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!) This can be quite a difficult situation because most of us don't want to back down from something we believe in (and most of us aren't trying to indoctrinate anyone either!), but no one wants to be in fear of losing their job. I run into a similar quandary each year when it comes time to teach the evolution/natural selection unit in 7th grade Science. Although I have a supportive school and administration (and I'm just teaching the standard), there are inevitably angry parents. One way I've found to circumvent this in years of particularly vocal parents is by allowing the students to present the information. They all research the concept, but they choose whether to take a pro or con approach to discussing and writing about it. They learn the content and they get to have a voice about how right or wrong they think it is (because its not really my job to convince the students that theory of evolution is correct or not... its my job to teach them about the basis of the theory and how scientific evidence is used to test and revise scientific understandings over time). I think something similar might work in this situation. I will add that its very important to monitor and guide students in this process so they don't belittle the opinions of others or become belligerent. Its important to maintain an environment of open discussion and dialogue (whether in class or in student writings). Teacher questioning is also exceedingly important to ensure students are actually attaining the content knowledge.