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Several weeks ago, President Trump announced his plans for a patriotic education commission, dubbed the 1776 Commission.  He simultaneously criticized teachers for indoctrinating students and urged them to focus on America’s strengths; the president has confused indoctrination and education.  Picking and choosing what history to emphasize or highlight based on how it makes the nation look or feel is indoctrination.  It feeds a single narrative, an incomplete story.  For the president and his supporters, they believe this approach to education will remove politics from the classroom.  But, good teaching is political.  Society should take note.      

Currently, I’m teaching about Reconstruction, that pesky time period following the Civil War.  It’s an awesome moment in American history where we tackled big systemic issues.  We ended slavery with the 13th amendment; states were forced to respect the rights of their citizens under the 14th amendment; black men won the franchise with the 15th amendment.  It was the best of America to admit fault and grow.  This account of Reconstruction is indoctrination, and it’s irresponsible to leave Reconstruction there.  

While being a truly revolutionary moment, Reconstruction wasn’t perfect.  In many ways, it was a colossal failure and letdown.  By focusing only on the good things that were accomplished following the Civil War, it erases and excuses the trends that define the next 100 years of history.  Because during Reconstruction we also saw former confederates unite to found the Ku Klux Klan and fight to return to the halls of Congress as well as implement sharecropping as a replacement for slavery.  Ignoring this part of the story is indoctrination.

What’s the point?  Who cares?  

Well, when a student perks up following the first presidential debate to say, “Mr. Sutton, he didn’t condemn white supremacists,” if teachers follow President Trump’s directives about patriotic teaching and indoctrination, they are in a pickle.  Defending the president’s inability to condemn white supremacy is to be complicit in indoctrination since it promotes a narrative that white supremacy either didn’t exist or wasn’t that bad.  Criticizing his waffling highlights the American stain of racist violence and injustice.  Either way, teachers are left in violation of President Trump’s directives on teaching.    

[bctt tweet=”Politics is about how we organize our society.  It’s about the values we as a community share and the decisions we must make to live as one.  The thing teachers do really well is politics.” username=””]

More than anything, the 1776 Commission seems interested in this notion of apolitical teaching, this notion that the classroom should be devoid of politics.  It’s a quaint but false premise.  Politics is about how we organize our society.  It’s about the values we as a community share and the decisions we must make to live as one.  The thing teachers do really well is politics.  They build communities with rules and structures.  There are goals, and there are failures.  Changes have to be made.  There are occasional exceptions and flexibility coupled with moments of unbending discipline.  Members of the community ebb and flow between happiness and despondence.  All of this is managed and guided by the teacher as part of a community.  It’s politics in motion.  

Society’s problems aren’t about removing politics from the classroom.  It’s about society’s inability to embrace the politics of the classroom.  

For example, when it comes to condemning white supremacy, society is divided.  Good teachers are not.  White supremacy is not permitted, excused, coddled, or embraced in their classrooms.  It’s a consciously political choice in how their community is managed.  They reject a political ideology, a way society is organized.  The classroom community cannot function when students are placed in unjust hierarchies.  It stunts the growth of the community and the individuals residing in that community.  It’s not a controversial stance for governing a classroom, but it is political.    

What the president has done by attacking indoctrination and romanticizing learning in the name of being apolitical is to make his politics the politics of classrooms.  He is being coy to say otherwise.  His answer to complex issues facing our society is built on uniformity and an overly simplistic view of teaching and learning.  

Teachers see through this vision of politics.  Classrooms, like all communities, consist of a diverse array of ideas and backgrounds.  To get the most out of all members in the classroom, teachers know they can’t build a system that denigrates the existence or experience of others.  They have to design mechanisms that embrace these divisions so that everyone can coexist together.  

The only chance our politics have is to adopt the politics of teaching.  

Adam Sutton currently teaches 11th and 12th grade social studies in Baltimore, MD. In addition to...

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1 Comment

  1. Bravo! I whole-heartedly agree with you. Just this past week I had a parent interrupt my Google Meet to ask why I was forcing her child (18 years old and 3 months from graduation) to read an article about plagiarism that included a censored reference to Lizzo’s song “Truth Hurts.”

    She went on to say that she doesn’t allow such “garbage” in her house and that by incorporating such in our curriculum, it is doubtless to lead to harder stuff–> “If you make them read things like this, what will be next? Will you be making them read about rape or murdering babies next? When does it end? I am just tired of this leftist indoctrinization of our kids.” There was more, but that was the gist.

    I calmly allowed her to finish her statements and gave her son an alternate article to read with the same directions and rubric. However, the REASON she was bothering to observe class that day in the first place was because we are starting a unit on Julius Caesar, and during the previous class her son took offense to the “anticipation guide” statements asking them to agree or disagree with thematic claims related to the play (yes, some were political).

