During a Q&A seminar with Dr. Julian Zelizer after his February 28th Parker History Lecture, students asked the Princeton University scholar and professor of History and Public Affairs about politics in and out of the classroom. Many sought his views on bias in educational spaces and teachers sharing personal political opinions.
Dr. Zelizer shared that he tries to keep his views separate from his teaching, and he declined to share his political identity.
Dr. Zelizer’s visit comes at a time when students and faculty have been actively considering political bias on campus. The upper school’s humanities classes play host to a range of content that sparks sensitive and difficult conversations. From social class, race, gender, and identity to the American Dream, controversial topics play a role in American and world history and literature, and therefore the school’s humanities departments address them head-on.
“If the student can’t tell [the teacher’s opinion], then the teacher is doing a good job.”
Daniel Kaiser ’24
Because many students direct their concerns about this content toward the English and history departments’ curricula, this article focuses on those disciplines and not classes like Environmental Science, Policy, and Ethics; Theater; or upper-level language classes, which also focus on controversial political topics.
Some students feel that the way these topics are worked into the curriculum and the way in which teachers present them are inherently biased.
Haverford teachers employ many different styles when discussing politics in the classroom. Some teachers outwardly disclose their views, while others facilitate discussions without taking a side. Some teachers always play the devil’s advocate, while others present arguments on all sides of a debate.
Student perspectives vary on the most appropriate pedagogical approach.
Sixth Former Daniel Kaiser said that it is “rarely necessary” for a teacher to disclose their opinion. “If the student can’t tell [the teacher’s opinion], then the teacher is doing a good job,” he said.
Kaiser also thinks that acknowledging many sides of an argument is important. He believes that a teacher should present views of both sides, their own or not.
Fifth Former Noah Kanfesky feels that as long as both sides are presented, a teacher can profess their own views as well.
“I think it’s okay for a teacher to voice their opinion as long as you give another side to it,” Kanefsky said. “One example of that not being the case at Haverford was last year during the Parker Lecture. [Dr. Elizabeth Hinton] pointed out a real problem, but she only pointed out her solution… That to me stood out as wrong. I think it’s okay if you voice your opinion because you have to debate issues and solutions, but I think that it’s wrong to pose only one solution.”
Dr. Hinton, professor of History, African American Studies, and Law at Yale University presented historical work detailing police brutality and reform in her lecture, “Riot or Rebellion: The Meaning of Violent Protest from the 1960s to George Floyd.” Built from research for her book America on Fire, she shared “controversial notions regarding rioting in the United States.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with a teacher sharing their political belief, [so long as] they are not directly harming a student.”
Chase Nelson ’24
Other students are more comfortable with teachers’ beliefs entering their classes.
Fifth Former Michael Bartholdson believes that while teachers should feel free to disclose their opinions, it’s a touchy subject. Because it’s “hard for a teacher to disconnect,” Bartholdson feels that teachers can share their opinions as long as they acknowledge that it’s just an opinion. “Students must feel that they are able to disagree,” Bartholdson said.
Not all students believe the issue is so nuanced. Sixth Former Chase Nelson believes teachers should not refrain from disclosing political beliefs openly.
“I don’t see anything wrong with a teacher sharing their political belief, [so long as] they are not directly harming a student because of said beliefs,” Nelson said. “The presence of a teacher’s opinion… is important: it’s the only way for a class to really have a good discussion.”
Upper school faculty present material through varied methods with varied goals.
History Department Chair and Honors United States History teacher Ms. Hannah Turlish, who is open about her political identity, recognizes some teachers and students prefer teachers’ opinions to be left out of the classroom.
She noted that she admires the approaches of teachers like Dr. Zelizer, but she also defends her style. “I very much appreciated when [Dr. Zelizer] said that [removing your opinions] is very hard to do, and it’s also not the only way to do it responsibly and well,” Ms. Turlish said. “He wasn’t just saying, ‘This is the way it should be done.’”
“If there is a point, which I believe we’re at, where a major political party is not in favor of acknowledging the results of a democratic election and upholding the principles of the Constitution, then yes, I am [going to] sound political.”
History Department Chair Ms. Hannah Turlish
Ms. Turlish finds that it is unnatural for her to hide her views, but she also acknowledges that there are some situations in which teachers may be required to “sound political.”
