I stayed in my lane. I shouldn't have.

I was a teacher for 35 years. And I think I was pretty good. At least I did my best.

One of the things I really tried to get across to my students was to think critically and independently. To not just accept what is easiest, or what is popular. Of course, I didn’t tell them I was doing it; I tried to be somewhat subtle about it. I taught many “life lessons” that were not necessarily related to science. Again, I didn’t call them “life lessons” but that’s what they were.

As a chemistry and physics teacher, I stuck to those subjects. Sure, my life lessons got off the subject quite a bit (which my students loved--anything was better to many of them than science!) But I was careful, always careful, to never show MY own opinions. And stay away from real controversial subjects.  I didn’t want to unfairly influence them in things where I really had no right.

And while that seemed right, looking back I'm just not sure.

I have a lot of former students who are Facebook friends now. And I sometimes don't understand what I see. It’s not that they have different opinions from me, which I have no problem with. Instead, it’s that some don’t use any critical thinking skills. They seem to accept whatever story fits what they already think. Even when I jump into a thread and give facts, data, graphs, quotes, etc., most of them just pretend I never said it and keep on commenting as they were before. Even when I’ve proved that what they’re saying is non-factual, or incorrect.

I'm not sure I should have stayed out of controversial subjects when I was teaching. But I “stayed in my lane” and didn’t venture there. And I'm not sure I was right.

Because while I tried to teach my students critical thinking, it was difficult when just dealing with scientific topics. If I had tackled things like climate change and other "political" topics more directly, I think I would have been more effective. And I'm sure I could have done it without “preaching” or standing for any “side,” other than the side of truth.

For many, if something reinforces their own assumptions, they believe it. If it doesn’t, they don’t. That bothers me. They are lacking critical thinking skills, unable to differentiate truth from fiction, fact from propaganda, good from bad. And yes, I tried to teach them this from a science perspective--if an experiment doesn’t come out as you expect it to, that doesn’t mean the experiment is wrong, but maybe you're expectations were. It means you repeat it, many times if necessary, until you KNOW what is right.

But I think I would have been more effective teaching critical thinking if I had applied it to things that really mattered in their lives, rather than just science. But for the most part, I didn’t.

And I think I should have.