24. BREAKING THE CODE OF POLITICAL SILENCE - On Why Teachers Ought To Share Their Political Beliefs With Their Students

Elections are a strange time to be a teacher. The most significant political event in the country is happening all around us, dominating the headlines of every news outlet and the conversations of most staff-rooms and, understandably, students are curious to know our thoughts.

“Sir,” they ask me, “who are you going to vote for?”

The same way they always ask me, as an RE teacher, what my religious beliefs are. Or as their Philosophy teacher which theory of mind I think is the best. In those other situations I am happy to tell them my views. If I am asking them to share their religious beliefs with their class and myself each RE lesson, the least I can do is do the same when asked by them. If I am asking them to evaluate the ideas we are discussing in philosophy classes, it makes sense they will want to see me doing the same thing.

Yet, for some reason, we teachers are not supposed to make our political beliefs overtly known to our students. The argument goes something like this:

1) Being a teacher puts you in a position of authority: students listen to what you have to say. In most classroom cases, students not only listen, but follow your advice, as you are the perceived authority on the issue.

2) If a teacher, therefore, shared their political allegiances with their students, they would have undue influence on that student’s political thinking. A teacher telling their classes they support Party X, for example, has the potential to indoctrinate their students into similar support.

3) Therefore a teacher should not tell their students who they are voting for in an election.

Personally I take great issue with this idea. Because,

4) Teachers have a duty to not only teach their subject content to their students, but to socialise them and facilitate their growth into productive and contributing members of society.

As a result, I would argue,

5) In a democracy it is vital that the citizens of a democratic country are politically engaged, not only with those who share their own beliefs, but with all political views so that a truly informed choice is made at the ballot.

Therefore it is my contention that,

6) A teacher therefore has a duty to model democratic engagement to their students. A teacher not discussing an upcoming election or not having an opinion on the current political situation sends a negative message to their students that political engagement is not important.

And that, furthermore,

7) The more students hear their different teachers’ differing views on the political issues of the day the more likelihood there is of them not being indoctrinated by any one view and being forced to make up their own minds from the range of views they encounter.

And if it happens to be the case that, uniformly, every teacher in the school shares the exact same view of the upcoming election (not that this has ever actually happened in any school I have worked at), then that perhaps sends an important message to the students. Either:

8a) If every teacher shared the exact same view regarding who to vote for then it is highly suggestive, given their levels of education, that perhaps there is only one worthwhile candidate to vote for and the pupils are therefore being correctly socialised.

or

8b) If every teacher shared the exact same view regarding who to vote for then it is highly suggestive some sort of deep bias in that particular school community, or educational class, which in turn educates the students that certain economic or social groups tends to vote similarly, independent of objective facts. Another important lesson for them to learn.

Meaning:

9) Even if 8a or 8b occurs (a very unlikely and rare scenario anyway) there is still important educational value in sharing voting intentions with students.

We are encouraged in many other branches of PSHE and school life to share real life experience with our students and be role models. It is also one of the teacher standards all British teachers are supposed to abide by, in the “personal and professional conduct” section (the same section where this resistance to sharing such things with students actually comes from when it reminds us to ensure “personal beliefs are not expressed in ways which exploit pupils’ vulnerability”), that we are told a teacher ought to uphold the “fundamental British value” of “democracy”.

I do not believe my sharing my personal voting intention with my students exploits their vulnerability any more than their parents or carers equally sharing such intentions with them. Or the many friends of the family who pass through their home and pass comment on the politics of the day. I think it is vital in a functioning democracy that open political discourse takes place all over the place, and believe that teachers are well placed to model such discourse to their pupils and start them on their own political journeys. I absolutely do not think a teacher should say something like “you ought to vote for X or else” or “intelligent people vote Y not Z”, but I do think a teacher sharing their own reasons for voting and who they will be voting for - and listening, in turn, to the scrutiny of their students - would have the following impact on society:

i) A politically engaged youth, entering voting age with experience of political campaigns and political discourse.

ii) The normalisation of political conversation and openness of discussion regarding political differences of opinion, leading to discourse instead of division as the way of solving dispute.

iii) The possibility of adult voters (teachers) hearing from those disenfranchised members of our society unable to vote but still affected by the outcome of elections (students), and therefore being influenced to vote with their interests in mind as well as their own.

iv) An expectation of teachers of the next generation to be politically engaged citizens who can model and pass on what it means to be a good citizen to their students. (If your students ask you who you are voting for and your ideas aren’t really informed or defendable it would be fairly embarrassing!) This means our teachers modelling political engagement and good citizenry would be the best models.

Leading to my conclusion,

10) As outcomes i-iv are all desirable in a functioning democracy which truly cares about ensuring the continuing function of that democracy, I believe it should be part of a teacher’s job to share their personal voting intentions with their students and discuss, openly, what each election means to them, so that students get to hear from a cross section of society (their teachers, parents, family and friends) and make up their own minds in readiness for the day they turn eighteen and the vote becomes theirs to use.

Author: D.McKee