Political vs. Partisan: The Modern Challenge for Public Schools
In August, 2016, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick made history. In a country with so much national pride, his refusal to stand for the national anthem in protest of the oppression of African Americans understandably sparked an ongoing debate.
He clearly believed the First Amendment gave him the right to voice his concerns about racism in America, but he was attacked by many who thought the national anthem before a football game was the wrong platform to voice those concerns. More importantly, they believed football had gone from an all-American game to yet another place that wasn’t safe from politics. With the extensive media coverage of his actions, Colin Kaepernick seemed to be the first person to politicize football — but was he?
Actually, Kaepernick’s actions were not the first to use football to call attention to a polarizing issue. Almost half a century ago, the NFL publicly supported the Vietnam War, placing football in a peaceful, patriotic position amid the anarchy of anti-war demonstrators filling the streets. While this stance was on a far different end of the political spectrum, it was a stance, and its impact was magnified by the sheer vastness of American football. So no, Colin Kaepernick was not the first to politicize football. He simply used the same platform that had been used in the 1960s to make his voice heard.
Now that we’re clear Kaepernick wasn’t the first to throw an entire sport into politics, we can tackle the big question: was it right for football players to sit or kneel during the national anthem to protest oppression and police brutality?
If you ask our current president, he would say no. He would say it is disrespectful to our country and our troops; he would say it is our duty to pay our respects to our nation no matter how it has treated us; he would say it is ungrateful for football players who benefit from this country so much to think they can avoid the traditional practice of standing during the national anthem.
While many agree with President Trump, Colin Kaepernick and his supporters would say otherwise. They would say it is a matter of freedom of speech; they would say the flag represents not just our troops, but the American values they fight for, and why should they stand to honor the values that are not applied to all Americans? They wonder, if this is not the right platform to use, what is?
Essentially, both sides have a point, which has turned this debate into a screaming match that hasn’t really gotten us anywhere. Half the country believes it was right, and half the country believes it was wrong. But I believe something else.
To me, it doesn’t matter if Kaepernick’s actions fall into the subjective categories of “right” and “wrong.” Today, many may think this type of protest is disrespectful or ungrateful, but people thought that of the Civil Rights Movement, and the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Even the American Revolution was criticized for being an unnecessarily dangerous risk. But without these movements; without Samuel Adams, and Susan B. Anthony, and Martin Luther King Jr., America wouldn’t be America.
This country has a history of rebels, and each time, they were criticized. They did what they felt was right, whether others agreed or not. And as a result, they changed the course of history. So maybe Kaepernick isn’t the next MLK, but the important part about his actions is the shockwave of discussion they sparked — necessary discussion.
How did I come to these conclusions? Quite simply, in school.
Despite being a sophomore in high school, I couldn’t remember another time we had been asked to discuss a political issue in the classroom. Yet, in that overheated room in September of my eleventh year in public school, I was given a homework assignment to research Kaepernick’s actions and discuss it with my classmates the next day. For the first time, I was learning about a controversial event in school, not just in the news.
It was unnervingly terrifying, not because we were being graded, but because it was really the first time a teacher had asked me to take a stance on a polarizing issue. In all of my years of public schooling, I hadn’t taken the time to think about the issues we discuss, or don’t discuss, in school. Once I had debated such a polarizing topic in English class, I began to wonder why we didn’t do so more often.
Why, in a country like America where public discourse is so encouraged, do we avoid asking political questions in school? Diana Hess and Paula McAvoy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison began to answer this question in their book, The Political Classroom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education, which discusses the issue of how politics should be addressed in schools.
From their study done from 2005 to 2009 involving 21 teachers and 1,001 students in 35 schools, they concluded that schools should be political, but not partisan.
The information they came across aligned well with my own experiences in public school. For one, teachers may ask students to take a stance on issues, but the topics they choose either do not relate to politics or have little controversy surrounding them. Questions about receiving grades or the importance of exercise may require students to make an argument, which can be a valuable learning experience, but these topics do not always give students the opportunity to look at evidence and choose from opposing positions.
