Classrooms are inherently political. Every time a teacher covers a topic or historical figure or literature, they are being political. The politics of those they leave in and those they leave out. - ThreadSky

piperformissouri.bsky.social • 46 days ago

Classrooms are inherently political.

Every time a teacher covers a topic or historical figure or literature, they are being political. The politics of those they leave in and those they leave out.

Comments

applemacpie.bsky.social•46 days ago

This is why there are historians who cover different sides of events to draw a complete picture of an era. Teachers have the ability to skew what they present. I taught in an era when we tried to be fair and impartial no matter what our personal beliefs were.

laugh-about-it.bsky.social•46 days ago

My 9th social studies teacher (in ancient times) asked the class to answer this:
“What is bad about communism?”
No one had an answer.

I asked my conservative Republican mother and she complained to the school about my teacher.

fiona-webster22.bsky.social•46 days ago

Hmmm... I learned about the positive aspects of communism in 9th grade social studies, too. But we were also taught the negative: so far, no country has pulled it off without massive corruption & other evil social effects.

laugh-about-it.bsky.social•46 days ago

As a result, I don’t think we even touched the subject again, but I don’t think my teacher thought communism was a good thing. She was trying to make us think, as teachers do.

clavdiaminor.bsky.social•46 days ago

This is true. And the politics driving those choices are often not their own. If possible, in a classroom I always try to be honest about those choices as much as possible and openly raise issues of biases in thinking. Students of all ages appreciate honesty.

batgurl62.bsky.social•45 days ago

I remember getting thrown out of my history classes on 5th and 6th grade for calling these people out about the lies that they were teaching us.

markcathcart.com•46 days ago

Ask your friends what they know about the riots of summer of 67? Do they remember how many died? What major cities had riots?

If they don't know, ask if they are interested in why they don't know. Because politics in schools. Disaster year in America much worse than now, Kent State was 2 years away

stephen54.bsky.social•46 days ago

School is not where you learn everything. It is where you learn to think.

bluelion70.bsky.social•46 days ago

This is the correct answer. I’m not really concerned with teaching my students about facts or events.

I’m concerned with teaching them literacy skills, teaching them how to critically analyze primary source documentation, and how to effectively communicate their conclusions.

If they acquire those

bluelion70.bsky.social•46 days ago

skills, then they can learn anything they want throughout their lives. They can examine sources themselves, determine those sources’ OPVCL, and use their understandings of the context in which that source was created to analyze and draw information from it.

History education isn’t about telling

bluelion70.bsky.social•46 days ago

students “what happened”. Every written source ever created reflects the biases of the person who wrote it. The purpose of history education is to give people the tools they need to understand and analyze those biases when examining historical documentation, so they can draw their own conclusions.

mimisf.bsky.social•46 days ago

Yes. And that fosters critical thinking! If the majority of this country were critical thinkers, Kamala would be president.

stephen54.bsky.social•46 days ago

We have Fox News thinkers here in America.

alandval.bsky.social•46 days ago

History is 99% perspective.

aboomerforya.bsky.social•46 days ago

☝️ his-story.

tipsybellows.bsky.social•46 days ago

Which is why I aways have some confused parents on Columbus Day. They still expect the standard treatment.

educatoradele.bsky.social•46 days ago

My students talked about angels in math class (angles and angels get mixed up).

My view of angels is very different from theirs.

They'll never know.

hlholeman.bsky.social•46 days ago

Truth

noelkeith.bsky.social•46 days ago

Yeah, the “no religion or politics” part of polity was really just checking any notion of the paradox of tolerance at the door

melhasfive.bsky.social•46 days ago

Jess Piper, thank you!
I don’t live in Missouri but my son does. He was born and raised in IL and I’m so hopeful with common sense caring folks like you that he can survive stupid!! He has brought a great mindset and an amazing wife there, and wants to make a difference!!

oggeojoe.bsky.social•46 days ago

True and that’s why critical thinking skills need to be taught.

1rmctldy.bsky.social•43 days ago

That’s where I learned critical thinking, research and analysis. Discourse and debate. Parsing dialogue for meaning.
Brains need exercise and training to pick out the hidden agenda.
Politics are inescapable bc that’s life.
Don’t just believe
Don’t just accept
Don’t just follow
Question authority

deirdrepurdy.bsky.social•45 days ago

Education, real education, is inherently political.

petersjvecrumba.bsky.social•46 days ago

Back in high school I took history over the summer and got to be a guinea pig for a new textbook. It taught American history using artifacts of the times as launching points for narrative and was, I thought at the time and even now, completely apolitical.

stacywitkowski.bsky.social•45 days ago

If a class seems apolitical to you, it is probably because the political views of the class align so perfectly with your own views that the instructional choices don’t strike you as choices but simply, “obviously,” the right way to teach.

petersjvecrumba.bsky.social•45 days ago

Sigh. My parents were WWII refugees off an actual boat. I didn't speak English until kindergarten. I spent Saturdays learning all things Latvian.
So America was a strange and wonderous thing. Each artifact was like a little treasure chest to open and discover something new.
Don't presume to know me.

stacywitkowski.bsky.social•45 days ago

Nice to meet you. You sound like an interesting person with an unusual background.

