What do you think of Political Correctness in the Classroom?

Question

I can understand not wanting to offend minorities or women when one is teaching at a college or university. But there are days when I feel like I should be apologizing to the crack addicts, alcoholics and guys who like to copulate with their animals. After all, we don't want to offend anyone, do we? I would never want to be accused of being a crackophobe, alcoholophobe or a bestialophobe. Give me a break! PC has gone crazy in the classroom. Let us restore academic freedom but respect those who need to be respected. What do you think?

I am respecful to my students and would never use demeaning terms in addressing them or make them feel uncomfrtable in my classroom. However, in philosophy, we often discuss what constitutes the good, beautiful and true. That means that we're going to be touching on lifestyles and debating these issues. There are times when I might suggests that certain actions do not lead to human fulfillment. I am not telling students how to live; only offering a different point of view. I might even be critical of drug or alcohol abuse. However, that is my right. I should not have to apoligize for the statements I make.

Answer 1

Okay, I was a very successful teacher for over 20 years and I LOATHED the PC classroom and refused to conform. Political correctness depersonalises the classroom and places distance between teacher and student, which is counterproductive to the educative process. I always placed my comments in the frame of 'my personal view is ......, because .... - what do you think?' and was sure to place the same frame around any responses which pushed the envelope. Human beings are allowed to have opinions in any free society, and to crush the expression of opinion in a 'one-size-fits-all' manner is a dangerous precedent.

This is not to say that offensive opinions which defy logic should not be vigorously challenged by the teacher, or indeed the student.

Answer 2

PC is nuts. However a measure of respect for other people is a good thing, it's just that censoring people's language is not the best way to acheive it... tends to have just the opposite result.

I think that anyone who's in a class should have the right to attend it without having their personal life, race, gender or beliefs unfairly attacked. Even if they do smoke crack or drink too much or sleep with animals. This is because it's totally irrelevant to the classroom. The point of a classroom is to allow people the chance to study and learn, not to insult those who you don't like or agree with their life style/choices/appearance. What gives you the right to judge them as so inferior to you that you should be allowed to make them feel uncomfortable in a classroom environment? What if someone judged you the same way when you were studying?

*edit* Was speaking rhetorically there, not accusing you :)
And what you say is fair enough, provided that there is room for disagreement there - for example in such a discussion I might point out that most of the world's greatest artists, writers, poets, musicians used drugs at one time or another and that without that influence we might not have had that great art.

I don't think you should in any way have to apologize for your opinion, just that in a classroom setting your opinion should probably be voiced in terms that aren't going to insult, hurt or make uncomfortable those of different opinion. If you say that a certain lifestyle might not lead to happiness or might not be the best that's one thing but if you ridicule someone for that lifestyle then that's another. Being the teacher of course means you need to be more careful than the students (although they also need to respect others in that situation).

Answer 3

Most of these subjects should not come up in a classroom unless you are at the college level studying aberrant social behavior or human sexuality. Political correctness is not always an evil thing, although it can be. In a classroom situation, it is important to focus on the subject at hand. Any distraction, especially graphic ones, can allow the class to lose that focus and lose valuable time. Academic freedom has to be balanced with academic discipline. In a classroom situation, your right to free speak ends where the instructor's right to teach begins!

Answer 4

I agree political correctness is over the top. It is easy to have a respectful educated debate or conversation without having
to be politically correct. People who worry about that too much, need to brush up on their communication skills.

Answer 5

P.C. ranks right up there with Affirmative Action, No Child Left Behind and any other suppressive-depressive ideas that come along in this repressive era we are currently trudgeing through.

Answer 6

The same I think of creationism in the classroom. The purpose of an education is to exercise a mind, not bind it!

Answer 7

you should let them have their own opinions...or show them both sides of coin, and why people choose such things...as the great socrates was believed to have said :I know you won't believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others."...even if that means teaching them to question you not to take you completely true or false off the bat but to decide and think for themselves(as most of todays youth im sure they wont have much trouble disregaurding what you say anyways.

Answer 8

for the most part i'm all for freedom of speech,and i don't care if i ruffle a few feathers!
So Political correctness is crap! As it's saying "what you think is ok,but NOT what you truely feel" which is a floored concept straight away.

Answer 9

'Political correctness' anywhere is crap.