- 10 Mar 2003 19:14
#195547
http://www.politicsforum.org/documents/forum_rules.php
I was speaking to a friend of mine on Saturday night. He's pretty outspoken and likes to think he's well educated. But often misses a key element of an argument before formulating his own opinions. As such, his arguments are often pointless, but it's fun to debate with him sometimes. Either way, enough of the introduction. On Saturday, we were dicussing the school system, and he came up with an interesting point. He said that teachers, at least in high-school, should not be allowed to teach contemporary politics. For that matter, he said, there should be no current-issues/politics classes at all.
His argument was that teachers, whether they wanted to or not, would invariably impart their own biases on to the kids preventing them from formulating their own opinions and ideas on current issues. He said that it didn't matter for historical politics, as it was in the past and had already happened, therefore the median opinions of history had already been established. But he figured that teachers shouldn't be allowed to influence young minds one way or another, at least on issues like politics, and sociology and stuff.
At first I was like "you're fucking nuts", but then the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I certainly wouldn't outlaw teaching politics in schools, I think it's a VERY important subject and people need to be informed. But I think my friend still raised some valid points.
What do you guys think?
S./
His argument was that teachers, whether they wanted to or not, would invariably impart their own biases on to the kids preventing them from formulating their own opinions and ideas on current issues. He said that it didn't matter for historical politics, as it was in the past and had already happened, therefore the median opinions of history had already been established. But he figured that teachers shouldn't be allowed to influence young minds one way or another, at least on issues like politics, and sociology and stuff.
At first I was like "you're fucking nuts", but then the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I certainly wouldn't outlaw teaching politics in schools, I think it's a VERY important subject and people need to be informed. But I think my friend still raised some valid points.
What do you guys think?
S./
http://www.politicsforum.org/documents/forum_rules.php