Unworkable Formula

When Senator Robert Taft expressed himself on the subject of Communist teachers (TIME, March 2), many a broad-minded educator approved his formula. A teacher, said Taft, should not be fired simply for being a Communist--unless he was actually trying to indoctrinate his students. Last week, in the New Leader, one educator took a hard second look. The Taft formula, said New York University's Sidney Hook, would never work.

Though no advocate of the current congressional investigations of U.S. campuses, Hook himself believes that membership in the Communist Party automatically disqualifies a teacher. But assuming that it does not, says he, there is still no way to tell whether a teacher is indoctrinating or not. "How would we find out? Would we observe him in class? No one indoctrinates when he is under observation. Episodic inspection in the classroom can enable one to tell something about the pedagogic techniques of a teacher . . . [But] except in its crudest forms, indoctrination in the classroom can rarely be detected save by a critically trained observer who is almost continuously present. This is not only undesirable but, for all practical purposes, impossible . . ."

Sad Day. "If we cannot detect a teacher engaged in skillful indoctrination by classroom visits, what about questioning his students from time to time and alerting them on what to observe? Even if we could rely on students to do this, it would be a sad day in the history of American education were we to degrade our students by impressing them into the kind of service made so notorious in Communist police states. Far better to leave Communist teachers to do as they please than to cast their students in the role of informers . . .

"For all these reasons, it seems to me incontestable that the best safeguard against indoctrination . . . is not prying supervision of teachers, subtle interrogation of students, foolish and needless imposition of loyalty oaths, but the recruiting of competent men & women sufficiently dedicated to the ideas of teaching and scholarship to recognize that such practices are incompatible with professional integrity. Once we have found such teachers, we should have implicit faith in them and not swoop or hover over them to determine what they are teaching . . ."

Better Guides. "Senator Taft's proposal . . . would necessitate a kind of administrative supervision and check which would demoralize our school system. The unfitness of Communist Party teachers has been demonstrated by their voluntary and active cooperation with an organization whose objectives are . . . to violate the ethics and logic of honest inquiry and teaching.

"In this respect, President Eisenhower and former President Conant are better guides. The first has told us that . . . 'No man flying a war plane, no man with a defensive gun in his hand, can possibly be more important than the teacher.' The second has declared that . . . convincing evidence that a teacher is a member of the Communist Party is prima facie evidence of educational unfitness. Wisdom requires, however, that the faculties themselves administer these principles, and not outside agencies."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.