I also disagree with you that being a thirteen year old who respects and absorbs the words of an older and wiser educator constitutes being a “weak-minded sap”.

No need to disagree, I was merely sarcastically rephrasing what I perceived to be your argument about your peers. I also don’t think that kids of that age are weak-minded saps, as the rest of my comment made clear. (Although I do think it is short-sighted for any parent to teach a child that “the words of an older and wiser educator” should be absorbed uncritically.)

Your vision seems to be one of chaos where children randomly find individuals or specific teachers to “tie down their rebellion”.

Nothing random about it. Children/teens have a propensity to either rebel or not which is based on their relationship with their parents more than anything else: do they identify with their parents’ choices and aspirations, or do they find them jarring and doubtful?

Do the parents conform with the “respectable” community, or are they non-conformists? If non-conformists, do they belong to a supportive subculture, or are they isolates? All these aspects of the parents’ relationship with the community as well as their empathy with their own child and the child’s trust and respect for them will influence whether a child rebels against their parents or not, and whether they rebel against the community norm or not. That in turn strongly influences which teachings they will find attractive/convincing.

You are obscuring the broader issue: teachers as a whole have an influence.

Teachers have influence on those students who want to listen to them. They don’t create that wish out of thin air.

Tigtog, did I say that I was unaffected or unmalleable? I too caught myself inadvertedly forming left-wing opinions based on incomplete and partial information delivered to me by my teachers. I think that that is a normal response. I also disagree with you that being a thirteen year old who respects and absorbs the words of an older and wiser educator constitutes being a “weak-minded sap”.

“Most high school kids in my experience tend to react to their parents more than their teachers”

I don’t think that either of us can fairly quantify which of parents or teachers have a greater influence on children. This is entirely subjective and varies between individuals. School may be the primary or sole means of political influence/education for some students. Your vision seems to be one of chaos where children randomly find individuals or specific teachers to “tie down their rebellion”. Yes, this may occur in some cases but if you think that this is the common practise regarding political affiliation in high school then you are going too far. You are obscuring the broader issue: teachers as a whole have an influence.

Also, sorry for taking this long to reply. I didn’t realise anyone would reply to my post

There’s also a strong distinction to be made between large social movements such as politics and religion, and personal inspirations to follow a certain career. Teachers can be enormously influential regarding the latter, but in the former, as Paul says, they can only water the seeds that others have already planted.

Politics and religion may be large social movements, but they are also career choices for some as well, even if it is commonly only for a few years. Effective teachers can have a very strong influence on students,
good or bad depending on your point of view.

The fundamentals do have to be there (watering the seeds), but this also is true for careers as well.

There’s also a strong distinction to be made between large social movements such as politics and religion, and personal inspirations to follow a certain career. Teachers can be enormously influential regarding the latter, but in the former, as Paul says, they can only water the seeds that others have already planted.

I would agree with tigtog. If a high school teacher touches a responsive chord with a student about a political issue, it will almost certainly be a case of accidentally watering a seed that has been planted by someone else, earlier in the student’s life and/or outside the schooling context.

Why would teachers be less effective at influencing students on political issues than they are expected to be on issues such as say behavioural issues? Teachers are often credited with inspiring students into certain areas - is it really the case that it would have happened anyway and teachers have little influence?

And my first experience of political bias in teaching was in Grade 3, when our teacher stated in quite intense tones that we had to be involved in the Vietnam War because if we didn’t the communists would flood down from the north and “overtake us”. The next year we had a teacher in Grade 4 who subsequently stood for a Federal election as a candidate for the Democratic Labor Party. I don’t recall any efforts to spare us kids from the actual (in one case) or potential (in the other) political bias of these two individuals.

Or did those other students just come to a different conclusion based on different premises?

Most high school kids in my experience tend to react to their parents more than their teachers when it comes to politics, religion and much else - they either generally follow their parents’ line or absolutely rebel, and in either case it’s because of parent-child dynamics, not parent-teacher dynamics. The rebellious child may find a teacher to whom to tie their rebellion, but that would still happen even if there were only one flippant left-wing teacher in a school of conservative teachers - it’s not caused by the teacher, it’s caused by the family dynamics.

It takes a few years away from home before most people truly make adult decisions about major matters where huge differences of opinion exist.

adrian, it’s a worry if Young Libs can have that effect on you. I’d suggest a cold shower, but not having visited their website, I can’t be sure they’re not advocating those ’special’ Finnish cold showers in the snow with plenty of ……

ummm {sorry}

I remember Howard on a Hypotheticals program arguing that the Gallipoli story shouldn’t be over analyzed because it was such an important foundational stroy for Australia.

That’s right. Whatever you do don’t mention the genocide. Robert Manne did once but I think they took him round the back and shot him he got away with it.

I congratulate the Young Libs for sharing this info with a wider audience to promote safer sex and therefore making education fairer. Or something.

Warning: Not necessarily work friendly.

I remember Howard on a Hypotheticals program arguing that the Gallipoli story shouldn’t be over analyzed because it was such an important foundational stroy for Australia. (It was the 80s but I don’t think his historical approach really changed.)

Maybe that Catholic “liberal arts” college that’s been such a success in Sydney? Western Civ, Cardinal Pell approved curriculum, etc.

I’d actually like a traditional Humanities academy in Australia. Not all of them. But at least one. There’s good stuff in old books. The above could be really good with a little editing.
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Just change Western Civ to Civilization and remove everything that comes afterward.

The government should introduce some sort of affirmative action policy to increase the number of right wing students at universities.

This is the key. This must be the policy. In fact demand it now. We need to ensure that the political spectrum is porportionally represented. In every discipline.
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We need to make sure that people who want to read history read marketing for the good of society. And people who want to read marketing must study the data viz Ettienne de Coucy’s days after the siege of Constantinople, as the Sultan’s prisoner, in the opening years of the 15th century.
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They must spend their lives in this pursuit. Society can only be benefit from wasting money producing people who’re both useless and unhappy.

The government should introduce some sort of affirmative action policy to increase the number of right wing students at universities.

Tick. Howard did. Full fee paying places in Law Schools for domestic students.