History Main / PoliticallyMotivatedTeacher

** Though there's little denying the bulk of university professors (and those who work in academia in general) tend to be liberal, but the professors, by and large, don't stand up and simply preach about their political opinions in class (speaking at out-of-class lectures and events which take place ''for this very purpose'', or explaining something relevant but considered controversial in some circles, such as a biology professor explain why evolution is a real process, don't count). Usually, you can pick up on any given professor's perspective on the issues, but most of them are good at allowing students to speak their minds, even if it's only because they're bored with hearing the same cliched and redundant observations being voiced again and again by undergrads ("History is written by the winners;" "Communism works on paper"). That said, it is an old observation that college students tend to be arguably ''the'' most left-wing demographic in America, and, no matter what subject it is, there's always a self-appointed PC policeman in the room (though one should be careful to use gender-neutral pronouns and be sure to use the current appropriate word for any non-white hetero-male demographic since the beginning of time). Many of them won't be nearly as liberal 9even those who continue to identify as such) in another 10-15 years, but don't try telling them that, unless you want to make yourself a pariah and see fifty pairs of eyes roll at once.

** Though there's little denying the bulk of university professors (and those who work in academia in general) tend to be liberal, but the professors, by and large, don't stand up and simply preach about their political opinions in class (speaking at out-of-class lectures and events which take place ''for this very purpose'', or explaining something relevant but considered controversial in some circles, such as a biology professor explain why evolution is a real process, don't count). Usually, you can pick up on any given professor's perspective on the issues, but most of them are good at allowing students to speak their minds, even if it's only because they're bored with hearing the same cliched and redundant observations being voiced again and again by undergrads ("History is written by the winners;" "Communism works on paper"). That said, it is an old observation that college students tend to be arguably ''the'' most left-wing demographic in America, and, no matter what subject it is, there's always a self-appointed PC policeman in the room (though one should be careful to use gender-neutral pronouns and be sure to use the current appropriate word for any non-white hetero-male demographic since the beginning of time).

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* ''DykesToWatchOutFor'' plays with something seen under "Real Life" in this exchange from 2005 between Neoconservative student Cynthia and Ginger:
--> '''Cynthia:''' The evidence speaks for itself. On a faculty of 250, there are only 15 openly Republican professors.
--> '''Ginger:''' What are you proposing? Ideological diversity through affirmative action? That's real Conservative.
--> '''Cynthia:''' I'm proposing that impressionable students hear all sides of the issues. Does that threaten you?
--> '''Ginger:''' If all sides includes [[UsefulNotes/{{Evolution}} Creationism]] and [[ConspiracyTheories Holocaust denial]] and the novels of AynRand, then, yeah, I guess it does.
--> '''Cynthia''' (''angrily scribbling''): 4:22 p.m. Professor Ginger Jordan mocks one of my intellectual heroines. (''to Ginger'') I'll just post this little incident to the Academic Freedom Complaint Center.
--> '''Ginger:''' Cynthia, if you really want more Republicans on the faculty, try getting our salaries quadrupled.

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** ''"Mr. Tergeson's really committed. In fact, I think he'' was''."''

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[[folder: Real Life ]]
* Andrew Schlafly, creator of Wiki/{{Conservapedia}}, is a teacher who greatly encourages his students to use his website for research. The site is pretty up-front about having a strong conservative bias (the idea being that it is opposite to the [[StrawmanPolitical purportedly liberal]] {{Wikipedia}}). The site itself is, against his wishes, practically a parody of itself due to the number of Trolls who've infiltrated it.

* Ron Jones and his "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave Third Wave]]" experiment, intended to teach his students on NaziGermany and the dangers of fascism. It was later [[Film/TheWave adapted into]] a MadeForTVMovie, a book, and a German cine film.

** A good example of this is that Confederate apologists will focus on Sherman's March to the Sea while ignoring the war crimes of Nathan Bedford Forrest and William Quantrill. Likewise, Robert E. Lee is painted as a paragon of virtue and Ulysses S. Grant as an immoral drunk. Slavery is treated as a tangential question to the real issue of States' Rights, and any statements to the contrary are ignored, such as Alexander Stephen's "Cornerstone Speech," which proclaimed that the foundation of the Confederacy was slavery, or the fact that the Confederate Constitution outright ''banned'' states from abolishing slavery.

* [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix Dolores Umbridge]] is a negative version who teaches Ministry propaganda and punishes students ([[TyrantTakesTheHelm and eventually teachers]]) for disagreeing with the party line.