“We operate under an assumption that we all are here to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution is a democracy, and if there is a point, which I believe we’re at, where a major political party is not in favor of acknowledging the results of a democratic election and upholding the principles of the Constitution, then yes, I am [going to] sound political,” Ms. Turlish said.
English teacher Dr. Micah Del Rosario does not remove his political perspective from classroom discourse, largely in response to students demanding it.
“When the conversations are about political topics, I present my opinion on those topics,” he said. “I think 99% of the time, the students can already guess what my perspective on the topic is. And part of the reason I do that is because I know that if I didn’t, they would clamor for it anyway. That’s what they want to know, is what I think, so we can get into a conversation about it.”
English teacher Dr. Callie Ward finds that the English classroom invites discomfort and disagreement.
“We’re not teaching you what to think, we’re teaching you how to think, and I do take [that] pedagogy seriously. I want students to be able to practice that,” Dr. Ward said. “I think that learning to be in a room with people who disagree with you in ways that make you uncomfortable is great practice.”
“I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind. I’m just trying to open the door to thinking critically and examining other perspectives and really being a close reader.”
English teacher Dr. Callie Ward
In the classroom, Dr. Ward believes student discourse in her classroom must emphasize proper argumentation.
“I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind. I’m just trying to open the door to thinking critically and examining other perspectives and really being a close reader,” she said. “Can you interpret the text in front of you and interpret the people in the world that you live in, and propose an argument that you can defend with textual evidence and be open to considering other people’s viewpoints without completely shutting down?”
Dr. Del Rosario seeks to do the same.
“I remind people all the time that my goal in class is not to tell you that you have to think about this topic this way or this is the correct perspective to take on abortion, on capitalism, on racism, whatever it is. I want us to create a space where everybody can say what they think without fear of being judged for it,” he said.
English teacher Mr. Anthony Pariano guides his English classroom with a distinct goal: to provide plurality in the narrative.
“I guess there is also this matter of whether or not we teach a work in a way where kids are trying to extract a message or a single thesis,” Mr. Pariano said. “It shuts down conversation. That’s not how I approach the teaching of literature. I fundamentally believe that works that are of literary merit don’t have a single point or message.”
Although Dr. Del Rosario feels that students are eager for him to share his opinion, some students feel they must conform to their teacher’s perspective for the sake of their grade when their teachers present strong opinions openly.
“I have tailored essays based on teachers and what they’ve been preaching,” Kanefsky said. “Even if they’re not vocal about it, there are a lot of cases where students feel very uncomfortable putting their own views solely because they think that teachers will disagree with them.”
“I can see that if [students sense that] there isn’t a balanced perspective on things that the curriculum itself could be a biased one.”
Mr. Anthony Pariano
Mr. Pariano recognizes how bias may arise as a conclusion among students.
“It does get tricky when you’re dealing with works that have a particular message or thesis. I can see that if [students sense that] there isn’t a balanced perspective on things that the curriculum itself could be [perceived as] a biased one,” Mr. Pariano said.
But Mr. Pariano also finds that the blanketing of individual perception to an entire department is a disservice.
“Some students may get the sense that all of their teachers share certain biases that find their way into the shaping of the curriculum, the way the class is directed, [and] what the discussions focus on. I hope that the things that we do at the Haverford School is to teach kids not to make gross generalizations,” Mr. Pariano said.
Many faculty members refute the notion of bias in the classroom. Dr. Del Rosario suggests the term itself is misleading.
“When I listen to the arguments that students make about what that would mean—to say the curriculum itself is biased—one of the first things I think of people pointing out is that the books we read are constantly teaching us to criticize the country that we live in or capitalism or our country’s history,” Dr. Del Rosario said.
For Dr. Del Rosario, the nature of such curricular inquiry does not purport political biases. The term, in fact, may misguide the critical intent of course materials.
“I don’t know why we would call it [bias],” he said. “If that’s your complaint, what you want then are books that teach you to love the country. If we were to replace the texts that we have with the kinds of books that give the kinds of messages or storylines that I think people want as the core or antidote to this problem, I don’t know what we would be learning.”
Nelson agrees, citing identity and personal experience as major influences.
“I feel like… students just don’t like the fact that we read books that pertain to different viewpoints that I would probably say the majority of the student body just don’t understand or don’t know about because they pertain to stories that relate to non-cis, non-heterosexual, non-white, non-economically well-off, non-immigrant men,” Nelson said. “These are topics that [much of the] student body doesn’t know.”
