Politics in the Classroom

Now that America's Presidential election is over (finally), I felt like it would be interesting to look back at how the process of the election played out in my English 225 classroom. While the precense of the upcoming election was definitely felt in all of my classes, I experienced much more discussion and learning about the election and each candidate in my English class.

In my opinion, there are both great values and significant constraints to political discussion in the classroom. Let's start with what I think are the best parts of talking politics in class. Over the last two months of class my knowledge and understanding of each Presidential candidate and the entire election process probably quadrupled. My knowledge grew through a variety of different activities and assignments in class: We constantly discussed the debates and campaigns throughout the class, we needed to maintain these wonderful blogs every week, and also had to write an essay supporting the platform of both sides of an important, current event (I chose the positions of Barack Obama and John McCain on Pre-conditions before negotiating with Iran).

Through this constant immersion within the political world on a weekly basis, I learned far more about every issue than I would have had I simply researched every topic on my own. I was also given the opportunity to hear the opinions of my classmates through the papers and discussion which was a unique experience. How many other chances do you get to participate with a group of highly educated college students in discussing such a vast variety of political fodder. I was educated on our health care situation, the debate over the morality and legality of abortion, the war in Iraq, and more during my many discussions over our papers and I took that education with me to the voting booth.

However, there is of course a downside to so much learning stemming from discussion in class. Everyone brings their own personal political biases to class and this places a serious constraint on discussion. Sometimes it is hard to tell whether somebody is trying to sway you to their side of the political spectrum or is really speaking the truth.

With that in mind, others do not feel safe enough to actually speak their true feelings about a political subject. In the classroom, it feels necessary to be as politically correct as possible while not trying to offend anybody. Obviously, many political subjects are very tricky and potentially distressing for some, so saying the wrong thing could be very awkward in class. Rather than being able to have an open, comfortable conversation as you would at home with friends, discussions in class have to be very confined and straight-forward.

Overall, despite the potential biases or constraints on political discussion in the classroom, I am very happy that we took the time to delve into politics during this historic campaign period. In my opinion, there is no chance I would have been as educated or informed on every important subject before the election which may have altered my vote. I think that in the future, smallish classes like my English class (usually about 15-18 people) should definitely at least try to talk politics in the class, even if it means trying extra hard to avoid stepping on anybody's toes.