Monday, October 13, 2008
It's always a good time to think about the First Amendment!
Jill sent me this article from the New York Times. It's an opinion piece about the current controversy over what public school/university faculty can and cannot wear/do regarding political campaigns. In Illinois, the state told teachers that they cannot not wear campaign buttons in the classroom (which think is totally fair), but also not put political bumper stickers on their cars, or go to rallies or speeches held on campus! Is that seriously nutty? Basically, I think that everyone needs to lighten up. And by everyone I mean that the state needs to stop trying to control and sanitize every single situation where someone might be perceived as advocating some view. And they need to remember that the First Amendment protects us all and if you try to dimish it you suck. And God will smite you. Plain and simple.
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3 comments:
LOL - Right on Claire! I don't even think wearing a button in class is "wrong" by any means, but it is a concession...oh wait...there it is...the slippery slope of the chilling effect. Someone went ahead and agreed for a generation that there are times to limit teachers' free speech...and then those who are afraid of the free exchange of ideas decided to push it more. okay, reasonably, I can agree that sometimes teachers should not influence their students but isn't that a moral/ethical duty they should be expected to take on as part of their professional responsibility? And shouldn't we trust the judgment of those teachers? It just disturbs me that some administrator somewhere reigns on high and puts out these directives!
I guess that I do not have a problem with teachers wearing campaign buttons at the college level. But in K-12 public school the people whose expression I am most concerned about is the children, and I think that if a teacher is wearing a campaign button then a child might feel less comfortable expressing a different or less popular view. And the teachers represent the state in public schools, let's not forget. But generally I would have to say STFU to administrators and the Man! If you are a First Amendment hater, then I am a you hater! Yeah! If that made any sense...
People seriously need to stand up and take responsibility for teaching their children to think on their own...not mention teaching them to behave slightly better than poo throwing monkeys.
I would have to say that if a teacher is influencing a child about politics, maybe just maybe we will have a higher voting populace in the future.
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