ELT News Think Tank

Panelists: Chuck | Peter | Marc | Curtis | Chris
Date: April 2005

Topic: "Should a teacher bring his or her politics and religion into the classroom?"

Chris Hunt

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What is wrong with the teacher centred paradigm? Is it wrong because it isn't efficient for learning or because it encourages passivity and dependence?

Curtis told us that the teacher should not impose topics on the students but conversely, should the students be able to impose topics on teachers? Shouldn't there be some way of reaching a consensus? Don't the experience and the perceptions of the teacher count for anything? Should I limit myself to the likes of Toy Story, Ultraman, Deka-Ranger and so on simply because the inner world's of many children have been contaminated, compromised, commercialised, colonised (OK, supply your own adjective if you don't like mine).

I agree that real learning starts with the experience of the learner. Surely one of the roles of the teacher is to introduce learners to new experiences and to new ways of experiencing. If we remain totally with the inner worlds of the students aren't we limiting both the students and ourselves?

One professor I know gives college students free choice in deciding what topics to cover but then insists that critical social analysis is used to look at those topics. I wonder what critical social analysis would make of most text books? There's quite an interesting discussion of sexism in ESL/EFL textbooks here. I hadn't heard of PARSNIPS before. I'm curious that economics isn't included in the list. And I wonder what Israel has done to be the only country so included?

The censorship of the PARSNIPS list is unsurprising and also disagreeable as is the teacher dominated classroom. I think that choice and respect are very important. Bu what would need to happen for learner and learning centred paradigms to truly exist? My guess is that at the very least the situation would need to be voluntary and democratic. But would that be enough? Even A. S. Neill, the founder of Summerhill, the longest running "free" school in the World, thought that, given the relationship between teacher and student, religion and politics should remain outside the classroom.

I think the more the classroom is a classroom the more problematic issues like religion and politics become. But perhaps the real problem is the notion of the classroom itself? To the extent that the notion of classroom is broken down and a community is created with the power to make choices equalised perhaps there is no need for any taboos?

Don't say you are right too often, teacher.
Let the students realise it,
Don't push the truth:
It's not good for it
Listen while you speak!

(Listen While You Speak by Bertolt Brecht)

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Panelists: Chuck | Peter | Marc | Curtis | Chris

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