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!) I agree with you that teaching our students accurate information is important. I experienced this as an ELA teacher while teaching Anne Frank. It is hard to answer student questions about why we didn't step into WWII sooner and why we let all of those people die. I can only imagine these tough issues in the Social Studies curriculum. As a military wife these issues do hit home. However, this does not make me naive. I know that when did eventually join WWII we did not only do it to save people and we also had to kill others when we did join the war. I think as an educator, we must teach the curriculum not from a patriotic stand point, but from one of neutrality, otherwise we would be like North Korea. If we only taught our students information from one perspective, our kids would not be able to develop their own opinions and empathy. I believe it is your job to present a student with all of the facts and allow them to make their own conclusions. If it came down to it, as long as what you teach the children is a part of the standards, is factual and is engaging as well as meeting the students academic needs then there would be no justification in firing you.