As educators, the last thing we want to be found guilty of is indoctrination. At least if you were to ask me, that's how I feel as an educator. Obviously, I have my own opinion on many issues. Some issues are more difficult than others to actually hide from impressionable kids than others. Ultimately, I want them to be responsible for making their own decisions and reaping the benefits or consequences of those choices. Ultimately, a student has been given the tools to think, create, and share their own experiences in life. Ultimately, it's a positive and successful outcome from which they can have a library of life events to draw from in future decisions.
My questions are these: Would we provide students a disservice by pushing fringe ideas and obvious opinion based information? Should we scrap informational ideas such as global warming, origins of life, or other theories forgotten to be theories and turned into fact? When does our system, so influenced by fringe media, become realistically truthful based upon factual evidence? Who's to say evidence points toward fact if it can be interpreted differently and brought forth in a believable fashion? Orson Welles, a genius when he broadcast War of the Worlds? What about Shane Fitzgerald potentially changing history with his false Wikipedia information? Do publishers, media, and journalism have a moral code to follow as teachers must follow?
Most of what we learn in textbooks, we take for granted and fact, not fiction. Once it's been published, it takes a team of research, evidence, and political lobbying to remove it from what has been determined by default as fact. I wonder who is responsible as an educational body to disseminate such information to the students. Any age student can be influenced and thereby corrupted by false information, especially if it's repeated information and they aren't given the opportunity to think beyond the punctuation. Even though a person can bang their heads against a concrete wall numerous times, over and over again, it doesn't make the wall softer, but our minds will be transformed. Eventually, that person's ability to be sensitive to the wall will diminish to the point of being completely numb to the wall. I honestly believe our education system has been banging it's head against the concrete walls of political agendas, personal agendas, and financial agendas for years. Our society and our youth are becoming numb to the effects of false information and simply find published material to be fact. Even information created by some dummy with a dot com is considered fact to the average 6th, 7th, and 8th grade student. Ask them what a trusted source really is and they would probably refer to a textbook, if not their friends' blog or dot com. Most will consider Google to be a source, even though it's nothing more than a tool to find sources. Worse than that, they will compile a report researched solely from Wikipedia.
What is the line between indoctrination and education in the classroom today? Who is responsible to police against indoctrination and how do they go about doing so? I know it happens, and even more often in a college classroom than any other place, but what about student rights and choices? In my opinion, student's rights are violated daily in reading information that even the very best educated consider fact, yet haven't had time to personally research themselves. Who has time to check if the media has provided truth or fiction, indoctrination or education?
Hello Randy,
ReplyDeleteYour blog this week was spot on. I often have to tell my students that just because it was on the web doesn't make it fact. I don't know if the problem is the students do not want to research a topic or they don't know how to.
Your comments about political and personal agendas was funny in a truthful manner. I read that some districts starting questioning the textbook publishers because some of the "facts" were not really facts but more of an opionon or a political correct statement. Is this helping the students at all? I don't think as educators we are doing our jobs if we just go with flow and not question the textbooks and media.
I need to ask what is meant by your line "more often in college classrooms"? Do think college professors turn the facts or speak more freely about sensitive topics? You are right in most cases IF the professor is tenured. But, students can complain and the Deans will take notice if one is going off the deep in per say.
Overall, students do need to learn how to think and question to be successful. Great topic.
Randy,
ReplyDeleteI think there is such a fine line between indoctrination and education. Yes, we can present the information to our students but I believe that we really have to keep our own opinions out because we can catch ourselves in some trouble. This has happened to me several times. Therefore, I've learned when a student asks me what I think, particularly when it comes to religion, I say, "The Church teaches . . ." Since I began saying this phrase, I have not gotten into any trouble. :)
Well I can personally attest to promoting one side of an argument over another. Teaching technology has an advantage over other subjects. Much less of tech content us up for debate than history. A little side note… I feel really bad fro any history teacher that needs to cover the Bush Presidency. Not because I feel one way or another, simply because the academic jury is still out on the effects of his decisions. Also teaching needs to be a personality fit. A creationist should not become a science teacher. Just as a scientist should not become a preacher. The only problem I can see is if a political activist minded person becomes a history teacher.
ReplyDelete