Having a bit of a discussion over at Julie With A B’s, regarding teaching in a liberal manner. Now, PW states in the comments
Academics tilt liberal because academics are thinking people. Am I surprised that the smartest among us tend to be liberal?
Skipping the partisan shots he takes, I don’t have a problem with teachers being liberal. That is their choice, and their Right. What I have is a problem with teaching liberal doctrine in college. And, I would have the same problem with teaching Conservative doctrine, as well as teaching from a religious viewpoint. At least when it comes to publicly funded higher education institutions. Leave the indoctrination out of the curriculum as much as possible, and just teach the material. If a teacher does bring their viewpoints in, they should be willing to not only create an open forum for debate, but listen to all sides. Isn’t that what a learning institution is about? Unless you grew up in Communist Russia.
Back when I was at East Carolina U, we really didn’t have these issues. Perhaps because it was more important to be there for the party. But, teachers didn’t try to indoctrinate. I know several of my Poly Sci teachers were liberal, as well as some where very Reagan Conservative, but, amazingly, they didn’t pull out their viewpoints in class. Same with other classes I took. I would suspect that we weren’t given any sort of political leanings indoctrinations because we were kinda busy going through the actual course material. Reading and discussing text books, doing experiments, etc. Amazing what happens when people are taught.
Speaking of being taught, refer back to PW’s comment first. I’ll wait. Now:
More than half of students at four-year colleges — and at least 75 percent at two-year colleges — lack the literacy to handle complex, real-life tasks such as understanding credit card offers, a study found.
The literacy study funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the first to target the skills of graduating students, finds that students fail to lock in key skills — no matter their field of study.
The results cut across three types of literacy: analyzing news stories and other prose, understanding documents and having math skills needed for checkbooks or restaurant tips.
Without "proficient" skills, or those needed to perform more complex tasks, students fall behind. They cannot interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school.
So much for the liberal indoctrination education. I guess thinking means living in a little bubble world, unable to complete easy real world task. Or, my favorite, "liberals are too smart to be able to think in black and white, as well as to be able to explain what they are saying." ROTFLOL.
Seriously, just teach the material.
