Divisiveness

This year's election has got to be the most divisive election that the United States has ever seen. Ok, I don't know that for a fact as I have only been alive since the election in which Nixon defeated McGovern to be reelected by a landslide. I was only a couple of weeks old then, so I don't really remember that however. The first presidential election that I have any firsthand recollection of would have to be the 1980 election, and I was only eight years old then, so I really don't remember much of that. But of recent elections, this one has got to be the nastiest. Even the 2000 election, with it's problems after the fact, don't compare with the current election as far as attacks on the candidates from their opponents. There are a lot of people who, I believe, genuinely hate the opponent of the candidate they support. I have read about numerous reports of violence and intimidation against supporters of opposition candidates. Admittedly, most of the acts of violence I have read about are against Republicans. That may be because most of the information I get about that type of thing comes from sources who support Republican candidates. Of course, I don't condone such acts against anyone. Everyone has a right to his or her opinion, and from the polls, it looks like supporters of both George Bush and John Kerry have plenty of company with the election being virtually a dead heat.

November 3, with any luck, we will know who will be occupying the Oval Office on January 20, 2005, and we will all have to get over our differences and learn to get along once again. It won't do any good to keep attacking the winner of this election, whoever that may be, he will be the President, and most likely will be for at least the next four years. I definitely have a preference about who I would like to win, but roughly half of the population will eventually have to accept the fact that their choice for president did not win. The best thing that could happen on Tuesday would be for one of the two candidates, and I don't care who, to win in a landslide. That would show that Americans are united in their choice for a leader. Now I know that won't happen, but it would be nice.

The divisiveness of this election has even worked its way into the school at which I work. We were reminded in a staff bulletin this week that we as school district employees are not to be endorsing or denigrating any political candidate or ballot measure during school hours or while representing the school district. It surprised me that we would have to be reminded of this. I find it hard to believe that a teacher would be doing such a thing during class. Now if it is related to the curriculum, I can see a teacher discussing, and having students discuss, the merits and negatives about both candidates, but otherwise I can't see this happening. A student of mine however, told me Thursday that a teacher of his has been criticizing John Kerry in class. I'm not saying that there aren't any grounds for criticizing him, but it really has no place in a science class. This same teacher has been wearing a Bush/Cheney lanyard for the past few weeks to hold his name badge. Another teacher had a Bush/Cheney campaign sign up in his classroom for a couple weeks until someone took it down overnight. I haven't seen any teachers promoting John Kerry in such ways. I did have a Kerry/Edwards button on my jacket, but when I got to my classroom, that would go straight into the closet.

I haven't made any secret about who I am supporting for president, but I don't make it a part of classroom discussion. Many of my students have asked. And if they ask during class, I don't answer. But never have I attacked George Bush as a candidate for president. I have a rather conservative student who frequently jokes with me about the whole election issue. He will sometimes hold up his planner with the Bush stickers on it just to see if he can get a reaction out of me. He doesn't get much except for my grinning and shaking my head back and forth. Last year, when I had him for a different class, he was flashing some Bush sign at me in class so I had him turn to a certain page of his textbook which happened to have a photo of Bill Clinton. This is all in fun.

We can joke about each others' preferences for president without it ruining our working relationship. This student is one of my better students. He's almost always on task and always gets his work done. This reminds me of a question that I was once asked during an interview for a teaching job. I was asked if I had ever had any students that I didn't like (now I'm not saying that I don't like this student, I do). Of course I've hate students I didn't like. It's human nature to not like everyone! If I had said "no," then they would have known I was lying, so of course I answered "yes." These students are usually the ones who are constantly misbehaving and causing problems in class. The follow-up question was about how I deal with these students. Naturally I treat them professionally, the same, within reason, as everyone else. If they need help, I'll help them. If they do well on their homework, tests, and quizzes, they'll get a good grade. I even try to figure out why they behave the way they do to try to reach out to them and get them to behave better. But I never let my personal feelings about someone affect how I treat them as a student.

Well, I've rambled on enough for now, so I suppose I will end here. I just can't wait until this election is over!