Classroom neutrality

When art teacher Maureen O'Brien was approached by students and parents from the Edmund Burke School in Washington to help create banners for a mothers' vigil for peace, she was happy to help.

"I don't talk to the students on a political level in class; I teach painting, mixed media, and drawing," she says. "But I did support their activity." So she was stunned at the "horrible" response to a photo, distributed in January by a news agency, that showed her helping a student make a peace banner.

"People - total strangers - sent shocking messages to me," she says, to register their disapproval of her role in helping with an antiwar protest. "They were not from parents at our school."

Perhaps the people who responded did not know that the banner was done after school, with the support of parents, and mothers paid for all the supplies. But her experience underlies the dilemma faced by many schools as the nation pursues war in Iraq.

How do schools balance the strong feelings and needs of their constituents with what goes on to educate students?

Should teachers keep a neutral classroom, or should they encourage debate and even express their own views? Should students be learning about the war at school, or is that a job solely for parents?

Schools systems are taking different approaches in the early days of war with Iraq, sometimes shaped by community reaction. In Maine, the state commissioner of education sent out a memo to schools urging a "balanced" approach in the classroom after families with members in the National Guard reported insensitive comments or actions by school personnel.

In Henrico County Schools in Richmond, Va., principals were instructed by the superintendent to use discretion when allowing discussion of the war: It should be in an age-appropriate manner and related to the curriculum in the classroom.

In New Mexico, two teachers who refused to take down antiwar posters in their classes were suspended for five days.

Superintendent Bill Wright of the Denison Community School District in Iowa is taking a fairly typical approach. While there is certainly talk among faculty about the war, a Midwestern civility prevails and teachers agree to disagree. When it comes to the classroom, students hear enough to stay informed.

"But we are not stretching that by creating debate," Dr. Wright says. Most students, he notes, receive most of their information about Iraq and the current military involvement from their parents.

Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the First Amendment Center of the Freedom Forum in Arlington, Va., says many schools are not prepared for this crisis.

"Schools are reluctant to tackle the controversy," he says. "But students need to be informed and talked to."

Mr. Haynes says there are two negative responses schools may take in times of war: "One is to insist on a kind of patriotism, which we can call jingoism, which is probably what we'll see in the coming weeks. There will be songs and patriotic exercises, but often students will be [too] intimidated to speak out, to dissent. That does not teach students to make decisions. [Patriotism] alone is not in the best interest of our students."

The other potentially damaging reaction to the news of the Iraq war would be for teachers to take the opportunity to push their own agenda.

"My anecdotal evidence is that this is more often the case with teachers who are against the war," Haynes says. But he adds that it is just as damaging if the teacher is talking against antiwar demonstrators, for example.

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