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students to examine “facts and not my opinion” (T8). The teacher did not desire to
have all his/her students pattern their thoughts after those of the teacher. The teacher
had the students create their own opinions. T8 observed that individual gun control
laws did not require a constitutional amendment and needed just a Supreme Court
case to change them.
On the issue of the cost of college tuition, participant author T10 put forward
a viable solution for students but, lacking historical evidence, led to uninformed
conclusions. When the federal government elected to cut Pell Grants, the costs of
higher education fell to the states, which quickly transferred them to individual
families. These cuts made college unattainable without one having to encumber huge
debt. College funding fell on the young, who had no assets. The author compared the
increase in college costs to “insurance rates” (T10). Unfortunately, while insurance
rates do provide an example of upward expenses, they do not compare to the high cost
of human labor found in universities. The rising personnel costs of staff compounded
by the rate of spiraling fringe benefit expenses are not an equivalent comparison
with insurance rates. It is true that families had “less disposable income” (T10). In
hard times, finding money for education and everything else is difficult.
The teachers explored pedagogy in their letters to the editor by looking at four
aspects of their teaching. First, teachers attempted to educate students to research the
validity of a source’s claims to determine whether they constituted accurate or fake
news. Next, teachers built the students’ civic thinking, literacy, and argumentation
skills as advocated in the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for
Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K–12 Civics,
Economics, Geography, and History by the National Council for the Social Studies
(NCSS). Furthermore, the teachers said they attempted to engage their students in
analyzing the role of protests in a democratic society for the K–16 social science
classroom. Finally, teachers attempted to prepare students to take civic action as
future democratic citizens.

Conclusions
As citizens, teachers have the right to free speech as guaranteed under the First
Amendment of the United States Constitution. Each is still an American citizen even
when employed as a teacher in a school corporation. The participants in this study
had to maintain a professional balance between free speech and school control. No
privacy online exists for school employees, and it is hard not to be seen as a teacher
when posting on social media. Nevertheless, teachers of government have a lot on
their minds. The participants thought about issues and had university backgrounds that
helped them to consider controversial issues, especially in the areas of governance,
equity, and justice.
Students bring controversial issues into the classroom every day, and teachers
need to prepare for teaching controversial issues as they emerge. Teachers need to be
practiced at engaging others in debate and discussion without disclosing their own
attitudes, beliefs, and values. They work with controversial issues every day while
striving not to indoctrinate young people. Just attending a civics class is not enough
as students need preparation for civic participation.
As state and local employees, participants need to use discretion in public forums
to separate individual identity from professional self. Working in classrooms that are
segregated by political ideology sometimes causes teachers to miss opportunities

54 The Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin: International Journal for Professional Educators