hiplikebrando

A complaint that I have heard from many is that public schools promote Political Correctness(no religion, keeping everything neutral, not offending certain people in ways we may not think of...)which is a controversial idea to me. This got me thinking...

The whole idea of political correctness is to keep everyone happy so we can all "coexist." But, many people do not like political correctness. So wouldn't it be politically incorrect to teach political correctness in schools because people would be offended by it? Is it ok to not have any politcal correctness?

In my current academic career I have attended both private and public schools. The only difference in political correctness to me is that...
In public schools, I feel as though teachers have a PC overlooker(metaphoric) and have to be constantly double checking certain things they may say or do(especially administration) in order to stay PC. Should they offend someone it could result in public backlash and even lawsuites etc.

Private on the other hand is a quite different experience. There is open praying in non-religion classes and religion(4 years) is a required class to graduate. I actually had read the politically incorrect guide to American History for my US history class! Teachers in private schools are not hampered by PC, but many choose to follow it and don't pray or have any religion. The only draw back of course is that someone may get offended. If that happens that private schools can always say,"well go to public school."

Another question would be then... Who is more in the right, the Public School that keeps a quite strict PC (in my experience) or the private schools where PC is much more of a choice by teachers and administration?

I know theres lots of questions... kind of a broad topic here.

SomeGuy

Hell no. Teaching political correctness will just create more idiots crying about how you saying Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian-American, please.

Big Lewbowski references aside, teaching political correctness will NOT have the desired effect of students becoming offended by the idea of being PC. They'll most likely embrace it. Or maybe that's just here in California...

Sydor

Reminds me of that Russian joke: "They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work".
Quite applicable in the classroom. Met both Professors and Students who were bean bag communists in the classroom and especially in papers but in discussion groups were obviously the opposite and inclined towards the right.

tjadams

Teachers are called upon to teach a narrow line as it is & be the student's parent. We don't need one more thankless job to attempt.

corrocamino

When society in general makes little if any distinction between "education" and indoctrination....

"God created an idiot for practice. Then He created school boards." -- Mark Twain

vera

Some Russian minister or other has once said: "we wanted to do what is best, and ended up doing as always" (хотели, как лучше, а получилось, как всегда),

Political Correctness does not exist in order to satisfy PC. It's goal is to minimize disrespect. So if a school (and mostly a society) teaches respect - there is no need to put any emphasis in teaching or not teaching PC, is there?

Lord_of_Gauda

'Respect' is highly overrated. Respect teaches people to be cattle - to react to certain trigger-words (such as 'elders', 'religion', 'family',etc.) with the 'i am not going to critique this/think on this- i am going to tote the party-line on this' type of mindless behaviour to kids. Respect simply establishes and enforces 'no-go zones' to kids thinking process.

Civility and critical thinking are far more important for a developing mind.
To teach a kid to question everything and only accept something if it makes logical sense or sense on some sort of value-based system is far more of a service to the kids than indoctrinating them with ideas of respect.

Chookie

I for one don't see why you're making a distinction. Schools (of all types) are - or should be - there to awaken interest and to develop the ability to think.

Rasta

Absolutely, and since we can't force parents to teach critical thinking skills, we must shift our focus to damage mitigation. Political correctness.

I feel for you TJ, I really do. My mother is a teacher as well. It is a thankless job at times. People in modern society don't like to accept responsibility for their actions. They want to have their cake and eat it too.

vera

Here you go again, as for some reason people are wont around here, confusing respect for people with respect for any idea existing on the planet.

No, respect is highly UNDERRATED. It simply establishes the limits of your freedom and that of others so that you do not infringe on each other. It is a SOCIAL concept. And it IS a value-based system.

It does NOT imply that you refrain from criticizing ideas or that you in any way limit the development of thinking processes.