MrAcheson
Member
Keep in mind the teacher is the authority figure in the classroom. Do not question their authority, demean them, or belittle them. This will simply brand you as a trouble maker and the institution of public education will rally to the teachers defense on principle. The teacher needs their authority to be able to manage the behavior in their classroom and all teachers and administrators know that.
Try to ask good leading questions. Get together with other like-minded students. Its much harder to dismiss something outright when you are not the lone class nutjob. Recognize the teachers authority and be sensitive to their needs as a teacher and also to other members of the classroom, but be firm.
Try to get into the higher level classrooms (honors, advanced, AP, whatever). The teachers tend to be better and also tend to tolerate more discussion, etc. because they and the students can handle it.
Some Anecdotes from a decade ago when I was in Public School:
I remember in 11th grade AP english my teacher (left-wing ex-nun feminazi fruitcake) and I were talking in a small group one day. She said something along the lines of "I know you don't like me very much" and I replied with "yeah, but I'm not going to be a jerk about it." She was one of the worst english teachers I have ever had, but not because she was an uber-liberal.
One of the best english teachers I had ever was my 12th grade AP english teacher (50+ year old gay man). He loved discussion in his class. Once he found out I was a conservative christian, he would call on me to offer a counter argument to the liberal kids in my class. Very seldomly would he interject his own politics unless we specifically asked him what he thought. Yeah he was a left winger, but he was much more interested in getting his students interested in learning than evangelizing them to some political doctrine.
On the other hand my brother who has a much bigger problem with authority than I do, had shouting matches with the former teacher regularly and wasn't much better with the latter. Why? Because he tends to be a jerk about it.
Try to ask good leading questions. Get together with other like-minded students. Its much harder to dismiss something outright when you are not the lone class nutjob. Recognize the teachers authority and be sensitive to their needs as a teacher and also to other members of the classroom, but be firm.
Try to get into the higher level classrooms (honors, advanced, AP, whatever). The teachers tend to be better and also tend to tolerate more discussion, etc. because they and the students can handle it.
Some Anecdotes from a decade ago when I was in Public School:
I remember in 11th grade AP english my teacher (left-wing ex-nun feminazi fruitcake) and I were talking in a small group one day. She said something along the lines of "I know you don't like me very much" and I replied with "yeah, but I'm not going to be a jerk about it." She was one of the worst english teachers I have ever had, but not because she was an uber-liberal.
One of the best english teachers I had ever was my 12th grade AP english teacher (50+ year old gay man). He loved discussion in his class. Once he found out I was a conservative christian, he would call on me to offer a counter argument to the liberal kids in my class. Very seldomly would he interject his own politics unless we specifically asked him what he thought. Yeah he was a left winger, but he was much more interested in getting his students interested in learning than evangelizing them to some political doctrine.
On the other hand my brother who has a much bigger problem with authority than I do, had shouting matches with the former teacher regularly and wasn't much better with the latter. Why? Because he tends to be a jerk about it.
