Close Minded Education
This past week my younger sister started her junior year of high school. Junior year is one of the most important years of high school. It’s the year that classes start to get tougher, college tours begin, and hopefulness for the future resides in the students. My sister was feeling excited and anxious for what her year was going to entail. How would she do in her AP classes? Would her cross-country team make it to the state championship? Would she find her dream college? Unfortunately, as she walked into her AP Government classroom, her first class of the day, some of her excitement for her first day of a crucial year of school disappeared.
The first thing she noticed when she walked in was a divide in her class. On the left side of the classroom sat the majority of her class, while the right side of the classroom had only a handful of students. She wondered why this was the case, and soon realized her class was being split between what political party the students affiliated with. She felt blindsided. She did not think that was necessary nor anyone in her class’s business. Is there not enough division between the political parties right now? Why bring that into the classroom? Shouldn’t education be politically neutral?
My sister sent me a message saying, “I’m nervous to go to this class because if you say one thing disagreeing with the other side of the classroom, they all start laughing at you like your dumb.” How disappointing is that? No student should feel nervous to enter a classroom and feel like they are about to be shamed by their peers. Why is the teacher not stepping in and keeping his class neutral? Considering it is a government class, debate is important. Debate can spark new ideas and help students exit their comfort zones. But what is going on in my sister’s AP Government class is not healthy debate, it’s a group of students ganging up on another group of students; it is a very disheartening situation.
My sister has dealt with a lot of heat from the leftists in her high school. After she went to the inauguration of President Donald Trump, people shunned her and some of her friends got upset with her. After the Parkland Shooting, her school had a “walk out” to promote anti-gun legislations. My sister did not walk out because she did not believe in the cause, and she was ridiculed for it by students along with teachers. She is continuously put in situations where people at school try to make her feel guilty for her own beliefs, and that is not okay.
Though it is very frustrating to have to deal with situations like these, my sister handles it in a mature and respectful manner. Instead of calling herself something like a “victim of the opposite party’s oppression,” she simply continues to stand by her own beliefs and move on. The issues she has to deal with at school have made her mentally tougher and resilient. In the video produced by Prager University titled, “Building Resilience: 5 Ways To A Better Life,” UCLA Medical School psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Marmer explains how to deal with the everyday unwanted situations that life throws our way. Marmer states, “Resilience is the opposite of fragility. To be fragile means that just about everything upsets you. And if just about everything upsets you, you will spend a lot of time angry and hurt. And if you spend a lot of time angry and hurt, you will not be a happy person.” This statement is so important, especially for students who may feel like they’re being judged or are being silenced by their peers or professors.
No matter what level of education you are on, your opinions and beliefs should never be censored. There are no benefits to censoring a person’s beliefs solely because someone does not agree with it or because someone may get offended by it. As Americans, we all have the freedom to say what we please, and the right to our own opinions and beliefs is what makes this country so unique. To strip someone, especially the youth of America from these rights would only restrict the spread of knowledge and ideas. Censorship of thought in education is being promoted more and more by leftists today, and it should be a major concern to the American people.
Prager University video: https://www.prageru.com/video/building-resilience-5-ways-to-a-better-life/












