A ninth grade world geography teacher mentioned while teaching that he believes the moon landing to be a hoax.
KidSthrnAccent says the teacher (a coach) taught the correct particulars but mentioned in passing that he believes it to be a hoax or conspiracy because of the way the flag waved. The kids apparently took a shot at debunking the conspiracy but where pretty much told something along the lines of, “I’m teaching you what I am supposed to, I just mentioned that I think was a conspiracy, so we could say we got their first.”
When KSA finished telling us, I told him I would phone the school in the morning. He’ asked me not to, on the grounds “It’s no big deal, everyone (the kids) knows it wasn’t a conspiracy and I’d be embarrassed.”
What would you do?
A
P.S. KSA is a student athlete so he has the coach for a class and for football. Also no need to debunk his theory, I’ve already printed the threads that apply.
His job is to teach, not to impart his hair-brained conspiracy theories to innocent and impressionable minds. The official curriculum states that there was a moon landing, so that’s what he teaches. Telling kids it was a government conspiracy as evidenced by poor science is nothing more than an opinion, and one he should keep to himself.
If I was a teacher, I would still think that phys ed is a major waste of time that could be better spent learning, but that’s not an opinion I’d share with my students. I’d think that uniforms should be optional, despite school policies, but that’s not an opinion that I’d share with students. No one is saying he can’t have an opinion, but there are some opinions that you just don’t voice in a classroom when you’re employed to teach.
I personally don’t believe that the moon landing was a hoax, but it’s not like he’s teaching them that it is. He just said that that is what he thinks. Do you want your son to have teachers with no opinions at all? Are you trying to teach your son to have no opinions but yours? He’s in high school and pretty soon he’ll be out in the real world on his own. If he’s never exposed to any opinions except those that you hold then he’ll never think for himself. Of course, if the teacher were airing opinions that could somehow harm your chlild, it would be a different story altogether. However, now is the time to teach your son to consider the opinions of others and, if he believes they are wrong, to respectfully disagree. That won’t happen if he sees you calling the school and ranting and raving over something that he doesn’t by your account seem inclined to believe anyway.
If the teacher grades the student on an erroneous statement, such as the moon landing being a hoax, that’s one thing. But if it’s an opinion, I would let it go.
But, I would ask to be kept informed by the student about what other stuff this teacher believes to be true and untrue.
My FATHER was a science writer covering the moon shots for the newspaper in Philly at the time. If it WAS a hoax, then- WHERE THE HELL WAS MY FATHER WHEN I WAS GROWING UP???
Okay, seriously? Your son is in a sticky situation. If this man was NOT his coach and all, I might encourage you to pursue this more vigorously. However, since the coach mentioned his clearly demented ideas in passing and won’t be formulating half the Mid-Term out of them, I’d let it go also.
It’s scary but harmless. It DOES make one wonder what else he’s played fast and loose with. Has KidSthrnAccent mentioned any other anomalies in terms of what this person has imparted unto him?
It’s not a teacher’s job to issue opinions, it’s his job to teach facts and skills.
My high school Ethics teacher, upon asking for criticism from his students at the end of the year, said that the fact that students had “complained” that he had not shared his own opinions on all the Philosophical Stuff was the best compliment he ever received.
I was trying to make a point through the previous flip comment, but then I thought about how little this comes across on the Boards, so I’ll be more direct:
Go back and look at the people who argue for these types of things on the boards. Now maybe they’re just trolls, but then see if they don’t often have some other eccentric points of view. What if they had just studied WWII and then he let slip with a comment like: “That’s what I have to teach, but in my personal opinion the Holocaust never happened.” Would you then call the school? Teachers and coaches are looked up to by students and will influence their thoughts. Maybe not your son’s, but someone’s. If he wants to have his theories, fine, let him come on the Boards and debate. But don’t sit idly by while somebody potentially poisons the minds of your community’s children.
Thanks everyone. I appreciate your comments. Comments from both sides make sense.
I’m leaning towards making the call, but putting it off because KidSthrnAccent is sure that the phone call will lead to trouble for him in football practice. I am concerned that if I call the school over this, KSA won’t share odd tidbits like this in the future.
Thanks again for taking the time to reply with your thoughts.
Hey, that’s nothing. My junior high school science teacher (also a coach) made us watch a couple of creationist videos, told us that we could get AIDS if a junkie spit on us, and told us that men have one less rib than women do. I spent most of my time in there with my head in my hands, sobbing quietly to myself. (Oh yeah, he also told us that humans were “not animals”.)
I was too little and too scared to stand up for what I knew to be right then, but I sure wish someone had dealt with that guy. I’d say call the school.
The statements of authority figures should be 100% correct (and usually are except in a rare instance like this).
It’s wrong to have an opinion that is out of step with the vast majority of others.
The approved school curriculum is full of indisputable facts.
Going over someone’s head is an appropriate way to deal with a person with whom you disagree.
Sharing the events of his life with his parent may incur negative consequences.
I actually don’t see what the teacher did that was so wrong. He taught the subject manner properly then stated his opinion. He engaged the students in a debate about his opinion. After the debate, he reiterated that it was just his opinion. This seems like a good learning experience to me.
If you are going to call, you should make sure of two things:
That his “moon landing hoax” statement was an actual statement of his beliefs, and not an attempt to get the students to think critically.
