Proselytization

Late again. Oh well. In these incidences the clock magically rolls back to 11:59PM, as if I was never late. =)

...

There's someone in my cohort who I think is going to have some major issues once she gets into the classroom as a teacher.

Schools, especially high schools and post-secondary institutions, are and should be a place that allow active and due consideration about discussed issues - especially social and moral issues - on both the part of students, and educators. Often, especially in grade 11 and 12 classes, students should be given avenues to express their opinions, and be given a multitude of information from every available and relevant perspective by which to discuss and form their own educated perspectives and conclusions. Students should be encouraged to consider and discuss these types of issues and personally reflect and intelligently discuss/debate their findings. It is by this process that one becomes an educated and even enlightened adult and member of society; this is one of the most basic and overarching goals of education.

What happens, though, in the case of my cohort-ee, when, as she's very very set in her ways, she feels the need to proselytize, constantly, her beliefs - usually political - to everyone around her?

I have a major beef with proselytization. It doesn't belong in schools. We have a duty as teachers, to our students, their parents, and the community at large, to not indoctrinate our students with our own beliefs. Showcasing our own political persuasion actually isn't allowed in public schools, nor is proselytizing our religious beliefs. If we are truly to educate students, shouldn't we provide for them the opportunity to openly and without persuasion consider all aspects of political, social and moral issues?

But it's bigger than teachers, students, and the school system. I disagree with proselytization fundamentally. There is a place for discourse and debate, but in the end, especially in matters of each others' opinions and perspectives, we all ought have enough respect for others' rational ability to come to a well-founded conclusion about a matter, if they're well informed, even if their conclusions grossly mis-align with our own conclusions about the same matter in the end.

But, unfortunately, some are so gripped by the ego - they identify their perspective with themselves, as an egoic mental form, and therefore feel a deep need to make others have the same perception as they do. Their egos feed, very temporarily, on the satisfaction of having others agree with the perspective that they have mentally attached with themselves - thereby enhancing their own sense of self worth, if only briefly, when people agree with them.