Keep Your "Opinion" to Yourself

Maybe it is written into my professional code of conduct, or maybe it is just common practice, but wherever it comes from I am tired of keeping my "opinion" to myself.

To be honest, I don't actually mind keeping my mouth shut on issues, controversial or not, because it makes the students think for themselves, and that is what this whole thing is about, but there are one or two ideas that I fervently support in my own life which I am having a hard time keeping to myself.

Image taken from google without permission

I'm not going to beat around the bush today. I am going to jump out and say it. These two ideas that follow are supposed to be kept to myself. I do such a good job of this I doubt if my students this year would even be able to tell you how I actually feel (do you see, I am beating around the bush even though I said I wouldn't, and that somehow counts as being clever at 11:00 p.m. on a school night). 

My first "opinon" that I try so desperately not to poison my students with is that, I am an environmentalist.

This is first image in a google image search
 of environmentalist - lazy or making a point?

What being an environmentalist means is something that I will talk about at the end of this post (if I remember), but there is the bigger issue that I as a role model to students am supposed to keep my mouth shut about this idea. A professional should not have an opinion??? I can still present the industrialist argument  with some degree of merit, but why shouldn't an informed citizen model what being an informed citizen actually looks like? 

My editorial confession #2, I am also the 99%,and I support the major tenets of the occupy movement, and of course there are major tenets. Just because many of the confused anarchists in the movement can't adequately express why many people are making valid complaints about the current power and wealth structure does not mean there isn't a focus or clear reason to the protest.

I see the world in a certain way, and I will make a professional guarantee that I will never force, coerce or unfairly persuade a student to see the world from my point of view, but that does not mean I will not present my own view of the world. The argument runs that as a trusted teacher I will have undue influence on a child's point of view. I counter, that is only the case if that is my intent. When the issue is contestable then my opinion or worldview needs to be presented as valuable, but also deeply flawed. It is our responsibility to have an informed opinion, but to present it as only that, one person's opinion. 

So what about when the issue is so completely clear? Even though some still consider it a debate?

For example, What Goldman Sachs did was wrong, and we should be able to discuss the economy without blind allegiance to the free market, talk about preaching an "opinion" as if it were truth. Here is Elizabeth May on the topic, “Excuse me, but are the lunatics running the asylum? Can’t we have a healthy economy, and yes, even capitalism and corporate profits, that serves the interests of communities and that accepts its marching orders from democratically elected governments?”

Okay I need to focus.

The main point I want to make (which I haven't even done a mildly adequate job in alluding to up to this point) is that according to every valid source that I read is pointing to the fact that human caused climate change is a reality, one that is having and will continue to have devastating effects on humanity and life on Earth in general, so why the hell am I teaching the topic as if it is a debate between environmentalists and industrialists?