It’s Tough to Be a Teacher in Today’s Political Climate

I am in my 25th year in education, and I can say, without any compunction, that it is more difficult to be a teacher now than it ever has been in my career. The problem is not what you think it would be. Sure COVID has certainly made things more challenging, but even without the pandemic, it is a challenge to be a teacher for one simple reason; you never know what is going to be the next topic of turmoil.

Case in point. The assistant principal in Mississippi reads a children’s book titled “I Need a New Butt” to a group of 2nd graders and gets fired. This was a book that was written for 2nd graders (recommended ages are from 4-10). There was nothing objectionable in it other than the fact that it uses the word butt. He was terminated on grounds of “unnecessary embarrassment.” Let me restate it for those who misunderstand the offense; he read a book from the very library these 2nd graders use, and he was fired for it.

According to the Washington Post, there have been 160 teachers who either were fired or resigned due to their views in the past two years. Now granted, some of these terminations were justified for negative behavior–going off on rants on their social media or acting inappropriately. But there are others who simply shared in a civil manner views on politics or culture, which their administrators did not take kindly to.

I have been dealing with this myself. This year for Black History month, one of our teachers did an amazing job of conducting interviews with black professionals. She wanted to show black and brown students that there are people who look like them who are doing amazing things in their careers. One of these interviews was with a doctor. While describing the care he provides, he mentioned that he was a general practitioner and worked with people of all ages. He then briefly mentioned that he works with folks from the LGBTQ community as well as those experiencing gender dysphoria.

Out of the 10-minute interview, his mentioning of gender-affirming care took up like 30 seconds, and yet I had a parent calling members of the board of education complaining that this was the focus of the interview. I had half a dozen people watch the interview to ensure I wasn’t overlooking something or being blinded by my biases, and every one of them didn’t see the problem. Yet I spent weeks going back and forth with this parent as he continually accused me of pushing an agenda on our 4th graders. 

Why this fear of civil discourse is problematic is not just the fact that people are losing their jobs. It is because, as teachers, we are charged with teaching students to challenge their thinking. And yet, if we are not extremely careful with any sort of controversial topic, we might find ourselves cleaning out our desks as well. This makes us not want to teach students to consider questioning anything and merely accept the so-called facts. While this might be a safe education, it is not going to prepare students for a world in which thinking for themselves is not just advantageous, it is necessary.

I had serious misgivings about writing this blog in the first place. I worry that someone might read it and think that I am trying to push politics on students or teachers. This, of course, is not the case, but I do want to teach students to think for themselves. I want to present them with facts and then let them arrive at their own decisions. The problem, of course, is when a student begins to think differently than what their parents wish them to.

With the coming election, I want to warn people that if the political divide grows even further apart, teachers won’t want to teach anything that could be considered controversial. This could be teaching about the American Civil War; it could be STEM cell research; it could be a book that has recently been deemed problematic. Students are going to receive the safest education possible, meaning that there will be no room for thinking, which is just a shame because that is what we are supposed to be getting students to do.

The Author

Todd Stanley is the author of several education books including Project-Based Learning for Gifted Students and Performance-Based Assessment for 21st-Century Skills, both for Prufrock Press. Additionally, he wrote a series of workbooks for them entitled 10 Performance-Based Projects for the ELA/Math/Science Classroom. He wrote Creating Life-Long Learners with Corwin Press and is a regular contributor of blogs to Corwin Connect. 

The opinions in this article are solely those of its author.