known to students in class. The reasons are not only that teachers have to fulfill their role to make students have their own sight, but also it is actually legal duty to maintain the social order. Therefore these are the two most convincing reasons for my contention.
감사합니다.