She. And “Wow, wouldn’t want to disagree with your issues.” – that is snarky.
i was speaking with this hilarious liberal jewish couple from Boston who raised their son in a non-religious (in every way) household. He went to Brandeis, met a girl who was hard-core religious, broke up with her, but stayed in the school group she introduced him to, and now he’s a conservative rabbi in Tel Aviv!! true story.
I think they’re a BIGGER factor. Peers always have more influential power than professor-age adults, I think.
In talking with my D about her beliefs and attitudes and how they are evolving, she always talks about this or that friend who came from ___ foreign country or unknown-to-her part of this one, is so rich/poor, came from a farm/inner city, or is of ___ religion and has told her about it or brought her along to a religious event.
I have never heard her mention a professor in our convos about this.
^This.
Also, what worries me is when parents DON’T want their kids exposed to differing viewpoints. You had 18 years to give them a foundation, now let them learn and think for themselves.
All of my kids are smarter than I am. And I absolutely love hearing about the people and classes they’re experiencing in college, from the varied cultures, politics and religions to classes that didn’t exist 25 years ago.
" It doesn’t bother me at all if they come down differently on an issue than I do, as long as they can support their position with logic and reason, and they are as respectful of my viewpoint as I am of theirs."
This is almost verbatim what I have told both of my kids.
If you raise them to be strong, confident and have a foundation for their opinions - there is nothing to worry about. We want out kids to think critically, so we taught it at home, rather than delegate that task to their teachers and professors.
Being a conservative Rabbi has nothing to do with political conservatism. It’s a different sense of the word “conservative.” It just means the Conservative movement of Judaism.
Let it go, a difference of opinion. I’m new to this site, here for info that might help my kids.
Conservative Jews are generally more, um, conservative, than Reform Jews. But not as conservative as Orthodox Jews.
But to me the main point of the story is that the student was raised with no religion at all but became a rabbi.
^^^This is simply not true. I know this is off topic, but I can’t let this sit. It’s a wholly different meaning of the word conservative. Conservative Judaism is not fundamentalist. There is certainly more (but not 100%) conservative political belief among Orthodox Judaism, but Conservative Jews are completely assimilated, secular members of society with with full spectrum of political belief. Indeed, all of the Conservative Rabbis that I have ever associated with are very liberal.
Surveys of Jewish people in the US and Israel:
http://www.pewforum.org/2013/10/01/jewish-american-beliefs-attitudes-culture-survey/
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/03/08/key-findings-religion-politics-israel/
There is some mention of how tradition correlates to political leanings. http://www.pewforum.org/2013/10/01/chapter-6-social-and-political-views/ has more detail on that in the US. As of 2013, Conservative Jewish people are more liberal and Democratic Party leaning than the US general public, but less so than Reform Jewish people. Orthodox Jewish people are more conservative and Republican Party leaning than the US general public.
The major indoctrination at college is to determine what their professors want, and parrot that viewpoint in papers and class. It’s actually quite a valuable skill. They also learn that conforming to the social norm reaps rewards in school.
Just once I would like to see a survey that shows that students accept conservative views more widely during college, instead of 5 or 10 years later when they have a real life.
We taught our kids to question everything, starting with us, and to develop their own views. They may develop perspectives that are different from mine, but I know they will be able to support it with facts and evidence.
We also tried to teach them not to assume that the side they agree with the most is right about everything.
D1’s two best friends are a very liberal student and a very conservative student. They really like each other, but don’t talk politics much. I think it is important to see the human face of the side you don’t agree with. It tamps down some of the extremist rhetoric on both sides.
If we teach our kids how to think for themselves, instead of telling them what to think, then we won’t have to worry about what they might be exposed to. We will have prepared them to handle it thoughtfully.
D’s profs seem to want her to understand Chemistry and solve problem sets so I suppose it all depends.
I took an East Asian studies class in college with a professor who hated communists and took every opportunity to tell us how awful the Chinese revolution was for the country. I thought it was amazing that a prof could express himself so openly about that kind of thing in an intro class, but it was what it was.
@TooOld4School I don’t understand this. A survey can only show what people actually think. You can’t really tweak it to say what you want to say. Did you mean to say “I wish students accepted conservative views more widely”?
About the comment about learning from or being influenced by peers:
My husband and his best friend spent hours talking together while at Vassar, about religion as well as many other subjects. They each solidified their views during their college years, but in very different ways. My husband became an atheist who wrote his doctoral dissertation in psychology on the psychological dynamics present in people who become more religious during their twenties. His friend went on to divinity school and became a Methodist minister.
Each of these men learned to appreciate the other’s views, but also to become more articulate and confident in his own view.
They are still best friends. Our families are close. We have gone on many family vacations together as two families. We have so much respect for one another, despite having different beliefs in this one area of life.
College is about being exposed to a variety of views, in and out of the classroom, and interacting with people from different backgrounds from your own.
College is about learning to think, weigh evidence, and make decisions subject to review when new evidence appears. While some “bad apple” professors may seek to indoctrinate, more often professors aim to help students develop the afore-mentioned skills. If they have bias (and who does not?), they may choose to acknowledge it outright as such (in a way that welcomes students to disagree) or to choose not to disclose it.
I actually attended a recent series of workshops entitled The Political Classroom, with the wonderful guru Giselle Martin-Kniep, about that balance in a K-12 classroom. We discussed why and why not a teacher might acknowledge personal bias on a given issue, and how to help students to research issues in as open-minded an approach as possible, listen to and respect one another’s views, as well as to engage and debate with those views. We are now working with our K-12 teachers on that in our district as well.
Indoctrination requires a surround-sound ecosystem of the indoctrinating ideas. A professor who teaches a one-hour class three times a week can hardly indoctrinate.
@brantly, you just described college.
@TooOld4School, on what basis do you claim that? Even Oberlin has a highly active chapter of College Republicans, and even BYU has a highly active chapter of College Democrats.
and even Swarthmore, where my son goes, has probably at least 80% of kids who aren’t strident partisans and who are there to get an education. My son has probably become more conservative at Swat, than from growing up in a pretty darn liberal family, even though he doesn’t really get involved in any politics at school. Part of the whole purpose of “examination” which is the purpose of a liberal arts education.