Students who are a part of a higher learning institution need to learn how to test their assumptions against the arguments of their critics. When they do so, they validate their thoughts as educated and objective.
Proactive minds allow provocative thoughts to be promulgated not to offend them, but to engage their critical thinking. When a student extends his silence and civility toward one who speaks the dialect of inflammatory speech laced with malice and contempt, they will be known as the wiser of the two.
We must encourage our students to stretch their intellectual horizon. When we allow for this, they truly will become advocates of knowledge.
Educators who zone speech based on their ideology pave a road toward ignorance.
Freedom of speech and expression are but the identity of who we are as Americans even when it tries our way of thinking. The only way to truly drown out the ignorance is to allow the objective knowledge built from critical thinking speak louder than our opponents’ rhetorical ignorance.
Don’t zone freedom of speech, but further encourage it and cultivate it into a conversation of true wisdom and understanding.
Grow in knowledge. Allow experience to be a graceful teacher. Let your silence speak resoundingly. Always seek the objective truth even when it is a thorn to your own subjective opinions.
SASHA FISHER
Coeur d’Alene