That you can prove irrefutably that the moon landings were not a hoax.
Have to agree with FortMarcy, well on everything except the last line of the post. No-one can prove everything they believe in, life is just too complicated. I believe that my TV receives TV broadcasts, but I can’t prove it because I know squat about TV technology. I just have to trust the people who tell me that’s how it works. So far I have seen nothing that suggests I should doubt them.
But otherwise FortMarcy has it absolutely right. You’re just going to embarrass your son. His coach is an idiot and wrong, but he has a right to be that. As long as he’s not putting this idea forward as fact and your son is allowed to disagree, and say that he disagrees and why, then you really don’t have anything to complain about. However, if he made a habit of coming out with unproven theories, you’d be right to question his teaching and request he sticks to facts he’s qualified to teach.
Look at it this way; your son has learnt a valuable lesson. Sometimes the people in charge don’t know better than you.
The reason I think you should complain is because I consider the word of a teacher to carry more weight than ordinary people. I think they’re more likely to have an influence for good or for bad, and so they should be careful about what kind of influence they have. Encouraging young people to believe that the government is capable of massive conspiracies and working against the public is not healthy. I have no problem with the kids finding out about these things and making their own minds up, but I don’t think a responsible teacher should raise the issue in class.
AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
Why must everything be sanitized, PC, monitored, etc.
HONESTLY. What the HELL is wrong with this guy having an opinion? When did individuality become bad? When did an opinion become not just a stupid OPINION, which if I remember correctly is free speech and supposedly protected?
Who has the right to appoint themselves the thought police?
-OK. Taking my meds now…no more of that…
One post mentioned that the teacher should not have encouraged the students to believe that the government is capable of mass conspiracies etc. First of all, the teacher didnt encourage them to believe anything, according to the OP. Secondly, ummm… yeah. The govt IS capable of conspiracy. The question is whether or not there WAS a conspiracy, no?
This guy got the students THINKING and DEBATING.
VOLUNTARILY. In this day and age, anyone who can do that
is a damn good teacher, IMO.
These are high schoolers, who are old enough to formulate and evaluate opinions. Unless, of course, we dumb everthing down to the point where they dont have a chance to do so. Were about to turn these individuals out into the real world, where-gasp-people have various opinions!!
Lastly, I do agree that OP mother should keep an eye on the guy, to make sure that he’s not getting too “out there.”
However, if you decide to call the school on this one, might as well forget hearing about anything else this character says, because it might be the LAST time your son confides anything in you. I think at this age, he has rights, too.
with this line of reasoning, you better take the kid out of school, isolate him from his peers, don’t allow him to watch TV or go to church-- shit! you better lock him in a closet and only allow him to experiance the world through you!
seriously- the teacher in the original post seems to have expressed his opinion and the kids seemed to dismiss it and have formed thier own on the subject. sounds like all is well, to me. a free exchange of ideas in a place of learning.
p.s.-- i had to take geography from our schools coach. what a joke! his only words of wisdom were this: “stay away from the tank. everybody likes to shoot at the tank!”
It seems like more teachers should opine in this manner. It may encourage critical thinking.
Let’s see what seems to have happened. Your child told you about it. That indicates your child thought he/she should check another source to see if it was nonsense. It also sounds as if the rest of the children didn’t believe him and were trying to debunk it by doing some research. These are all GOOD things.
Your child may grow up to be a scientist or a newspaper reporter.
I agree in principle with the idea that contacting the school wouldn’t really help, and that your kid has dealt with it from HIS point of view, but for me, I’d be really tempted to contact the school and ask if this guy could prove to me that people have gone to the North Pole. Not just show pictures, or accounts, or movies. PROVE it. Or to prove that we’ve gone to the bottom of the Marianas Trench. Or to Leavenworth, Kansas. Wherever. Have him prove that Greenland exists.
I had a high school chemistry teacher (in the early 70’s) who insisted that the “New Math” (an approach to teaching early math that began by introducing the concepts of set theory before diving into arithmetic) that had been introduced into the grade school curricula around hte country was actually a communist plot. He claimed that the idea was to “subvert our system of logical values” so that “when the Big Lie came”, we’d be defenseless. He could go on for 20 minutes at a time about the supposed illogic of statements like “the empty set is a subset of every set”. I can still remember his rant: “If you went to the supermarket and asked for a dozen oranges, and they put eleven oranges into the bag, and you said, ‘Where’s the 12th orange?’, and they said ‘it’s the empty set’, would you stand for it? NO!”
A fruitcake? Maybe. But he still taught a pretty competent chemistry class, and more than one of us from that class went on to careers in the sciences. So were we harmed by his eccentric views? I don’t think so. If anything, discussing and debunking them was a good opportunity to refine our own sense of the relation between math and science.
So, would I call the school about Coach Moon-Man? No. But I would view it as an excellent opportunity to engacge your son in a discussion about reasonable and crackpot theories, about informed and uninformed discourse, about expert and unqualified spokesmenm and how to tell the difference, and why sometimes it can be hard to tell which is which.
The teacher may honestly believe that the missions were hoaxed, but he shouldn’t be teaching opinion as fact. I think it would be great if it were brought up as a critical thinking issue! But that’s not what it sounds like to me.