* The eponymous subject of ''TuesdaysWithMorrie'', Morrie Schwartz, was said to have been very much an activist, even giving his students all A grades to prevent them from being drafted.

* In ''{{Speak}}'', Melinda's teacher Mr. Neck likes to rant about various political topics, such as how illegal aliens are stealing jobs from hardworking Americans.

* One episode of ''BronxZoo'' had a science teacher become a born-again Christian after surviving an accident where a cross-shaped beam narrowly missed falling on him. He become convinced the Bible was the literal word of God and started teaching creationism rather than evolution in his class.
* Not exactly a teacher, but in ''TheGeorgeLopezShow'', Max's [[ScoutOut Treetop Rangers]] leader liked to rant about how recycling is bad and how cops should be allowed to profile Mexicans. When Max's dad George confronts him, saying that he is Mexican, he says "Oh, not like you. I mean one of those 'Me no speakee' Mexicans."

* In the early arcs of ''BetterDays'' Fisk had to deal with a particularly anvilicious [[StrawmanPolitical liberal]] social studies teacher.

* Quite a few UrbanLegends archived and discussed on {{Snopes}} have such teachers, typically involving them teaching a lesson to their students or getting into a fracas with a student of a different political alignment. A few examples (of varying degrees of truth) include [[http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/socialism.asp a professor giving his students a hands-on lesson about socialism]], [[http://www.snopes.com/glurge/nodesks.asp a teacher having veterans come into her class to impart patriotism to her students]], and a HollywoodAtheist [[http://www.snopes.com/religion/chalk.asp professor attempting to disprove the existence of God...]]by dropping a piece of chalk.

* Bobby's [[HippieTeacher History teacher]] on ''KingOfTheHill'' is ridiculously pushy and political.

* Radical feminist Ms. Barch from ''{{Daria}}''.
** Though her motivations are more personal than political. She never bothers to espouse any feminist viewpoints, nor tries to teach any to her students. She simply uses class as an opportunity to repeatedly vent about her no-good ex-husband, and take out her frustration on the male students.

* Mr. Keating from ''DeadPoetsSociety'' spends more time spouting Romantic and Transcendentalist ideals in his class than actually teaching.

* The Women's Studies professor from ''SororityBoys'' is a terrifying example of a StrawFeminist. Among the lecture topics in her class is the "Myth of the Male Orgasm," prompting a confused look from Dave, the only male in the class.

* Especially in the American DeepSouth, it's not hard to find history teachers who are very adamant about making sure their students know that the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar was [[FanonDiscontinuity mostly]] about other issues than slavery, usually mentioning how the North was very Federalist (strong central government and pan-US-nationalism) whereas the South was very Anti-Federalist (weak central government, strong individual state-government and state-nationalism.)

* Especially in the American DeepSouth, it's not hard to find history teachers who are very adamant about making sure their students know that the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar was also/[[FanonDiscontinuity mostly]] about other issues than simply banning or keeping slavery, usually mentioning how the North was very Federalist (strong central government and pan-US-nationalism) whereas the South was very Anti-Federalist (weak central government, strong individual state-government and state-nationalism.) To their credit, there were multiple issues at play that led to the American Civil War, and some are honestly simply trying to let them know that it was much more complex than the modern reading of "North says slavery bad; South says slavery good, Round 1: FIGHT!" but more than a few simply take it too far.
** A good example of this is that Confederate apologists will focus on Sherman's March to the Sea while ignoring the war crimes of Nathan Bedford Forrest and William Quantrill. Likewise, Robert E. Lee is painted as a paragon of virtue and Ulysses S. Grant as an immoral drunk. Slavery is treated as a tangential question to the real issue of States' Rights, and any statements to the contrary are ignored, such as Alexander Stephen's "Cornerstone Speech," which proclaimed that the foundation of the Confederacy was slavery.

* A similar example is Kantorek in ''Literature/AllQuietOnTheWesternFront'', who encourages his students to join the German army in WorldWarI, greatly romanticizing it as [[WarIsGlorious something glorious.]] [[ForegoneConclusion Of course]], he couldn't be farther from [[WarIsHell the truth.]] One of Kantorek's former students gets payback when he becomes his commanding officer. He reminds Kantorek of a fellow student who died in agony after joining the frontlines thanks to Kantorek's speeches and makes Kantorek follow humiliating orders.

