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when i teach, i am careful about this.
i don't think it helps anything to operate from an explicit political position--so while i make it clear in general where i'm coming from (because it puts the students in a position to be critical about the information that i am transmitting, to make their own readings of the material) i don't typically have direct discussions about stuff like presidential candidates unless the students decide that they want to have that discussion.
if that happens, i am clear about where i stand, but am more interested in questions than statements. i don't have any problem pushing students to articulate and defend where they're at.
but teaching seems to me more about getting students to think for themselves and helping them get the skills required to do that.
so i'm quite different in my approach than i am here.
that said, i don't believe in value-neutrality--i think the political predispositions folk bring to the table surface even if they're pretending they don't. and if that's not explicit, not something that students can go after as a problem, they you're telling them what to think, that they have to agree with you, even as you're pretending to yourself that you're doing the opposite.
so it's a balancing act the nature of which runs way beyond whether you do or don'twear a button.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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