Teachers: how do you deal with pint-sized preachers and politicos?

In My Humble Opinion
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Inspired by this thread: have you ever had students innocently try to prselytize to you? What about try to talk politics with you? How did you handle it?

I know I was a terror on the political end of things when I was a teenager. I’d ask my teachers whether they were Democrat or Republican, and if they gave an answer I didn’t like, I’d chastize them. No good–but I honestly didn’t realize that it was inappropriate. Fortunately I didn’t have strong religious leanings, and wasn’t about to proselytize.

What do you do when kids do this?
Daniel

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Generally speaking, I tell the student that we’re getting off subject and pull them back to the topic at hand. Occasionally, if there’s time, I let them discuss to their hearts’ content. The kids are always asking me what my political views are, but I try really, really hard not to give them away. I’m an authority figure, I tell them. I don’t want their views skewed because they’re fear me or they’re trying to please me.

If I’m feeling really mean, then I start playing devil’s advocate and ask them all sorts of pointed questions that call whatever their views are into question. With eighth graders, it’s really not that hard. They tend to be passionate, but not that well informed.

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I used to always tell students that discussing politics was inappropriate in the classroom. There’s a time and place for different types of discussions, and that it would be inappropriate for me to say anything one way or another advocating a political position, because it could easily lead to controversies we couldn’t resolve on class time and perhaps have no resolution. (I didn’t use that exact wording :wink: )

The same went for religion, which certainly has no place in the science classroom.

I suppose the most difficult was a student who consistently tried to convince me she had telekinetic powers. I referred her to see me outside of class and we discussed it and anecdotal vs. scientific evidence. She was a little bit daunted when I asked her to show me.

For the record, I taught science to a variety of grades (4th to 8th mostly). Very rarely had any sort of problem with this.

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My course focuses on non-fiction and argumentation, so I bend over backward trying to get kids to debate controversial subjects.

I give the kids credit on their participation grades for hosting after school discussion groups on current issues: we’ve had several this year regarding politics, as well as stereotypes, gay rights, colleges–they get really involved.

We simply don’t have time in class to get off topic and have these sorts of debates–I already have every day between now and Christmas planned–so when they begin to bubble up I say “Gee, that sounds really interesting. Why don’t you host a disscussion group about that?”

I don’t generally participate except to keep things orderly if the discussion group leaders aren’t managing it.

I have a class message board, where again kids debate things. I will participate there, but only to ask pointed questions of people on both sides of the issue–mostly “Interesting. Where did this fact come from?”

Religion discussions are different because my school is so unbelievably diverse–our “PTA parents” set is about half Jewish, half Protestant, and has been for the last 30 years, so there is not a lot of tension between the two groups. We also have a signifigant Muslim population, both Bosnian Muslims (who are pretty secular, by and large) and people from various middle eastern countries, some of whom are very secular but others of whom arevery devout. On top of that, the school’s half hispanic, so there’s a large Catholic population, and we also have a signifigant West African–often by way of the UK–population. They tend to be secular, or at least religion doesn’t come up.

Personally, the kids know that I am No Bush Fan and that I am, myself, secular in nature (I will confess to avoiding “agnostic” or “athiest”), but considering how much they talk to me about all these issues, I think I have succeeded in creating an enviroment where my views aren’t seen as the official ones.