We have all heard the right-wing screed about how schoolchildren are being indoctrinated to left leaning ideas by teachers. This is a story about a different kind of indoctrination and how I dealt with it.
With our daughter going into Civics class this past year, it was a no-brainer to make sure that she was placed in Mr. Jones's (not his real name) Civics class as he had just won the Teacher of the Year award from his peers the previous year. By all accounts, Mr. Jones is a friendly and likeable person who is active in his church. He started his teaching career at the same time my wife did (about 4 years ago), but unlike my wife, he started right out of college. Perhaps his lack of life experience is what led to the problem that I eventually confronted him about.
You see, Mr. Jones is teaching Civics class, but Mr. Jones is clearly a conservative. That in and of itself is not a problem, but when his political leanings began bleeding into his lessons, I became concerned.
For example, my daughter reported to me throughout the year about how Mr. Jones would use unflattering photos of Democratic candidates while using complimentary images of Republicans in his presentations. He would state aloud about how he just "loved" George W. Bush and/or John Boehner, while expressing no such enthusiasm for any office holders on the other side of the aisle. In regard to the abortion debate, he described people as being pro-abortion rather than being pro-choice. All of these things (and more) caused me some serious concern about how he was teaching his classes.
Then came the straw that broke the camel's back.
My daughter came home one day and described a PowerPoint presentation that Mr. Jones had given that day. At the time, I did not have a copy of the presentation, but I have since acquired it and you can view the offensive slides below:
This is really nice coming from the Civics teacher (of the year) huh? Republicans are apparently equal to sleek sports cars while Democrats are equal to homeless people on scooters. Republicans are normal, happy college graduates and Democrats are mullet wearing meth heads. Republicans are like a well dressed successful looking man and Democrats are like the mug shot of Paris Hilton. Nevermind the validity of the premise of the slides (Obama actually carried all levels of education) or the incorrect use of the word Democrat where the word Democratic is appropriate. I mean, who's really doing the indoctrinating here?
Based upon the description of these slides alone, I contacted Mr. Jones questioning his methods and requesting a copy of this presentation. Our full correspondence is included below and as you will see, he was not forthcoming with the presentation. For the sake of preserving anonymity, all of the names have been changed.
This was my first email to Mr. Jones:
Mr. Jones,
My name is Joe Smith and I am the father of Katie Smith. I am also a 50 year old, college educated, high earning, politically active, liberal Democrat.
Over the course of this year I have heard several disturbing stories about the way you have presented the liberal point of view to your Civics class. Today, however, takes the cake. Katie reported to me that during your Power Point presentation today, you portrayed Democrats in a very unflattering light. Republicans apparently are high earners who are equivalent to sports cars, while Democrats are low earners shown as homeless people on scooters. Republicans were portrayed as college educated people, while Democrats were shown as hillbillies. A successful looking man was the Republican male voter, while Paris Hilton was the female Democratic voter.
If all of this is true, then you have stepped well outside your role as an apolitical teacher of Civics. Your job is to describe the process of how our government works with our two party system, not to try to bias the opinions of your students with your own political leanings. I take the education of our children very seriously and a person in your position as a Civics teacher should understand more than anyone the importance of presenting political perspectives in a unbiased manner.
Perhaps I am being unfair to you and your presentation was not nearly as partisan as it sounds like it was. To clarify things, I would like for you to send me a copy of the presentation so that I can see it for myself. Please forward it on to me ASAP.
Sincerely,
Joe Smith
Rather than addressing the issue, Mr. Jones replied with some puffery for my parenting skills and offered to meet with me in person:
Good afternoon Mr. Smith. I appreciate your concern and support with Katie this year. As a teacher, it is very encouraging to know that parents like yourself are involved in the lives and education of their kids. By promoting discussion and debate, you are reinforcing the skills that will ensure Katie's success throughout her high school and collegiate experience. Students have been analyzing political parties and platforms, discussing voter registration, voting process, voter behavior, and learning to avoid stereotypes.
I would love to meet with you and Katie and discuss the lesson objectives, discussion, and format that was presented to students on Tuesday. We can look at the lesson in entirety and I hope that Katie would feel differently regarding the lesson and presentation. I am free during my planning period and lunch (from 10:15-11:30) as well as before and after school. I look forward to meeting with you and Katie and will help in any way I can.
Thanks!
Bill Jones
It seemed like I may not have totally gotten my point across to Mr. Jones and I figured that if he wanted to meet with me, I would oblige. I still wanted to see his presentation before the meeting, so I again asked him for it with this email:
Mr. Jones,
I think that you may have missed the point of my email. My concern is, while you may be suggesting that the purpose of the offensive slides was to draw attention to political stereotypes, the slides instead served only to reinforce anti-liberal biases. If your presentation was truly about discussing political stereotypes in a nonpartisan way, you should have also included some negative conservative stereotypes and some positive liberal stereotypes. These slides, however, were conspicuously missing from your presentation.
Having a meeting tomorrow will not work for me, but I can possibly meet with you on Friday. I did not find your presentation attached, but I would like for you to send it to me ahead of our meeting.
Sincerely,
Joe Smith
It seems that upon reflection of his presentation, Mr. Jones got cold feet about meeting with me. But, he did at least make some admissions regarding the inappropriateness of some of the slides:
Mr. Smith,
I have given your criticism considerable thought the last couple of days. I met with my mentor last night and discussed the PowerPoint with my colleagues today. I have taken the feedback I received from you and my team and have reached the following conclusions:
1. The pictures were intended to be humorous, stereotypical representations to keep a heavy subject light and to engage students. However, after reflection, I feel the idea is sound, but the images weren't as bipartisan as they could have been.
2. I will be modifying the PowerPoint to include old fat cat republicans (or the like) and other, more balanced, photos; or I may discard the PowerPoint all together for next year.
I would like to offer my sincerest apologies for the frustration this has caused. Reflection is an essential part of my professional growth and has led to bettering of this lesson.
Thank you for your feedback,
Bill Jones
I did appreciate Mr. Jones's apology, but somehow his saying that the images were not as
bipartisan as they could have been seemed to rub me the wrong way as evidenced from my final correspondence:
Mr. Jones,
Given that you did not forward the Power Point presentation to me as I twice requested, I must assume that what I was told about the presentation's content was accurate. That being said, I would first like to clarify a couple of the statements from your last correspondence. The images were humorous only if you are conservative and the images were in fact completely partisan.
Honestly Mr. Jones, this is not the first time this year that I have heard about you showing unflattering images of liberal politicians or praising various conservative politicians.
My point is, this is not about one child or one lesson. There appears to be a pattern. What I want for you to take away from our exchange is that as a Social Studies-Civics teacher it is imperative that you always present your political material in a non-biased and balanced manner.
I do appreciate your apology and your acknowledgement of the inappropriateness of the slides as well as your willingness to reflect upon and re-evaluate some of your teaching practices. Based upon these assurances, I am willing to let this controversy end here and I hope that our discussions will serve as constructive to you in improving your teaching methods.
Sincerely,
Joe Smith
I have a lot of respect for the difficulties teachers face in doing their jobs and as I mentioned above, my wife is a Biology teacher herself. I took no joy in scolding Mr. Jones and I was never "
out to get him." I just felt compelled to bring his attention to the fact that teaching a political class with a distinct slant could get him into a lot of trouble. Hopefully I accomplished that goal and Mr. Jones will now think twice before depicting Democrats in such unflattering ways in the future.
We and our friends have more kids coming up through this school, so we will be keeping an eye on how Mr. Jones's teaching methods progress. After all, we wouldn't want teachers indoctrinating our children would we?