Teachers tread path of no harm

Anne Pooler, an associate professor of education at the University of Maine, has always preached the fundamental principle that a teacher should do no harm.

So when she first heard that some Maine teachers might have brought their anti-war beliefs into the classrooms and upset children of recently activated Maine National Guardsmen, she cringed.

“Oh, dear,” she thought, “let’s not go down that path again.”

That path was Vietnam, of course, when American soldiers and their families sometimes were the targets of scorn from those most fiercely opposed to the war. Pooler felt that the old injustice had finally been righted, at least in Maine, by the thousands who jammed the Bangor airport to greet the troops returning from the Gulf War a little more than a decade ago.

Pooler is not convinced that we’ve already started down that Vietnam path again, even as the world becomes increasingly polarized over the looming war with Iraq. And while a few misguided Maine teachers may have caused a stir recently by imposing their political views on young students, she said, the vast majority of teachers should not now view current world affairs as issues too sensitive for children.

As long as they leave their political soapboxes at home, Pooler said, teachers of any grade level can occasionally use even troublesome world events as a valuable instructional tool.

“I do think this can be a wonderful teaching platform,” said Pooler, the associate dean of the College of Education and Human Development who specializes in social studies. “It can certainly be used to expand a child’s knowledge of geography and world culture. It can help students understand how tensions arise, and how we arrive at the decisions we make, not only in government but as public opinion. We should absolutely not back away from teaching this.”

Good teachers, she said, have always found responsible ways to examine the most troubling issues of the day with their students. Many did it after the terrifying shootings at Columbine, and in the aftermath of Sept. 11, when classroom discussions arose naturally over what it means to support one’s country while also respecting dissent.

In the nation’s inner-city schools, teachers and counselors have no choice but to help children make some sense of the disturbing reality of street violence that they live with every day.

“With the controversies surrounding war, the most important challenge is for teachers to step back and examine exactly why they are introducing the issue into the curriculum and what can be learned,” she said. “I think teachers have to be secure and confident if they are to handle those issues successfully from a personal standpoint, or else they can create problems. They have to dig inside themselves and find an equilibrium between constantly challenging the boundaries of thought and accommodating the values of their particular community.”

Jon Millett, a middle-school social-studies teacher in Augusta, said he is confident that the majority of Maine teachers have indeed been mindful of those community values, especially where vulnerable military children are concerned.

“I think the recent dilemma involved one or two isolated incidents that were taken out of context and sensationalized by the national media,” Millett said. “In middle schools, we’re very much attuned to the emotional welfare of our students, and I don’t know of any teachers who would treat children as was alleged.”

Millett said he doesn’t regularly work U.S.-Iraq relations into his lesson plans, preferring instead to address the questions and concerns raised by individual students outside class.

“My job as a teacher is not to pass judgement on what is right or wrong,” he said, “but rather to make sure the kids have the facts from both sides so that they can develop their own perspectives. We can help students derive meaning from conflict, but their backgrounds and experiences will make that meaning different for all of them.”