    I gave them 3 or 4 during warm-ups, and we walked through their answers during discussion time. Her son is a generally nice kid, and he usually volunteers to speak out loud, which is always a welcomed event in our virtual world; nonetheless, because he is in one of the more quiet classes, he has gotten a bit too used to being reassured that his answers are THE correct answers.

    As they’d researched the real Julius Caesar the day before, I was explaining how each sentence such as, “If a political leader does something wrong, it is okay to get rid of him/her by any means necessary” or “It is never okay to kill a person” related to the themes/plot of the play as they volunteered their answers and gave examples of situations when it may or may not be accurate.

    Now, it is important to note: these are legitimately the same Julius Caesar anticipation questions I’ve used for AGES– literally since 2006. I honestly didn’t even think about them relating to modern political strife until on day two this kid writes, “I won’t be answering any more political questions during warm-ups after Tuesday’s class. If you have a problem with that, you can email my mom.” When I saw his response, I thought “Hmm. I don’t remember anything strange happening in class on Tuesday. We had a really healthy discussion about a lot of different perspectives. Let me pull him into a separate meet to make sure he’s okay.” When I did, he says, “I just don’t understand WHY we keep talking about politics in English. If I can offer you some constructive criticism, I’d just make it less about politics from now on.”

    Ha. Sweet boy. I was like, “Oh well, thank you for your feedback, but as I said a few minutes ago in class, this was actually Shakespeare’s VERY first political play, so that is why we are talking about politics re: the play. Unfortunately, it isn’t likely that the political aspect will go away any time soon. We can talk about some ways to help you navigate that more comfortably if you’d like. Can you tell me what happened on Tuesday that made you uncomfortable?”

    He kind of paused for a minute and then said, “I just thought you acted like responses were wrong or like you just questioned all of them. & I did not like being forced to talk about politics in class. I think you shouldn’t make us do it with the way things are in the country right now.”

    Now it was my turn to pause before responding: “Thank you for telling me. I understand where you are coming from; however, it is week 27, and you know any time we have warm-ups about topics you don’t want to talk about, you do not HAVE to volunteer to talk. I am never going to force you to speak. You know that by now. You volunteered to speak about ALL four statements on Tuesday, so maybe that is why you felt like I was questioned what you said so much? I can’t really 100% remember since I’ve had so many classes since then. Maybe there weren’t a lot of other response out loud so I was offered alternate sides out loud that other students typed in their responses? That is usually what I do if no one is responding out loud in a timely fashion. Also, on a side note, we do not HAVE to agree about politics or literature or religion or frankly much else in life. That isn’t really the point of education. The point of education and English class is for you to learn to SUPPORT your point of view with evidence. If you felt like I pushed back against what you said in any way that was offensive to you, I am sorry. That was not my intent. Intent can be misconstrued easily in an online forum. However, sometimes when we have class discussions, I will try and play devil’s advocate in order to help the rest of the class see a broader perspective on the issue at hand– what if you were a person of color? What if you were a woman? What if you were in 1600 England performing a play in front of a monarch?– I will ask follow-up questions to encourage deeper thinking about the WHY or HOW you arrived at these conclusions. I will ask you to support your claims with logical evidence and a clear line of reasoning. I will try to help you see that themes in literature can be universal and can apply to people in MANY different settings. That is kind of the point of reading a 430 year old play based on a guy who died in 100 BC– to show that history repeats itself. We read it about it to learn lessons from it and apply those lessons to our own lives and to be able to more eloquently speak and support arguments in regards to similar situations that arise. By examining the decisions made by others in difficult situations, whether in non-fiction or fiction, we can then more efficiently and scrupulously approach the choices in our own realities. Do we want to be ambitious like Caesar and end up allowing our pride to be our downfall? Do we want to be too pious like Brutus and end up being consumed by conspiracies and then stabbing our best friend in the back and then justifying it by saying it is “for the greater good?” or do we want to be filled with envy and going around spreading lies and causing mob mentality and planning murders with zero noble intentions like Cassius? Or do we want to be blindly loyal and inspirational like Antony? Who do you want to be? Which moral ground do you want to land on? It isn’t JUST about politics, but the politics are there. & if you can’t learn how to navigate difficult conversations in this safe space, then you aren’t ever going to be able to navigate them outside of it.”

    ^^^That is more or less what I said to him after the “Here is some constructive criticism– stop the politics” crack. To which he mumbled something like, “Oh ok. I thought it was just about like MODERN politics. That is what it sounded like. But ok. Thank you.” <– He was ready to go after listening to the explanation and trying to talk about it for a couple of minutes.

