CLASSROOM INDOCTRINATION?
By Chris Daly
The Times carries a piece today that asks the question: "Professors' Liberalism Contagious?"
The headline offers an answer: "Maybe Not."
Below is a story reporting on new research findings suggesting that the views of professors do not spread directly into the brains of our students. (Imagine that! We speak, and they don't immediately retain, accept, and embrace what we just said? ! ? Shocking... if true.)
It's a timely story, of course, with the obvious "news peg" of tomorrow's presidential election. And the research addresses a long-standing conservative hobby-horse: the supposedly liberal/radical bias that pervades university campuses and seeps into the minds of students.
The piece is worth considering, but I would just add a personal note, based on more than 10 years spent teaching at BU:
It is indeed important for every professor, during every class session, to make sure that every student feels comfortable expressing any honestly held view. Students also deserve to know that their work will be judged on its merits (and not on how closely their arguments conform to the professor's views).
The issue, I think is not really partisanship. The issue is the openness of minds, on all sides.
Labels: academic freedom, classroom, partisanship
posted by Chris Daly at 12:47 PM
2 Comments:
There was a book published in the 70s (maybe?) that argued students were conservative-minded and thus should not be taught by "liberal" professors.
Fittingly, I learned of this book in a class I took at B.U. and do not remember the title nor the author. I do remember that the author went on to be a political official of some kind.
This was a great story! I wonder how David Horowitz (founder of Students for Academic Freedom seeking to silence professors who do not toe a conservative line) reacted
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