▶ Your Answer : There
is no denying that people have the right to express their opinions. However,
depending on the circumstance, it is not always desirable to do so. I firmly
believe that teachers should not voice their opinions on social and political
issues to students in class. There are two reasons for this belief, which will
be discussed in detail throughout this essay. To begin with, students may
find it difficult to objectively evaluate teachers’ opinions. Students tend to
trust what their teachers tell them in class. This is especially true when
students respect their teachers. A personal experience I had illustrates this
point. When I was in middle school, I looked up to our English teacher, because
he was really fluent in English unlike other teachers that had previously
taught us. Therefore, whenever he made comments on political issues I thought
that his perspectives were the appropriate ones. I simply did not think that
what he said could be wrong. However, after I grew up, I realized it was
dangerous for me to simply consider my English teacher’s viewpoint to be the
correct one.
Furthermore, teachers are
usually not experts on social and political issues, so their opinions can be
misleading. Except for the teachers who teach subjects like social science or
politics, teachers cannot be considered as experts on social and political
issues. Hence, it is entirely possible that their opinions are insufficiently
substantiated or even based on false information. The following example
demonstrates that this is true. In high school, our math teacher often voiced
his opinions on global warming. He claimed that humans were hardly responsible
for global warming and that is was solely a natural phenomenon. Such claims of
his were clearly unsubstantiated. However, at that time, I did not realize that
he was wrong and only after I took courses on environment did I learn that his
claims were false. This example shows that since most teachers lack sufficient
knowledge regarding social and political issues, their opinions can be terribly
misleading.
To sum up, students may have
trouble evaluating their teachers’ opinions in a critical manner, and teachers
may express opinions that are false. Hence, I think it is safe to say that
students should not hear from teachers their opinions on social and political
issues. |