I don't talk politics with my classes. If someone wants to speak in private, I figure that's OK. But frankly, I don't know enough about the situations China faces to speak intelligently (and it isn't necessarily wise to publically disagree with the government here).
But sometimes my students make some scary comments.
Taiwan is a really hot topic here. On my first day of class last fall, one of my students began chiding the US, saying we deserved 9/11 because of our "oppression," demonstrated by our country's relationship with Taiwan. I told him that I had no idea what he was talking about and that most Americans are clueless regard the China-Taiwan situation.
Yesterday while making sentences with some new words from our reading, a student said, "It is foreseeable that China will liberate Taiwan" in the near future. I told him that he used the assigned words well and correctly, but I what I really wanted to say was, "Maybe we should discuss the word 'liberate' even though that wasn't in today's list."
Posted by at April 7, 2004 8:46 AM