Teachers and Their Political Opinions

      Many people believe that school teachers should keep their political opinions away from the classroom, and I completely agree with this. There are a couple of teachers in my high school who love to try and force their views on students. Mr. Parker is one of the worst. Last semester I took a financial literacy class from him. I don’t think that is a class that has much to do with politics, but it seems like that’s all he ever talked   .
Financial literacy is a required class for students to take in order to graduate. I think that there is a very good reason for that. Our country is generally not very smart when it comes to money. There are many people who are in debt and are struggling with other financial problems. I think it’s a good idea to become aware and informed of these problems at an early age.
It may sound crazy, but I was actually excited to take financial literacy. I knew that there were a lot of things that I would learn in that class that would be directly applicable to my everyday life. I’ve had Mr. Parker before, and I was a little disappointed when I found out he would be my teacher for financial literacy. I knew from experience that he has a difficult time staying on topic. Especially if the topic can be somewhat tied into politics. I decided that I would stay in the class because I didn’t think he could mess it up too bad.
On the first day of school he announced to our class that this was the first time he’d ever taught financial literacy. He told us he would be learning right along with us as he taught. That was when I became weary that I wouldn’t learn everything I wanted to in that class. Then a couple of weeks into the semester he announced that if he were to give himself a grade on teaching, he’d give himself a “C”. He handed out booklets that had about 9 units in them. By the end of the class we had only gone through four of them.
The reason it took us so long to get through the units was because we weren’t spending classes talking about financial literacy. We were spending them by talking about Mr. Parker’s political opinions. I don’t think my teacher did this intentionally. He would always try to begin our classes with something financial, but he could never stay on that topic for long.
When he talked about politics he could be very degrading. He would often blame our generation for things that were wrong. I remember a certain day being particularly bad. We had all turned in our notes the class before, and he told us to go pick them up. All of the notes were in binders and stacked up against a wall. While we were all trying to find our own binders a girl accidentally knocked the pile over. The girl and a couple of students quickly helped pick the binders up, but Mr. Parker became angry. He hadn’t seen who knocked the pile down and decided to yell at the whole class. He told us that we were all lazy and selfish, our parents are losers for making us this way, and that we’re what’s wrong with this country.
I don’t think he should have yelled those things at a class of high schoolers. I lost a lot of respect for him that day and I personally think that people like him is what’s wrong with this country. Of course I would never actually say that to him, it would be tacky and offensive.  I understand that having political views and opinions are important in our country and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having them. I believe students should be able to form their own opinions rather than have teachers force their’s upon them. It would make more sense to talk politics if I were in one of Mr. Parker’s government or history classes, but I’m in his financial literacy class.
It’s hard to come up with a solution to this specific problem. I know that my high school will occasionally have the principal and other teachers come into different classrooms to observe. I don’t think this method is very helpful in this situation. Mr. Parker will be careful to stick to the curriculum and the topic of financial literacy if he knows he’s being observed. One possible way to solve the problem is if students would recognize what’s going on and go talk to the principal or a counselor. If the faculty were aware of what’s going on they would be willing to help and to talk with Mr. Parker. I think Mr. Parker is a good guy and would be willing to change if he realized what was going on and how little we were learning about financial literacy.
If I sign up for a math class I want to learn about math. I think anyone would be upset if a math teacher never taught math but taught about nouns, verbs, and adjectives instead. It is the same thing with Mr. Parker’s financial literacy class. I know that once in a while students think it’s fun to get a teacher off topic so that they won’t have homework. I enjoy this too, but it becomes ridiculous when it’s every single day.
I don’t know much about how to keep a budget or how to write a check, but I do know almost everything Mr. Parker feels is wrong with the United States of America. I think teachers should keep their politics away from school. Political views should be learned for oneself in a setting that isn’t school. I believe that knowing financial information will get me a lot further in life than knowing what political party my teacher belongs to.