Education: The Timid Ones

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So far as its schools are concerned, Los Angeles is not noted as a city of peace and quiet. Not so long ago, right-wing critics raised such a fuss that the schools dropped a special UNESCO-sponsored study program. Later, Superintendent Alexander Stoddard was forced to turn down a Ford Foundation grant for the recruiting of teachers because the same sort of critics charged that the foundation was following the Communist line.

Do such pressures tend to intimidate teachers? Last week, after a poll of 250 teachers of history and political science, the Los Angeles Mirror answered yes.

The Mirror's poll covered everything from loyalty oaths to the discussion of "controversial subjects." But each of the ten questions asked revealed a surprisingly high degree of fear. More than half (53%) of the teachers felt that they were not as free to discuss "all phases of social studies, history, geography, political science, and international relations" as they were five years ago. An even greater number (55½%) reported that, for fear of losing their jobs, teachers are shying away from "controversial subjects." Indeed, said one reply, "it is just too dangerous for teachers to raise questions about which there is disagreement."

About seven out of ten teachers said that they were "cautious" about the magazines and books they read. Four out of ten admitted that they tended to "avoid" such topics as the New Deal, public housing, McCarthy, Communism. Some teachers (21½%) even expressed concern over talking about the Bill of Rights and the Fifth Amendment. A few (17%) were definitely afraid of "being spied upon" by loyalty investigators. Whether such timidity is justified, the Mirror did not say. But warranted or not, the unpleasant fact remained that of the teachers polled, one out of every two reported: "Teachers in Los Angeles [are] afraid to teach in the manner in which they, as trained educators, feel they should teach to best educate our children."