You haven’t changed my mind that all education is political.

petersjvecrumba.bsky.social•45 days ago

Education provides input to one's politics, that's different from education being intrinsically political.

stacywitkowski.bsky.social•45 days ago

Which input is provided? Who chose that input? Who gave that person (or group) power to choose?

barb1158.bsky.social•46 days ago

They should present both sides; e.g., slavery. There are always two sides, plus the lunatic fringe on each side.

bsorohan.bsky.social•45 days ago

On Horace Mann's birthday I'm thinking about how public education in America, almost from its earliest inception, had a civic purpose much more so than an economic one. Right up until the 1980's when we decided job skills were so much more important. And boy, are we reaping the whirlwind for that.

wayneesmith.bsky.social•46 days ago

Precisely, yet many of my teacher colleagues are either afraid or have been instructed not to reference current events when discussing the rise and fall of fascism in Italy and Germany from 1927 to 1945.

wayneesmith.bsky.social•46 days ago

Obviously, because of DoE funding for Republicans don't appreciate independent, intelligent thinkers.

ecpayne.bsky.social•45 days ago

Yes. Just submitted an article on this. Edu folks should reread M. Apple.

debbiesch123.bsky.social•45 days ago

And don’t get me started on science. Science has been politicized since the start of my career and probably before.

justcallmemike178.bsky.social•46 days ago

You know? And now they are trying to tell us which version of history to teach... So exhausting.. hard to stay strong.... I give a hand/sub ... It gets complicated but I believe in what I'm doing...

mimisf.bsky.social•46 days ago

I don't know. A teacher teaching about politics doesn't make them political. It's just another subject within Civics or Government class.

Now, if they expressed their own political beliefs while teaching it, that'd be political. Not cool.

h0pe4dfuture.bsky.social•46 days ago

Each of us need to assure that our own children are correctly educated. Don't allow an administration of liars to change your truth.

demo2586.bsky.social•46 days ago

Yes! And the union won the fucking war so they should be treated as such!! Fuck the confederation and the losers that continue to celebrate it!

andyc300.bsky.social•46 days ago

Not to pimp someone else's work, but Atun-Shei has a running series on YouTube he just finished up (multi year) that is a very relatable step by step debunking of several southern myths, with a load of potentially questionable humor.

ledrapeaunoir.bsky.social•46 days ago

I keep trying to find The Union flag to fly just because of the fuckers that fly the confederate flag.

demo2586.bsky.social•46 days ago

WE FLY THE STARS AND STRIPES BROTHER!! Fuck those mouth breathing racists! We’ll crush them again when it’s time!

andyc300.bsky.social•46 days ago

I enjoy the snake in bondage gear with the logo "tread harder, daddy" for a flag. Dark amusements abound.

rawphd.bsky.social•46 days ago

"You can't be neutral on a moving train."
- Howard Zinn

antiggy1998.bsky.social•46 days ago

Trying to teach antiwoke must be very hard. All of the people who were involved in making life better are extinguished. Harriet Tubman is gone. I am sure that she and others are being documented for restoration after the Trump Regime is dead and buried.

titolove.bsky.social•46 days ago

I became a HS English teacher in 2013 (2nd career). It became very apparent right around 2017 things had changed. Imagine using a poem by Langston Hughes in a unit on what it means to be an American and being accused by a parent of "teaching Black Lives Matter." The poem was published in 1936. 😒

antiggy1998.bsky.social•46 days ago

Agreed. So much talent for framing the life changing moments is threatened. Teachers can keep it alive. I guess woke is now subversive.

aurora-dawn24.bsky.social•46 days ago

Also…teaching Black lives matter is controversial?

titolove.bsky.social•46 days ago

The irony, if he thought an 80 year old poem was about BLM, then it solidifies the need for teaching it because we obviously haven't come far enough. (Just try teaching anything mildly controversial, like facts, and evangelical parents are all over it.)

antiggy1998.bsky.social•46 days ago

They really are so ignorant. It is maddening and I am not a teacher but I can imagine how hard it is.

titolove.bsky.social•46 days ago

Apparently

antiggy1998.bsky.social•46 days ago

No! I'm saying that they want to kill the knowledge.

