Politics in Our Classrooms: How Much is Too Much?

The president’s office, Chinese relations, Russia’s supposed impediment, and Big-tech bring in a vast amount of talking points for students at the School. Many students bring different political views into class, and want to talk about these page-jumping headlines. 

One of the issues proposed by students is that teachers have biased grading to students that have different political ideologies?

One sophomore student says, “I don’t know if there is a teacher that leans right.”

A research report published by the Journal of Curriculum Theorizing shows that a teacher’s political views have little influence on their students, by comparing different kids, who have different political views with their respective grades. However, students at the School propose that there is bias in subjective grading. 

“There is 100% bias in politics with the teachers,” one sophomore remarked. 

Many students believe essays are graded with political bias, with some going as far as to manipulate political views for higher graders, one junior stated, “I have changed my views for every single essay I’ve written.” 

This begs the question: should students and teachers bring politics into the classroom?

A small survey conducted at the School, which included two members of each grade and upper school teachers, concluded that students want to learn, and more importantly how to form a fact-based opinion. 

“They should be taught under the conditions of how to have political opinions and proper sources, [and] be unbiased,” one student said. 

Every student and teacher surveyed said that teachers should not impose and push their own political agenda to their students. One teacher said, “Teachers have to be careful about not imposing their political opinions.” 

With high-flying news stories like presidential elections, COVID-19, and abortion laws, critical thinking is an essential skill when making level-headed daily decisions. 

Per the School’s students, unequal treatment, with respect to grading, can expand towards other areas of student life, like confidence and creativity is extremely important to give the tools to young adults to formulate opinions without bias on part of grading by teachers.