Your Agenda

I read a Facebook post recently by a school teacher from Tulsa.  Her goal seems to be that she wants to encourage the world to look at these police shootings, including the recent one in Tulsa, through the eyes of the children in her school.

In the post, she explained that the school had some discussion groups to help the students process what happened.  She starts by saying that she picked a news article to read to the students so everyone would be informed about the police shooting in Tulsa.  After this, the students discussed and asked questions.  Some questions were... Why did they have to kill him? Why were they afraid of him? Why does [student] have to live life without a father? What will she do at father/daughter dances? Who will walk her down the aisle? Why did no one help him after he was shot? Hasn't this happened before? Can we write her cards? Can we protest?  What made him a big bad dude? - Was it his height? His size? The color of his skin?  One student comments with... "I wish white people could give us a chance. We can all come together and get along. We can all be united."

Those are some interesting thoughts and questions to consider.  But I have one big problem with this discussion group.  The teacher picked one article about the situation to share with her class.  The TEACHER picked ONE article about the situation to share with her class.  What article did she pick? What details about the shooting were shared in the article?  What details about the shooting were left out?  Did the article share every perspective?  Or was the article skewed toward one single way of thinking? 

I have some questions that I think should be added to the list... Why did the victim stop his car in the middle of the road and leave the doors open?  Why did the police feel so threatened that they had to call in for back up - including a police helicopter?  Why did the victim not listen to the police?  Why did the victim not listen to the police when he had guns pointed at him?  Why was the victim walking away from the police back to his car?  Why did the victim have drugs in his car?  And what about these questions... How is the lady police officer doing?  Is she okay after feeling like she had to take a life in order to protect her fellow officers and herself?

I believe this teacher probably shared an article based on her perspective of how she believed this Tulsa shooting occurred.  Maybe it was intentional - maybe it wasn't.  But either way, it is not her job to influence her students to think like she does.  I know it happens all of the time all over the place.  But teachers are supposed to encourage students to think for themselves, to gather all the facts, to figure things out for themselves, to purse situations from every possible angle.  Teachers are not supposed to encourage students to blindly believe the first piece of news or the first perspective that comes their way.  Teachers are not supposed to teach our students to be singled minded.

This teacher ended up using her students to spread her own agenda.  Whether she intended to or not, that is what she did.  She presented a one-sided perspective and did not challenge her students to look deeper or think for themselves.