Tales from the Classroom: Academic Freedom
Posted on April 16, 2004 @ 11:06 am
Students for Academic Freedom placed an advertisement in the campus newspaper yesterday that included the following text:
If you are not taking a course whose subject is the war in Iraq, your professor should not be making statements about the war in class. Or about George Bush, if the class is not on contemporary American presidents, presidential administrations or some similar subject.
Yikes — I hope an introductory American politics class falls under the classification of “some similar subject.” After all, I had kinda planned to make mention of Iraq (and maybe even President Bush) at some point when we started our unit on foreign policy next week.
For extra added fun, check out Students for Academic Freedom’s tips on how to research your professors’ voter registration records and report them back to SAF.
Posted by Jess | Filed Under Tales from the Classroom |
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That link from SAF — VERY SCARY — thank you for sharing. They must be very proud of their Retro Red Scare Revival. Do you think their membership wears their “Junior Nazi” patches every day, or just on special occasions?
Sure, it’s a ‘violation of your academic rights’ if the professor can’t talk about anything but Bush. I’d say that it violates the academic rights if you don’t get the education that you (or your parents) paid for. Otherwise, people should lighten the hell up. But, that’s obvious.
I’d quote Kierkegaard again if I hadn’t already.
While I agree that is a bit heavy handed, my sister and I talk about the prevelence of those discussions in her classes. She has a tendency in her journalism courses to be the only “conservative” (and she is moderate by my standards) in her class. She ends up being forced to “represent” the other side of the argument by some of her professors and they don’t understand where she is coming from.
When I was a Philosophy major it was well known that most of my professors were on the “liberal” side of most arguements but they felt the necessity to play devils advocate if the class discussion seemed to sway in one direction or the other to the point that you never knew for sure where they stood personally on issues. I personally think that is the better approach. I do not think it is a professor’s job to sway the political or ethical thinking of their students but to teach them how to research all sides and make decisions on their beliefs on their own.
I’d imagine that talking about something current is a good way to warm up a class. A lot of methods of education are based on discussion. What better way to get the class talking about a subject that they would rather avoid than to get them talking about something else first.
Of course, you should draw the line somewhere, but not at the extreme. I repeat myself.
See, here’s the thing — a teacher/professor/instructor is in the classroom to teach. Regardless of the class, sometimes things related to current events. I think it’s kind of silly to put restrictions on what a college professor can speak about. I’m not saying that a college professor should use his/her position to sway public opinion about politics, but reporting a professor’s voting record is over the line.
Thanks for the comments, everyone. I should note that I personally go to great lengths to avoid bias whenever possible in my own classes. In fact, I think most professors do the same (although I’m sure we’ve all encountered the exceptions). It’s not my role as a teacher to sway my students’ opinions; it’s my job to help put them in a position to better develop their own opinions — whatever those opinions might turn out to be.
I’d also agree that it’s probably not particularly appropriate for a chemistry or English professor to dwell too much on the Bush administration or the war in Iraq (unless they’re doing so in a manner somehow relevant to the course material). Still, SAF’s statement strikes me as a bit extreme (and ironic light of the term “academic freedom”), and I find the tactic of rounding up professors’ voter registration records to create a national database to be downright deplorable. That’s just me, though.
A couple of weeks ago I had this same sort of commentary in my own blog. We have something similar running around on our own campus; they keep track of the “America-hating liberals” on campus, then report why they dislike their classes on their forum.
The scariest thing about it for me is not so much that I feel targeted (as an America LOVING leftist); rather, I’m bothered by the generalities that they make, the way that everything they don’t like about the class (including the fact that the tests are generally essays) is somehow linked to the perceived leftist politics of the professors. There’s little understanding of politics, of current events, or of how these issues do or do not fit into classroom discussion.
I could just keep going… but this is turning into a blog-entry length comment! UGH!
Sounds like what was happening in Germany in 1935 with the Hitlerjugend.
The group was based on Hilter’s philosophy of anti-intellectualism. Young people who belonged to the group were encouraged to keep journals and report teachers to the Nazi party if they voiced any criticism or taught subject matter that wasn’t in line with Nazism. By 1935, 60% of the country’s youth belonged to the Hitlerjugend.
Most people are familiar with the stories about Hitler Youth turning in their parents — which rarely happened. The reality is that the Hitlerjugend had a significant impact on education and this is virtually ignored.
Teachers lived in fear that their students would report them for the most minor infractions. Even worse, students could make a false report against a teacher and have him removed from his position.
Because of this, curriculums became extremely rigid. Debate and polictical discussions were completely eliminated. Most teachers just handed out assignments and sat silent at their desks.
My advice is to teach your students about the Hitlerjugend and let them see the similarity to the tactics being used by the Students for Academic Freedom for themselves.
Frightening that students are collecting info on teachers. This could ONLY serve as a form of leverage at some juncture, but for what, ah, now that will prove interesting.
I try to present a fair and balanced view of topics in my classroom whenever addressing “hot topic” issues in my classes. I had an interesting professor in college, as Jess and I touched on this issue earlier, who was a bit, uh, well, peculiar. His classes would often drift from the topic of economics (by right the true topic of an economics class) to some quite bizarre and extreme political philosophies and then challenge the students to prove him wrong. This was very frustrating as a student because, while his theories were obviously unsound, he would have stats to back them up and thus be beyond reach of the average student (who would never look up such bizarre things just for the spur of the moment discourse in economics). So, having been there for that, I can say “PLEASE KEEP YOUR VIEWS OUT OF THE CLASSROOM!”
On a side note, I find it funny that BOTH sides of the political fence are at each others throat…the liberals controlling most of the media and disseminating their doctrine to the masses while the conservatives are forming McCarthy style committees to destroy the liberals before their un-American views get out.
…glad I’m hovering above the fence, vastly superior to both sides. Ho ho ho! I am the mighty Santa of Power! You shall both fear me Democrats and Republicans!
Doug: I think it’s high time that we launched a blog devoted to “Dr. What’s-His-Name” stories.
Interesting comments… I’ve been reading up on academic freedom since being tossed out of a high school (Fort Lee, NJ) I’d been invited to because a memorial wall I co-created to honor the Iraq War dead contained a quote by George Bush(!), which the assistant principal found “offensive.” (Funny, so do I!) Anyway, I recall my ex-husband’s history professor at USL in Lafayette, LA, who taught his own (right-wing) version of American history from his own (unsourced) “textbook” (one he “self-published” at Kinko’s). As long as students regurgitated his perspective on exams and in papers, they could get an “A.” So, where are the Students for Academic Freedom when this guy is doing his little conservative dance? I’ve taught English and psychology to college students, and I’ve raised contemporary issues to try to get discussions going, to give students something to respond to in their writing, and to relate psychological concepts to. Often, if you don’t take some position, students don’t find anything to respond to during discussions. Alternatively, if they have one particular position, they may need to be challenged in order to develop their analysis a little further. I’ve pushed both my liberal and conservative students, looking for more than regurgitated sound bites they heard somewhere, or their own, often not-well-developed half-theories. If they are not challenged, they will not develop critical thinking skills.
The thing to remember, though, is that regardless of how overt a professor’s comments on ANY topic are, the professor is bring some sort of perspective to the teaching of the topic. We are all subjective creatures and true objectivity is an impossible goal. What is included and what is left out are both informed by our perspectives.
Here’s something to think about: The teacher who invited me to Fort Lee High School was told by another teacher, “You should have invited a ‘nonpolitical’ group, like the VFW.”