Values in the Classroom

Here's a tough one . . . something I've been trying to figure out for years.

Teachers have their own personal values. Do you voice them to the students in your classroom?

It always bothers me when teachers brag that when they discuss crucial issues with their students, they always stay neutral. One of the reasons it bothers me is that the teacher wasn't even being a human, who undoubtedly has opinions about important issues. And more than just about anything, teachers are giving students a model of one way a person can exist in the world, and what are you modeling when you pretend like everything is neutral? I always think about a classroom in the early 1800s in America, where a class in the south was debating whether slavery was justified or not. What was that teacher supposed to do, keep valuing both sides of the debate? Keep encouraging students to come to their own conclusions about slavery, even if 75% of the class decided they were pro slavery?

Of course there is a danger here when teachers do express their opinons, because teachers are very influential just by the nature of their position. They have the authority in the room, so when they say something, it will have extra (more than extra, a lot) of weight. And if a teacher is throwing around their position, some students might be very reluctant to speak up, especially if they disagree. And that would mean you're no longer having a healthy discussion. Ideally the teacher has to pull off a very difficult thing (though not impossible). They have to be able to say what they believe, but hopefully they have constructed a classroom environment in which a student would still feel comfortable disagreeing with the teacher. It would be the best of all worlds.

So let's try to follow an example of how this might play itself out in a classroom. (This is a real example from the last few years of my own teaching).

I am adamantly pro gay. I am for gay marriage and gay adoption. I wish that students could be openly gay in high school without any ridicule or condemnation. I wish gay adolescents could go to the prom together, hold hands, kiss in the hallway (like heterosexual couples do).

I made my position very well-known to my students. I know that there are a LOT of teachers and parents who would disagree with my disclosure. They might say I am trying to assert a political viewpoint, or that I am promoting my own values, or that there is no place for such comments in the classroom.

And I can see their point. Because if I heard that a teacher down the hallway told the students that homosexuality was a sin, that gays were going to hell, and that homosexuality would undermine our society, then I would want to muzzle that teacher.

Then again, I know that my open assertion of support for homosexuals made a BIG difference for students who were in the closet, because they told me at the end of the year.

So now what are we supposed to do? I was asserting my sense of morality. Then again, I am SURE that other homophobic teacher (who really did exist in my high school) sincerely thought he was promoting what he thought was morality by denouncing gays.

I suppose if I want the right to express my views about homosexuality, then I must be ready to accept the possibility that the teacher down the hallway will be expressing his.

So we're left with a cost benefit analysis of sorts. Do the benefits of my overt position on homosexuality surpass the cost of having the homophobic teacher express his position?