Home | How It Works | Stats Login | Register         Case: Patriotic/Unpatriotic Facts After teaching middle school Social Studies for many years, I decided to go back to school to get my graduate degree. In one of my classes, we studied James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me. I was so influenced by this book and the idea that we have been presenting students inaccurate information that I have been thoroughly researching the content I teach before presenting it to my students. Recently we have been studying international affairs of the US government. Some of the information I presented revealed actions the US government engaged in other countries that resulted in killings and disturbances. My students were interested in the materials and some of the issues we discussed in class made dinner-time discussions at home. One of the parents who is a retired army officer came to the school to talk to my principal. He told the principal that I was indoctrinating students. When my principal told me about this, I explained to her that all the information I presented was factual and that I researched the information from multiple resources. Her suggestion to me was that I should focus more on teaching patriotic materials. I am so frustrated that I do not have the support of my principal. Also, I disagree that what I teach is unpatriotic. I am simply trying to teach accurate information. If I continue doing what I do, I may lose my job. However, I do not want to give up teaching my students the truth. How should I go about this issue? Solution: (Rates are posted for this solution!) Rather than having this situation become a choice between losing my job and teaching the truth, I would develop a plan to present to the principal to gain her support. My plan would include detailed lesson plans showing that I was teaching the curriculum that I was expected to cover. I would include the research on the controversial content and clearly show how it fits in with and expands upon the curriculum already in place. It may also be helpful to present information about teaching patriotism to the principal. For example, according to Ravitch (2006), patriotism does not mean that you must ignore your country's faults. One suggestion for tying the controversial material to the curriculum would be to collaborate with the grade level Language Arts teacher when planning lessons. The middle school ELA CCGPS standards include an emphasis on analyzing conflicting viewpoints in informational text. Therefore, by working together with the ELA teacher, this content would not only add to the Social Studies curriculum, it would also provide the ELA teacher with relevant material to use to meet an important part of the ELA curriculum. Ravitch, D. (2006). Should we teach patriotism? Patriotism and Education, 579-581.