    So I thought, "Okay, I'll monitor the situation, but it feels fine. He's a nice kid. It's probably just an overreaction because he's used to being told he's right."

    But THEN the next day, I give the CFA with the Lizzo article (that I didn't even choose– a PLC member did), and ask after giving instructions if anyone has any questions. He says, "I don't have any but my mom does. Can she ask real quick?" Trying to keep the peace, I OF COURSE, agree…and we are all subjected to a full 10-minute rant about leftists pushing their beliefs on "these" kids.

    I was in SUCH a good mood that day, too. I sat there thinking, if we were in person, this would not be happening. She would not be busting into my room to rant in front of the room of kids for 10 minutes. & just kept thinking like "WHAT are you TALKING ABOUT??!?!?!?!?"

    The rest of the class had to sit there and listen to her rant, and I can't help but think: When you rant and rave at your child's teacher over total nonsense, what does this teach your kid? What does this teach the rest of these kids? That you can complain and get a different article? That it is okay to treat teachers like crap and interrupt class and disrespect their methods and lessons? Because I am pretty sure they already know that much without the interruption… so what was the point? Was it to bully me into not discussing politics? If anything, it just shows me the need to discuss politics MORE than EVER.

    Why not simply send an EMAIL? It is 2021. Send your child's teacher an email and say, "I do not want my son to read this article; can he read something else? Also, here are some other concerns I have about the course materials…." OR "Is there a time we can meet to discuss my concerns about the course materials?" The article was not even ABOUT Lizzo or the "B—" word. There were a couple of lines about it at the top, and the rest of it was a pretty run-of-the-mill article on why stealing other people's work is wrong. Even AFTER I gave him the alternate article, she was like, "I need to approve that first" and I thought, "He is LITERALLY about to graduate high school. How is he going to function in everyday life if he cannot even make this decision on his own?" It isn't like the article said, "Go out and start listening to Lizzo!" or "Go start calling women B___s" but EVEN IF IT DID, as a SENIOR IN HIGH SCHOOL, your child should have the CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS to say, "Hey, this is just a piece of written words. I, as an adult human with free will, do not have to go out into my world and apply its tenets." They certainly do not go out into the world and apply any of the other lessons they've been taught like, "How to wash hands after going to the bathroom" or "How to read the directions for an assignment" or "How to answer in a complete sentence" or "How to format an essay in MLA format" but SURE, I bet THIS one will be the one that really sticks!

    Moreover, WHAT high school senior in the public school system is making it to 18 without reading a SINGLE work of extended literature that contains an uncensored curse word in it? I am fairly sure every book I read from 5th grade on had at least a minor curse in it. I know almost every book I've ever taught had cursing of some kind in it. Some writers are stealthier about it than others, but it is definitely there. I don't CHOOSE books FOR the cursing, obviously, but that's just life. It's messy. It's political. It's religious. It's sexy.

    Anyway, if not a LOT of cursing, *most* high school texts I can think of contain murder or politics or witchcraft or *gasp* sex, and I'd be hard-pressed to find a reading list that didn't include texts that included all of the above. The best ones definitely contain all of the above.

    Sure. Advocate for your children. Pay attention to your children and what they are doing in school if you can and are able. Support your children. . . but PLEASE do not attack your children's teachers. Not in person. Not online. Not to your friends. Not to your kids. Address the teacher like a professional and send him/her an email to communicate your concerns. Afterwards, if the teacher doesn't help assuage the uneasiness via email, then feel free to email or call the school counselor and try to set up a mediation session to help resolve the issues. If that does not work, then discuss the options with administration when considering whether or not this is the correct learning environment for your child. Perhaps trying homeschooling, transferring to alternative schooling options, private school, charter schools, etc. would be better suited for what you want for your child. Most of the time, school counselors or administrators will be able to provide information about all of the best alternatives for this type of situation.

    However, before you start firing off emails to all of the teachers whose lessons you hate for "indoctrination," I beg of you:

    Do not shelter your children, enable their bad behavior, or prevent them from developing critical thinking, decision-making, and communication skills that they will need to navigate difficult situations in the real world. Before you act, ask yourself if what you are doing is REALLY in the best interest of your child or if it is simply your first impulse response to what is possibly biased or even partial information.

    Thankfully, in my situation, my admin was supportive. My other students were supportive. At most, I am just annoyed by the entire situation. It could have easily gone another way. Who knows what could happen next time?

    For now, I am teaching SHAKESPEARE. That trumps Trump, and so the discussion of politics will make it past the ides of March in my classroom. Sorry not sorry.

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