We talked at length today about the perceived dangers of teachers impressing their views on students. While this tactic may make more sense at the undergraduate level, I would like to pose it as one that could apply to all grade levels--can a teacher mitigate the espousal of 'dangerous' views simply by being just another member of the class?
Obviously, there will always be a slight element of power difference when it comes to the student-teacher interaction within the classroom. With that being said, if a teacher simply poses questions, and entertains viewpoints in such a way that suggests they exist independent of everyone in the room, which they do logically speaking, then were is the danger of impressing a view point? And moreover, it seems that teachers can still direct conversation and refute illogical view points while acting as a student or moderator, and not the sole possessor of these views. Thoughts?
Although I believe there are instances where this method would be quite beneficial in a classroom situation, I'm hesitant to agree it would be applicable to all grade levels. Depending upon the age of the students and the material being covered, I think it could be a potentially dangerous position for a teacher to put herself into for the sake of expressing unpopular or unethical viewpoints relating to perhaps 'controversial' subject matter. I'm skeptical that exposing young children to information or viewpoints that they may not fully comprehend in scope and theory could have the opposite effect as the outcome desired with such an approach. I believe there would be the likelihood that children of a younger age would take the information too literally or be influenced due to the fact that it came from their teacher. I fear they don't possess the cognition to separate the hypothetical reasoning or rational behind the information to be able to distinguish between what their teacher believes and the lesson which is being taught.
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DeleteI completely understand where both of you are coming, however I do have to say that I agree with Marianne on this. Today students are exposed to so many different view types, but the one place a student should just be given the raw harsh material is in a school. The younger the students are the more they believe, so if a teacher teaches them something that is incorrect because they themselves don't believe in the particular subject or whatever it might be. This will then teach students to not believe in it as well. I think as students get into the end of their high school and all of their college career they can make there own judgements on what they believe and don't believe in based on teachers, and the community around them. I don't think this idea would be good for younger students.