When Silence Speaks: A Case Study Investigating the Effects of Restricting Teachers’ Classroom Speech

• In Event: The Challenges of Being a Good Citizen and a Good Teacher: Lessons From the Wisconsin Protests

Abstract

In recent years, US courts have systematically chipped away at teachers’ First Amendment speech rights in the classroom established in Tinker v. Des Moines (1968) (e.g., Garcetti et al. v. Ceballos (2006), Mayer v. Monroe County Community School Corporation (2007)). The courts currently hold that teachers do not have the right to either offer opinions on “non-curriculum topics” or respond honestly to questions about political participation. Honoring these restrictions has become the norm in my classroom. However, in the highly politicized climate of the Wisconsin Uprising, the line between curricular related topics and non-curricular topics was blurred like never before. Teachers were put in the difficult and often frightening position of trying to teach students and respond to their ever intensifying questions while at the same time participate as engaged citizens in a movement to protect our profession and our future. Drawing upon data that includes classroom interactions, students’ work, and observations of their civil disobedience, this presentation highlights the ways in which I found that the oppressive policies limiting my speech in the classroom led to my students finding and using their voices in new ways.

During the Wisconsin Uprising, I found myself in the unique position of teaching a unit on the American Civil Rights Movement to 10th and 11th grade students. I was unable to discuss these events and their relevance to our studies, however. At the outset of the protests, my district had quickly issued a policy directing staff to have no communication with students about the uprising. This gag order effectively meant that I could not respond to student questions, make connections between the past and present, or participate in conversations about the uprising despite the fact that it was taking place less than thirty miles from my school. As a social studies teacher, I found this particularly difficult, as it is an element of my curriculum to discuss current events and help students contextualize and understand them.

Though I was silenced in the classroom, my students came to understand the limits placed on my speech and were deeply respectful of my predicament. They turned to each other for understanding context and debate. Their depth of understanding and interest in our studies about the sacrifices of civil rights leaders and the need for direct action in the face of injustice was evident in their conversations. My students also engaged in civil disobedience and organized a school-wide walk out in support of their teachers. And when a group of my students showed up to the state capitol holding signs with quotes from some of the US civil rights leaders we had learned about in class, I saw how the students had, on their own, made the connection between the uprising and the voices of protest from the past. When one student approached me to show me his sign that read, “By Any Means Necessary” I saw that, in spite of the repressive policies that had limited my voice, my students had managed to find theirs.

Author

• Janel Anderson, Lodi High School