By Lindsay Pickard
Senior Staff Writer

A Brookhaven College government professor brought a campaigner for Wendy Davis to speak to his students. The campaigner acknowledged that Davis understood the need to win college student votes. The situation brought into question the relationship between education and political agendas.

In this particular class, this professor aimed to balance the scales by putting Abbott’s platform on eCampus. And though I know his motive was to empower women as a whole, it could come across as biased. It made me think about whether or not professors have a biased approach when teaching. If so, students should see that as a challenge for us to research these political issues on our own. Many students look up to their professors as leaders, and they need to be able to trust them to show both sides of the issues. At the very least, professors should encourage us to look for our own answers instead of only talking about their personal political views.

Brookhaven student Rebecca Lopez said: “It would be unethical as a teacher because they’re about giving an unbiased viewpoint and teaching how to look at both sides and allowing the students to pick a side for themselves.”

If all we ever have in school are opinions, I do not think we are getting our money’s worth. We have to know both sides; to be fully informed is to be educated. You cannot understand truth without knowing all the facts. In science, facts are proven after looking at all information.

Truth no longer seems to matter. As long as what you want gets done, that is what matters. As a journalist, I am told I should not be biased. I need all the facts to let the people decide. If we actually look deeper at the motive, then maybe we would find true education.

For example, why has Wendy Davis taken a sudden interest in college students? Does she intend to teach us about important issues, or are we just votes? When most of us were little, our parents said, “Do this because I said so,” and we in turn desperately longed to know why. My opinion is just another perspective, but I am hoping if you read it, we will get back to that childhood mindset and start to ask why.

This is what education is all about. If you have a viewpoint on anything, be willing to at least hear the other side. That is where you find true power in knowledge. When we hold on to just our own biases and push that viewpoint on others without examining it, we choose to stay uneducated.