Such skills are essential to democracy, and schools are the best place to cultivate them. Especially during a time of so much controversy, political discussions are often emotional due to the personal connections people have to certain issues. This makes discussion skills even more essential because without them, productive discourse is impossible.
Many teachers dedicate themselves to providing facts absent of political opinions, such as Zack Crandall, a high school history teacher in Illinois. His thoughts on politics in the classroom are similar to those of many other educators who don’t want their students “to feel any information [they’re] presenting is in a biased way.” These teachers do not want to sway their students towards one side or another, but this does not mean they should avoid talking about politics altogether. The idea of a political but nonpartisan classroom leaves a place for teachers to talk about politics without taking a side.
This line can get fuzzy, though, especially in parts of the country that lean heavily towards either side of the political spectrum. It can be difficult to discuss controversial topics in a completely unbiased way so as to make students comfortable enough to take their own positions, but that is the modern challenge schools need to start tackling.
One way to educate students about not only the facts, but also how to extract them, is by reading. Schools are unique in that attendance isn’t optional. Neither are assignments, including required reading. At my high school, I have read books such as Lord of the Flies, Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. We have studied the themes in these books, and been challenged to write essays explaining what we learned from them. But not everyone believes these texts are valuable, or even appropriate, for students to read in high school.
All of these books have been challenged in schools for several reasons. Lord of the Flies, William Golding’s exploration of what happens when British school boys are left alone on an island, has been challenged numerous times for its pessimistic themes. The book sends the message that humans are savage and animalistic, which is a bit of a shock for Americans who hold high moral and ethical standards.
Of Mice and Men, the story of two unlikely friends chasing the American dream has been challenged mainly for its use of profanity, but also the violence and sexual situations it addresses. To Kill a Mockingbird, the story of a young girl’s experience with racism in her southern town, has been challenged for similar reasons. Schools have banned the book for its strong language, references to rape and sexuality, and use of the n-word. The most widely targeted book for its use of the n-word, though, is the story of a young boy and a runaway slave, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The word appears a total of 219 times, and has been so widely debated that a version was published changing each occurence with the word “slave.”
As a student who has read these books in school, I was saddened, though not entirely surprised, to learn that these books have been censored from some schools. These books do contain sensitive subjects, and discussions about them are required assignments. This can make students feel pressured to discuss topics they don’t feel comfortable with, which defeats the purpose of even reading the book. The themes presented by these authors are meant to be addressed, but if students and teachers are afraid to bring them up for fear of offending someone or presenting biased information, the messages the book was supposed to get across aren’t actually being taken to heart.
But does taking books out of schools really solve anything? The problem is, by taking away books that discuss controversial topics, we are taking away the opportunity for students to be exposed to and have informative discussions about issues that still plague our society. In recent years, books have been censored that include perspectives from different cultures, such as Habibi, and young transgender people, such as I Am Jazz.
Children who are not allowed to read these books may miss the opportunity to learn about other perspectives. Director of the American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom James LaRue perceives this censorship as a reaction to “a previous majority of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants [that] are kind of moving into a minority, and there’s this lashing out to say, ‘Can we just please make things the way that they used to be?’”
In a country that has become so diverse, this is impossible. Students have a right and an obligation to learn about other perspectives, and books are the best way to do so.
School is meant to teach students how to analyze sources to gain accurate information, no matter how controversial or biased those sources are. If young people do not have the opportunity to share their own opinions and learn to consider those of others, we cannot expect them to do so as adults. They will encounter both sensitive subjects and biased information throughout their lives, which makes it essential for schools to teach students how to derive meaning from such experiences.
A study done by Jeremy Stoddard, associate professor of education at the College of William and Mary, was concerned when he became aware of the almost anti-political curriculums of public schools. In an effort to teach students about the actual issues and how media can persuade people to take either side, he tested a project that gave government students the task of creating a campaign that took a position on a political issue.