heatherisfine.bsky.social•46 days ago

Even telling kids it’s okay to be themselves is a political act

ginobelgeri.bsky.social•46 days ago

11th-grade US History course I took (1970-71) never mentioned fraudulent Tonkin Resolution or My Lai massacre. Nothing about decades of police and military slaughter of workers who stood up to the forces of capital. Nothing about suffragist schism over the vote for Black women. Political omissions.

momphis64.bsky.social•46 days ago

I had religious teachers in my little religious town. I am sure they had a more conservative view of things than most of us students but I don’t remember them ever trying to change our minds. Just open discussions in class. When did vilifying teachers and thinking they can indoctrinate a teen start?

phermenter.bsky.social•46 days ago

When I was in college there was a professor I used to banter with, me saying I wasn't political, and he would say EVERYTHING is political... It was loads of fun. He was correct, or course, everything is political.

craigsm.bsky.social•46 days ago

"What to leave in, what to leave out
Against the wind
I'm still runnin' against the wind.
Well I'm older now and still runnin...
Against the Wind
Against the Wind
Against the Wind."

Bob Seger
Against the Wind

Seemed approps...🤷

produkshun.bsky.social•46 days ago

Please. 😢

I’ve spent more time in the principal’s office defending my curriculum than the most misbehaved students when I was teaching under DeSantis’ Board of Education.

Finally, I just retired. 🤷🏼‍♂️

That’s why Florida is short nearly 20,000 qualified trained and licensed pedagogues.

andyc300.bsky.social•46 days ago

And the tone and emphasis. I still remember (far FAR too long ago) the discussion of things like the trail of tears, which was treated with a casual disregard in my memory, instead of our own version of the Bataan Death March.

rohanrides.bsky.social•46 days ago

I had an interesting textbook assigned in college. “Through women’s eyes.” It covered US history from the female perspective. More recently, my children are learning parts of state history incl native voices from our state that I learned by self education as an adult. These voices are “woke.”

rohanrides.bsky.social•46 days ago

Is it actually bad for people to hear “woke” voices?

aenordland.bsky.social•46 days ago

Life in the US is inherently political. As a country that is governed by the rule of law with the law made by we the people, it is our civic duty to be political.

owlbear-camus.bsky.social•45 days ago

What they're suggesting isn't just indoctrination, it's dogshit pedagogy.

"Sit and get" cultural transmission lecture to support ANY ideology teaches nothing.

Students need to learn transferrable skills through higher order thinking lessons to make them job-ready and civically engaged.

owlbear-camus.bsky.social•45 days ago

One could be forgiven for thinking they want them educated to be dumb on purpose...

engcurrteach.bsky.social•46 days ago

That time an English teacher questioned, “why must we talk about race with Roll of Thunder, hear my cry?”

lanna-mick.bsky.social•45 days ago

I think it was in 2018, my boy was about 5yo, he asked me 'Dad, why does America have a crazy guy for the boss' ?
(obviously talking about trump)
I said 'Did you hear that at pre-school' ?
And he said no, he saw it on You Tube, lol.......

chaydion.bsky.social•45 days ago

Correct, this resolves down to a general bias in everyone. Teachers teach what they like, what they know, hesitate to teach what they do not like, or know, or what is being forced upon them. Politics is just a larger expression of our biases and experienced history. Bias is learned through life.

stephen-ewen.bsky.social•45 days ago

Bias maybe, more so a set of values.

chaydion.bsky.social•45 days ago

True.

birdsworms.bsky.social•45 days ago

My Ohio high school history teacher blamed states’ rights for the civil war. Georgia’s very first secession grievance: we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. Teaching is politics.

johnhatchard.bsky.social•46 days ago

An easy thing to forget in life is how whenever you have an opinion about anything, it is also a bias.

Society spends so much time and energy trying to decipher the morality of any given situation, and how one persons 'bias' is superior to the other.

Not being neutral is what defines humanity.

theamericanduck.bsky.social•46 days ago

Yes, and the nuance is how we frame the discussion. We should allow room for many voices. We should promote critical thinking, empathy, and contextualize the history.

But, we must also draw a hard line in denouncing positions which, by their nature, violate the natural rights of others.

trixiebeldame.bsky.social•46 days ago

Every action or convo that involves more than 1 person is political. That's reality.

