Education or Indoctrination

Editorial Published March 3, 2006

Educating our youth, our future leaders, is a sacred responsibility which, I believe, most teachers take very seriously. Unfortunately for us all, some teachers in this country regard the classroom as their bully pulpit.

A teacher's advancing his or her personal political agenda in a classroom setting, whether at the public school or college level, is flagrant pedagogic tyranny.

Politically indoctrinating captive, vulnerable and impressionable students is not only self-serving and infantile, it is also intellectually dishonest and, therefore, bereft of any real educational value.

A teacher's purpose is not to create intellectual widgets or clones, but to encourage students to develop their opinions based upon an honest and objective exposure to competing viewpoints. It's a challenging educational goal, but one worth pusuing with diligence and integrity.

Jim Delaney
Greece, NY