“This is my last chance to give you a point of view that you [may not] choose to seek out on your own.”
History Department Chair Ms. Hannah Turlish
Dr. Del Rosario believes this may stem from a desire for confirmation education.
“It seems to me that the whole educational experience at that point is that what you want are books that are going to confirm to you everything you already believed when you showed up in the classroom,” he said.
Ms. Turlish agrees that providing students with exposure to viewpoints different from their own is a goal of the education that she provides. “This is my last chance to give you a point of view that you [may not] choose to seek out on your own,” she said.
Some even worry that Haverford students who are not right-leaning are not intellectually challenged by the school’s curriculum.
However, Bartholdson believes that the belief that upper school humanities curricula are biased is a disservice. “I would not say most of the books are extremely liberal, but the way the students read them, they go into it thinking that they’re being indoctrinated, so that doesn’t help with open discussion,” he said. “The reputation that [the English] curriculum has doesn’t help students understand what they’re reading.”
“I think that [kids who have experienced racial bias] appreciate knowing that a teacher knows that’s true…”
History Department Chair Ms. Hannah Turlish
Ms. Turlish also refutes the idea that left-leaning students may be deprived of the educational value of having their ideas challenged. She provided an example, saying, “I think that [kids who have experienced racial bias] appreciate knowing that a teacher knows that’s true, and so I think I’m more interested in those kids knowing that the curriculum is acknowledging that experience rather than trying to get them to see a deep dive into like why Reaganomics was positive.”
Although some students and many teachers feel that the school’s English and history curricula serve to expose students to new ideas, others find that the singular perspectives provided in some works are offensive and limiting.
Bartholdson said that he has heard that the English curriculum is “the most polarizing.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, a selection read by English IV and English IV* students, is notorious for its debatably left-leaning messaging. Coates’ work examines U.S. history and the present through his own lens as a Black male. Among some students’ greatest critiques inovolves his 9/11 passage, when Coates mourns the murder of close friend Prince Jones, mistakenly assumed to be a criminal by the Price George’s County, Maryland, police. Despairing, Coates expresses he “could see no difference between the officer who killed Prince Jones and the police who died” in the Twin Towers attack.
Kaiser said that the book “leads people to think that this is the right way to think.” He added that while exposure to Coates’ perspective is educational, “we would never have [a book] so blatantly right-leaning.”
Kaiser’s argument is the core of many students’ complaints about the English and history curricula. Many feel that if one side of an argument is going to be presented, the other must be as well.
In a discussion of August Wilson’s Fences, [Chase] Nelson [’24] recalls that advocating for Troy—a garbage man—as “working equally hard as a financier” created a clear divide in student perception.
But, as Dr. Del Rosario said, presenting minority opinions to the student body is an intentional technique to inspire thought.
And Nelson perceives that students argue conservative opinions in the classroom anyway. In a discussion of August Wilson’s Fences, Nelson recalls that advocating for Troy—a garbage man—as “working equally hard as a financier” created a clear divide in student perception. He thought most of his peers “pushed back” and argued his job was not comparable.
While teachers feel that their techniques are sound, students who perceive distinct biases feel that there is a need for reform.
“I know students have felt uncomfortable going up to [teachers] and asking why they got points off—I think that if someone were to investigate or at least look into some of the grading decisions behind teachers and question them—having that kind of check would be nice and reassuring for students,” Kanefsky said.
Students also note that they have had teachers who openly lean left, they have not necessarily had the same experiences with right-leaning teachers. Kanefsky said that he has not had “vocally” conservative teachers, and Bartholdson said that he “probably has had a teacher who leans right, but it’s never been a case where they’ve expressed their opinions” or “injected [opinions] into the curriculum.”
Bartholdson does not know whether or not the lack of conservative viewpoints may be a simple issue of the make-up of the English and history faculties or a larger concern about which teachers feel comfortable presenting their views.
The Index, in seeking community input, found many students unwilling to openly speak about their concerns regarding curricular bias or open dialogue for fear of negative consequences.
The discussion surrounding the school’s political and curricular intersection is not new. In fact, the core of this conversation is ongoing—for instance, The Index reported two years ago on student-teacher disconnects following the January 6th assault on the U.S. Capitol.
Dr. Del Rosario finds as students continue to debate bias, some form of communication must close the gap between students and faculty. He mentioned a “town hall where students sit down with teachers” as well as further encouragement of “a student’s right to always ask their teacher about their grade.”
