You know that like Dean Shareski, I’m Canadian. I therefore feel my opinions on the subject of the upcoming American presidential election are mostly irrelevant and unimportant.

While I think voicing an opinion is important – I have never been one to be silenced – I see little point getting riled up over an election that I have no control over or impact on. And though I do have things at stake (as simply a citizen of the world, which America influences), on a daily basis I have much more pressing concerns.

Another reason I withold somewhat: privacy and courtesy. I am by far the most liberal of my large extended family, many of whom are card-holding Conservatives in Canada, and I need to respect that. My public outcries have the potential to harm some of them who are running for office at the provincial level. I feel strongly about my beliefs and values, but I also care about my family and do not want to polarize what is already a delicate circumstance. (Part of it is self-preservation – I’m already polarized enough, being the “crazy” one who moved overseas!)

I have to admit that in the last several weeks I have been suffering from American election fatigue and I have had to avoid the bloggers – edubloggers and otherwise – who are so ultimately focused on politics at the moment. This is part of the reason you’ve not see me around Beyond School lately; I’m a bit sad but I just don’t have much to contribute to this conversation and so I have been devoting more time to others in my reader. I’ve also had to literally turn Twitter off during the debates because the commentary from all my active, American, political Tweetpals is so distracting from my other areas of focus.

I tend to visit fewer American edubloggers in general because I sometimes find the focus to be overly about American education that it doesn’t apply to my current situation or experience. I was initially drawn to Beyond School because, though you are American, you were working overseas. I’m looking forward to when it all is over and you return to blogging the other “usual” stuff. I feel I’ll have much more to say then. In the meantime, I do commend your forthrightness and the way in which you challenge your readers to think – about all things, politics included. Just know that in that, I’m not really your target audience.

Adriennes last blog post..Absence = Affirmations + Aspirations

That said, my horror at the McCain/Palin ticket, and all that it represents, is probably evident to my more astute students.

I don’t feel there is any real choice in this election. It’s possibilities or disaster.

dianes last blog post..Politics in the Classroom

I frequently remind the class that while most of them won’t remember a lick of content (and even if they do, it will be outdated in a few decades), they will keep their ability to think critically. (It does not help that as a culture we pretend to believe that learning “science” in high school is our ticket to economic success against the big, bad Asians. It helps even less that for many of those in charge, they’re not pretending.)

Now this may sound silly here, and I hope it didn’t sound to silly in class (I had an administrator in the room at the time), but I asked a child who had no idea how to change a tire to imagine what she would do if her phone broke and she got a flat tire miles from help.

She looked startled, but we broke down the problem together, and without getting into details, developed a way to solve it. If my administrator questions it, I’ll tell her it falls under NJ Standard 9.3: promote critical thinking skills.

By the time one is finished with public education, you should know how to approach common, simple problems. It’s clear we are failing that.

A thinking citizenry could not have possibly allowed the 2000 election to be as close as it was, nor would it have allowed it to be swiped as it was.

Michael Doyles last blog post..What I want to teach in biology….