I guess I never really thought about before how incredibly political education is. I guess that I knew about teachers unions and how that created a debate, but I never really understood all the other political aspects of education. Charter schools, vouchers, privatization, advertisement in the schools, and much more are all components of our education system with huge political ramifications.
In fact, I think that the classroom is almost an opportunity to create a little model society and teach our children how it is supposed to work. I think that this can be a great thing when it comes to teaching children a basic moral code or what a democratic society looks like. But I think it can be a very dangerous thing when it starts to model certain political views. We want to teach them about society and citizenship - but I think there is a very fine line between information and indoctrination. We need to be careful that our schools don't cross that line. It is impossible to remain completely unbiased, but we have to try our very best.
To be honest, it worries me a little to hear about all of the political influences on our education system. I don't know that it is a good idea that education reform is lumped in with a thousand other policies that may or may not exist for the sole purpose of bettering the image of a certain political party. It seems to me that education should be something that is non-partisan.
But I guess it really isn't that easy, because nothing is black and white. We are always going to have different viewpoints on things, and that is healthy. I only hope that we can refrain from making education a political tool and continue to focus on what is important: the students.
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