* Especially in the American DeepSouth, it's not hard to find history teachers who are very adamant about making sure their students know that the AmericanCivilWar was also/[[FanonDiscontinuity mostly]] about other issues than simply banning or keeping slavery, usually mentioning how the North was very Federalist (strong central government and pan-US-nationalism) whereas the South was very Anti-Federalist (weak central government, strong individual state-government and state-nationalism.) To their credit, there were multiple issues at play that led to the American Civil War, and some are honestly simply trying to let them know that it was much more complex than the modern reading of "North says slavery bad; South says slavery good, Round 1: FIGHT!" but more than a few simply take it too far.

* [[StrawCharacter Professor Radisson]] from ''Film/GodsNotDead'' is an atheist philosophy teacher whose first action in his new class is to make his students sign a statement saying "God is Dead" or else he'll fail them; The Christian protagonist, Josh, refuses to do so Radisson challenges him to debate God's existence with him in front of all the classroom at the end of every class session, and if he can't prove God's existence he'll fail him. It becomes clear that Radisson only intends to humiliate him for his beliefs and it later turns out that he is a HollywoodAtheist who has always [[NayTheist hated God]] because his mother died of cancer when he was little.

* Andrew Schlafly, creator of Wiki/{{Conservapedia}}, is a teacher who greatly encourages his students to use his website for research. The site is pretty up-front about having a strong conservative bias (the idea being that it is opposite to the [[StrawmanPolitical purportedly liberal]] {{Wikipedia}}). The site itself is, against his wishes, practically a parody of itself due to the number of Trolls who've infiltrated it.

* In the United States, universities are often accused by conservatives of being centers of liberal indoctrination. To be fair, there are numerous studies that come out in which the college's liberal-leaning teachers outnumber the conservatives by absurd numbers.
** Conservatives generally view the entire (K-12 public) education system in the United States as liberally biased - arguably justified in that between 1989-2012, the American Federation of Teachers gave $33 million to Democrats. In the same period, they gave $0 to Republicans.
** Which some people think can be explained with the idea that for a conservative academic, there are much better options than becoming a university professor, mainly in the numerous conservative think tanks.
*** Some argue that the reason so many conservative think tanks exist in the first place is due to conservatives being driven out of universities.
**** OR could be explained by Republicans tending to cut funding for education and thus harming teacher's wages, or because teachers are heavily unionized, which runs against the grain of Republicans more hands-off free market ideas, so really it is just a vicious cycle.
**** And another option is that conservatives will, generally speaking, prefer going into private industry than public ones, while liberals are the opposite. And the flipside is that those in public service may develop a liberal mindset due to their interacting with more diverse groups than those in private businesses would.

*** Some argue that the reason so many conservative think thanks exist in the first place is due to conservatives being driven out of universities.

* Especially in the American DeepSouth, it's not hard to find history teachers who are very adamant about making sure their students know that the American Civil War was also about other issues than simply slavery, usually mentioning how the North was very Federalist (strong central government) whereas the South was very Anti-Federalist (weak central government, strong individual states' government.) To their credit, there were multiple issues at play that led to the American Civil War, and some are honestly simply trying to let them know that it was much more complex than the modern reading of "North says slavery bad; South says slavery good, Round 1: FIGHT!" but more than a few simply take it too far.

* Professor Dillamond in ''Literature/{{Wicked}}'' is extremely passionate about his beliefs about [[FantasticRacism the prejudice against]] [[TalkingAnimal talking animals]] [[FantasticRacism in the school system]] and his fears about what is happening to them[[spoiler:, fears which turn out to be correct]]. This has a profound effect on Elphaba, particularly because of the prejudice against her for her green skin.

* A mild example appears in ''SupermanIV''.

* A North Carolina teacher named Tonya Dixon-Neely was suspended in 2012 for her screaming tirade against one of her high school students in which she claimed that the student was not allowed to "disrespect" President Obama. One of her students was recording the rant because Dixon-Neely apparently had a history of anti-conservative behavior.

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'''s Mr. ([[{{Transsexual}} or Mrs.]]) Garrison has been known to do this on occasion, though less blatantly, as it's often left to offhand comments (such as in ''WesternAnimation/SouthParkBiggerLongerAndUncut'' when he declared the [[MoralGuardians Mothers Against Canada]] were "probably just all on their periods"). In "Follow That Egg!," however, (s)he manipulates the lesson in a ploy to keep gay marriage illegal (though his/her motivation is more personal than political).

**** OR could be explained by Republicans tending to cut funding for education and thus harming teacher's wages, so really it is just a vicious cycle