Indoctrination anybody?
Greetings,
It has been a busy day for me today. Here is another Q-and-A session.
Classmate C asks:
“Here’s a question….should we indoctrinate our students or not? How do you make sense of this question?”
From my understanding, I believe that indoctrination of a student would be “pounding of a certain belief or set of beliefs into their head” (for lack of a better way to describe it). To answer your question I believe that it is our job to do so, but also to not do so. Let me explain.
We, as teachers, should not indoctrinate our students to believe everything we (or the government, special interests, etc) think, believe, etc. If we were to do this, and do it well, would it even be possible to make society “more just”, assuming that is your goal? I would say no, since I know that I am biased in some ways and probably don’t know how biased I am in some other ways. I suppose what I am trying to say the most is that if we indoctrinate our students toward some vested interest, then we aren’t going to make society better, but rather worse.
On the other hand, we need to indoctrinate our students to some extent. By this I am referring that we (as a majority) want our students to “think critically”. I would call that process of teaching them, indoctrination. It is the “pounding of a certain belief or set of beliefs into their head.” Also along with this, we will probably “rub off” on them, transmitting some of our beliefs and values to them.
I would say that according to me, indoctrination is necessary, but I guess there is a fine line where indoctrination becomes unacceptable.