He found that while students gained large amounts of information from their families and the media, they were not critiquing or discussing it enough. Stoddard’s project was designed to solve this problem by educating students on political issues and how media manipulates audiences, making them more aware as citizens, and modeling civic behavior. If public schools incorporated assignments such as these, perhaps students would reap the benefits of a more relevant education.
Another problem for this generation is technology, which has given teens such immediate access to information that we don’t usually exercise critical thinking skills when looking for answers. Because of the endless and instantaneous supply of information, many students are unable to extract the facts from opinions.
Without background knowledge and the ability to understand other points of view, it is easy to be influenced by biased information. The books that we read in school help students gain the skills to evaluate sources and see them for what they are, so by censoring books, schools are actually hindering the ability of their students to become informed members of society.
The reality is, especially in such a digital age, you can’t censor everything. Avoiding certain topics in school isn’t really reducing students’ exposures to them, because our generation is exposed to politics everywhere from graffiti to awards shows. The heightened polarization of our nation has made facts more important than ever, especially when opinions are coming from the most unexpected places, including this year’s Grammys.
Immigration, sexism and racism are only some of the issues targeted at this year’s Grammy award show. The night started off with a performance by Kendrick Lamar, featuring comedian Dave Chappelle, that delivered a strong political message about race and police brutality. Later on, Janelle Monae and Ke$ha tackled the recent issues of sexual violence with a powerful speech and an emotional performance of the song “Praying.” President Trump’s decisions and rhetoric regarding immigrants were also challenged when singer Camila Cabello talked about her own journey as someone who had come to America as a child, and claimed the United States is a country “built by dreamers, for dreamers, chasing the American dream.”
Perhaps the most politically charged moment of the night was the appearance of former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. She appeared as part of a pre-recorded skit in which host and comedian James Corden had artists read aloud from Michael Wolff’s recent book, Fire and Fury.
True to America’s nature, such a night sparked nationwide debate regarding whether these political moments were necessary or too extreme for what should have been a lighthearted award show. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley went so far as to post a tweet calling the political moments “trash,” and explaining that “Some of us love music without the politics thrown in it.” Other audience members, such as myself, were not so offended by the injection of politics into an awards show because perhaps it was inevitable.
“You can’t really divorce yourself from reality,” said Ken Ehrlich, the producer of the Grammy’s, before the show aired. When news stories come directly to our phones and twitter accounts, we cannot expect to isolate ourselves from the arguments people are having around the world.
While the purpose of the Grammys isn’t inherently political, in a time with so much controversy, issues have become almost impossible to avoid. In this case, calling attention to current issues was a matter of self expression. Each artist that shared a political message was passionate about it, and usually for personal reasons. The Grammys is a show that celebrates art, which should not be restricted to speeches and performances that do not erupt in nationwide debates.
The society we live in has been called a “melting pot” for centuries, and the theory is still true. But today, it is true to an entirely different magnitude. Our diversity is not just related to ethnic backgrounds, but to diversity of thought. So while people watch the Grammys to be entertained, not informed, that factor is perhaps essential to the messages of the artists sharing their opinions. In a country where one person’s thinking is so different from another’s, we cannot make educated arguments without hearing other people’s’ perspectives. We can no longer afford to prevent artists from using their platforms to spark discussions on important issues, because they represent perspectives that many agree with or haven’t heard before.
So if the politicization of the Grammys was justified, how do we keep such issues out of the classroom? The answer is simple:
We don’t.
If Americans can’t even watch the Grammys without being exposed to political opinions, we need to have the knowledge and experience to take an educated stance. Ultimately, students will only encounter more polarizing issues in their lives. If they do not have the skills to separate fact from fiction and make their own decisions, not only will they suffer, but the whole of America will.
This country relies on the informed voter. We cannot expect that if we don’t educate our youth to be able to take positions on all topics.
Even the hard ones.
