Grading and politics

[eriehiker]

I think that teachers AND students need to be a lot more pragmatic right now.

People are going to have their positions on things. However, courses like government/civics teach a system in which people support their ideas and then work within that system to achieve goals.

One of the problems with populist Republicans - not conservative, btw - is that there is a tendency to not want to work within the system. I think that it is beyond the bounds of a government class to discuss storming buildings and calling for execution of political opponents. I teach a high school civics class and almost everybody is on board with this. However, I do have one student who simply opposes everything just because he has no interest in working within the system. I work well with him and allow him to state his position, but there is a point at which I have to cut him off because he drives everybody in the room nuts and he would talk for the full hour if allowed to do that.

We have a very pragmatic system with near-constant checks and balances. That said, people need to work within the system.