The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms dictates that freedom of expression is a freedom applied to all Canadians, teachers included. However, parents and school boards alike have long had concerns around what exactly their children are learning, and in a world becoming increasingly publicly politicized, personally I am of the belief that it is the job of teachers to inform students of political and social topics not covered by the curriculum.
Others argue that teachers are paid to enforce the curriculum approved by the schoolboard, and that further commentary is unnecessary or constitutes indoctrination. Teachers themselves are divided as to what extent their own interpretations, causes and beliefs belong in the classroom.
Supporters of academic freedom often argue that teaching has been described not only as an occupation, but as a moral duty, and that teachers’ ethical duties include preventing harm to students as well as engaging in responsible pedagogy regulated by Canadian schoolteachers’ freedom of expression. In issue 36 of the publication The Global Education Review, Development Education and Democracy, Henry Giroux and William Paul posit that educators have a responsibility to combat authoritarianism and repression through their pedagogical practice.
They introduce the concept of educators existing as public intellectuals, asserting that “educators must have control over the conditions of their labor, affirm and engage student experience, connect learning to social problems that bear down on the lives of young people, and inspire young people to take risks and combine a faith in reason, moral courage, and the power of justice, compassion for others and democracy itself.”
In the present day where it seems that history is constantly repeating itself, being an educator means connecting the approved curriculum content to current events whilst enabling students to make their own connections and develop a historical consciousness. The review makes an argument for the benefits of teaching students to hold power accountable, opening the conversation for students to engage in critical and thoughtful dialogue; educators should teach students to bridge the divide between the past and the present, learning and everyday application, moral and political courage and the relationship between power and knowledge.
Educating students on how to responsibly engage politically, fact-check articles and uncover truth is especially pertinent in a time where societal issues are treated as individual problems rather than a systemic form of repression. In a LawNow Magazine article, Myrna El Fakhry Tuttle examines the state of academic freedom in Canada. Freedom of expression is protected under The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and academic freedom is a central value to education which allows students and teachers to question and share ideas without fear of punishment.
Tuttle cites The Canadian Association of University Teachers’ (CAUT) definition of academic freedom as “the right to discuss freely without doctrinal constraints, conduct research and publish findings, create artistic work, express opinions about the institution, its administration and the broader system.” Furthermore, the protection of academic freedom is a paramount consideration for teachers’ unions, as Tuttle explains, “prior to the widespread unionization of faculty in the 1970s, the protection of academic freedom largely depended on the discretion and goodwill of university administrators. Today, faculty unions play a significant role in safeguarding academic freedom, primarily through grievance and arbitration mechanisms.” Infringement upon these freedoms of expression would be detrimental to the open dialogue and critical conversation education generates.
However, opponents of academic freedom contend that teachers should not be allowed to enforce their own beliefs on their students. We often think about freedom of expression in terms of criticizing large bodies of power, fighting for social justice and engaging in critical theories on race, sexuality and gender. Despite this, there are cases of teachers imposing dangerous extremist beliefs in their classrooms which affect students’ safety, learning and informed opinion.
For example, the famous Canadian Keegstra case highlighted the balance of the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression versus the limits of hate propaganda law set out in the Criminal Code of Canada. John Boyko, a writer for the Canadian Encyclopedia, explains this case in depth.
Jim Keegstra was a high school teacher in rural Alberta who had been teaching students for over a decade that the Holocaust — Nazi Germany’s genocide of six million European Jews — was a hoax. When asked to cease teaching his racist and antisemitic views, he refused, and criminal charges were laid against him, under subsection 319(2) of the Criminal Code of Canada for inciting hatred against an identifiable group.
Keegstra requested the charge be dismissed, arguing that the communications he made to his students were protected under section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This case is relevant because it challenges the “extent to which an individual can publicly express an opinion if that opinion incites hatred against a group of people,” especially in an educational environment.
As elucidated in a Canadian Journal of Education paper by Tatiana Feitosa de Britto, teachers should neither act as class monarchs free of restrictions, nor as the hired mouthpiece of a limited curriculum. Professionalism within education dictates a certain type of conduct attributed to the responsibility of the teacher’s role.
As Britto explains, “A key element in this regard is the normative expectation that teachers function as role models for students.” Teachers are then seen as “cultural custodians” of ideals which are then transmitted to the younger generations, therefore tactical self-censorship works to shield teachers from public scrutiny and allows students to form their own opinion.
In Christine Corley’s Globe and Mail article, she annotates this argument, reflecting on her own opinionated self and her student’s curiosity to her ideologies and political opinions. In her words, “I aim to be no man’s land: neither up or down, left nor right.” Why she holds back her own opinion in the classroom comes from recognition of her power in that space. She asserts that it is a privilege to help students nurture their own beliefs and develop their intellectual selves.
Corley posits what you do as a teacher is not about you, but your students. In the classroom you are a role model: “the teacher’s job is not to recruit youth to causes, but to teach them how to appreciate, respect, think critically, and inform themselves about society’s vast philosophical spectrum — and to arrive at convictions independently, based on sound unbiased foundations.”
Personally, I hold the belief that it is the teacher’s job to expand upon the approved curriculum, not to create their own. Furthermore, teachers should open conversations with students so they can come to their own conclusions. It is our job to prepare students for the real-world and curriculum approved texts should be connected to broader cultural and historical frameworks. I understand learning as relational, active, experiential, grounded in empathy and human encounters. In this sense, approved curriculum taught in school is inherently political, and neutrality in the classroom does nothing to make students engage critically with the material; it just standardizes it with no new ground being broken.
Teachers should not be allowed to teach whatever they want; they exist as role models — and if you give them that level of freedom, then their opinion becomes law. However, teachers should recognize teaching as an act of resistance and implement a critical pedagogy to offer students the vision, language and practices for analytic reflection.