Any time that 2 or more persons coexist (or battle each other), that's political.

rosebonecrone.bsky.social•45 days ago

Yes. Every act is a political act. Even deciding to ignore "politics" is a political act.

michelemcc.bsky.social•45 days ago

So true! In my public and private education in the 60s and 70s, I never learned about the Trail of Tears or internment of people of Japanese descent. It was basically: the US is perfect.

sinelanguagequeen.bsky.social•46 days ago

Seen this mess yet?? 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

bennet87ao3.bsky.social•45 days ago

Exactly. I do try my best not to allow my own views to creep in, but it's hard sometimes, especially when the kids are very passionately voicing their own opinions and I'm so proud of their empathy, compassion, etc.

bennet87ao3.bsky.social•45 days ago

A few asked me who I wanted to win in the USA and UK elections last year and I just responded with 'Who do you think?'. They know me well enough to know the answer. 😅 I just told them there are few teachers that aren't at least slightly left-leaning.

melwin7777.bsky.social•46 days ago

Teachers at my daughter’s middle school and high school have been openly political and shared their political views with their students. It’s been difficult for her to keep quiet in some classes because the teacher has expressed who they voted for. I’m so glad she’s only got 5 more days of school.

piperformissouri.bsky.social•46 days ago

Talking about who they voted for is a little bit different🥲

leahisokiguess.bsky.social•46 days ago

That’s so inappropriate. I have kids ask me all the time and I never answer bc a) it’s not their business b) if they have deductive reasoning skills they could guess pretty easily and c) it sets up a weird power dynamic that is not fair for a child to have to work with.

mrschibbard.bsky.social•46 days ago

I graduated hs in 1977 after attending 6 schools since K. I don't recall any teacher mentioning the Vietnam War. It was too hot a topic to take the chance with one's job.

ireneinca.bsky.social•46 days ago

Being focused on topic-teaching as fact encourages polarizing opinion formation.

Presenting opportunities for exploration and exercising critical thinking skills via projects focuses on development of intellectualization, communication, and cooperation. With an end to sense their humanity.

noonemuch.bsky.social•46 days ago

I miss the days when I didn’t think “racism is bad” wasn’t a political, divisive issue.

demo2586.bsky.social•46 days ago

It’s not political. It is a moral issue and the sooner we draw that line in the sand the better. Sad to say..

lenoxus.bsky.social•45 days ago

All morality is political. There is such a thing as evil political positions and good political positions

noonemuch.bsky.social•46 days ago

I confused myself with all the negations here. You know what I mean. Racism is bad, truth is good, everyone should have the same rights… none of that should be “political,” and it should be taught, reinforced, and demonstrated at every level in every educational setting.

woofrickenhoo.bsky.social•46 days ago

Sadly, parents will be doing a lot of reprogramming w/ red states requiring students be taught the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. Plus teaching Christianity & not teach about slavery etc. Almost like it’d be better to homeschool or put them in a left leaning charter (their plan to get more $)

kellyksmith.bsky.social•46 days ago

I always taught every side and tried to encourage discussion.

torrencej.bsky.social•46 days ago

Examining how we got there and the systems that made it so-Constitutional compromises (Aug 1787 Slavery Compromise, the 3/5ths Compromise), state/local governments making segregation and Jim Crow Rules law, and the ideology that went behind the thought process brings politics into the discussion.

gregory-c-leavitt.bsky.social•46 days ago

One of the major problems we have is that we stopped teaching recent history because it’s still political. How do you teach the history of white supremacy without pointing to the continuing efforts of white supremacists?

clavdiaminor.bsky.social•46 days ago

I know your question is rhetorical, but it can be done. Basically you teach it without the label and lead the students to the point where they label it themselves. It is hard/tricky, but it can be done. Like, “what do the policies of hitler, Mussolini, and the kkk have in common, students?”

ohiodolt.bsky.social•46 days ago

Absolutely!

domesticallyunable.bsky.social•46 days ago

My Texas History teacher gave us two answers to the question, "What was the issue that cause the South to cecede?" His answer "States rights," the answer we had to know for the test, "Slavery."

That's political.

billwalter.bsky.social•46 days ago

States having rights reserved and protected from the federal government: GOOD

States deciding what rights individuals have: VERY BAD.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/1/2/2294649/-The-Reintroduction-of-Slavery

jbird412.bsky.social•45 days ago

💯🏆✅️

eddie40.bsky.social•46 days ago

Do not believe the voices of defeatism.

Do not fear Trump.
Trump is a clown 🤡
Mock him!

United, we stand.

RESIST RESIST RESIST.

crazyswisseng.bsky.social•45 days ago

For the right wingers, "political" equals to "progressive"

factsmatter5319.bsky.social•46 days ago

Truth. And, today, I’d be one of those fired in many districts.

thesameperson.bsky.social•46 days ago

🎯 You can't teach history without mentioning politics.
Omitting the things you view as bad while including the things you view as good isn't teaching, it's brainwashing. A system like this would create adults doomed to repeat the same mistakes that caused bad things to happen over and over again.

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