ladyliberal
Progressive Princess
- Aug 5, 2011
- 1,253
- 291
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However, if it is one sided, then it is not right. 50/50 seems fair to me, even if the side assigned is not the side the student would prefer. It's good mental exercise to have to argue for a position you disagree with. I had to do that many times in debates in school.
I'm all for balance, but I just don't think that it is practical or necessary in this context. When I was in elementary school we were required as a class assignment to write our Congressman (who happened to be a Republican). I doubt it occurred to our teacher to find us a Democrat that we could write to if we preferred. There wasn't any need. This kind of Fox News scrutiny wouldn't lead to more balance even if Fox News was itself balanced, it will just discourage teachers from effectively teaching about politics at all.
If a teacher wants to teach about politics, don't you think it would be a little more even-handed if the students did their 'investigation' about ALL the candidates?
And exactly how would you feel if the assignment was for every member of the class to 'investigate' Obama and all his connections to domestic terrorists and Marxists? I think we would hear you screaming from coast-to-coast.
There is no reason whatsoever to believe that the students didn't research Obama in this class. Complaining that the class is unbalanced because this assignment only investigated Republicans is like complaining a class teaching arithmetic is unbalanced because one of the assignments focused on addition to the detriment of subtraction.