Since
the first teachers, there has been an understanding of how one should do the
job. In particular, the historian was
tasked with making sense of what happened – to put it into perspective or
better, allow the student to do so once they were given the facts. Nothing was considered beyond the historian’s
purview. Like Keats, historians stand
silent on a hill in Darien making use of everything available to use to better
understand our story and our surroundings.
Everything is relevant. All
things, potentially, can matter. For a
historian, the concept of academic freedom is one of the most sacred components
of their job and that which attempts to prevent said freedom is antithetical to
the pursuit of knowledge. Unfortunately,
in my career and recently in the news, there have been people who have sought
to limit that freedom.
Several
years ago, I sought to teach my students about the various world religions but
I’m certainly no expert on all faiths.
Therefore, I planned a week whereby five men of faith from Christianity,
Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism visited my classroom to explain their
faith in a historical context. The
visits were amazing and even other teachers stopped by to listen. However, rather quickly, some parents called
to complain and express concern about non-Christian men of faith teaching their
“children.” Even the word “children” is on
purpose to further express fragility and impressionability. The parents’ use of the word also
infantilizes the student. I stood firm
on my choice of lessons but it was not without some meetings and intense
conversations.
Earlier
this semester at by brand-spanking new school, I was chastised by a parent over
a Supreme Court case about privacy issues because it centered on a case dealing
with two gay men arrested for having sex.
My students, who are seniors, are required to research individual cases
and present it to the class based on its constitutionality. The parent was outraged that I was “teaching”
her son sodomy. When told of the
complaint, I was in a state of disbelief, wondering if the mother really thought
I was teaching sodomy. The case is not
about sodomy per se but rather about privacy rights and the state’s ability to
legislate such activity. The case by the
way, should you want to peruse it yourself, is Bowers v. Hardwick (1986).
The Supreme Court must hear a plethora of things and as a teacher of
government, sometimes it behooves me to broach controversial subjects as it
relates to how we, as a nation, struggle with our freedom, rights and the
consequences thereof.
This
past week, a parent balked at an AP Human Geography textbook that asked the
student to consider why Palestinians might choose to become suicide bombers in
Israel. The parent, reacting to one
sentence that was a part of an entire section on the Israeli/Palestinian relations,
created a ruckus saying that the textbook and, by proxy, the class and the
teacher were anti-Jewish and teaching children to sympathize with
terrorists. James Rubenstein, the writer
of the textbook in question, was forced to speak up and in a missive to Fox News,
said that condemnation of an act does not negate the need or correctness of
understanding why it happened. One of
the reasons that so much effort went into capturing the Boston bomber alive was
to understand what happened, why and how extensive the plot went. One cannot do that without asking questions
to better understand the motives. It
does not justify the act and it certainly does not suggest a moral equivalence
between the terrorist act and the response.
Mr. Rubenstein implies that it is better to seek understanding than
simply condemning.
I
believe in academic freedom but I and others like me pay for that belief. I’m a conservative, as even the most casual reader
of my blog will note but I’ve been called liberal, communist, subversive and
much worse. I understand the importance
of parents to the education process.
However, in my endeavors in my classroom, I’m not going to not cover
something because it is controversial. I’m
not going to pick and choose the history that I want to share. Not to make too fine a point on this but those
measures are the tactics of dictators.
I’m
a historian and if I dare claim the tradition set forth by Herodotus, Sima
Qian, ibn Khaldun, Tacitus and Leopold von Ranke, I must try and maintain a
sense of objectivity. The parents’ role
is found prior to the student entering the classroom. Parents must discuss and decide what kind of
education they want for their student and then find the place that will nurture
their child in the way they wish. Once
the parent has made the decision, however, it then becomes the responsibility
of the teacher to their craft and to their student how best to proceed.
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