From the Dinner Table to the Classroom

Political Conversations Spill Over into the Educational Sphere, Leaving Some Feeling Overwhelmed

By SERIAH SARGENTON Staff Writer

While encouraging students to talk about current political events may be beneficial to some, it can also make the classroom environment uncomfortable.

“I think it’s important to talk about current events, however I don’t think it should take up all of your teaching time,” said Courtney Bernardo, a Saint Rose student.

Bernardo explained that for the first three weeks of her crime fiction class, the professor often brought Trump into the conversation even when there was no relevance to the class lesson. For Bernardo, this type of conversation was more of a distraction than a way to help her understand the course.

To the majority of her peers and herself, the topic of Trump became irritating because they just wanted to talk about the class without getting into heated political debates, according to Bernardo.

“As long as it’s relevant to the subject at hand, like in a political science, history, sociology, or ethics class, politics could easily be brought up and implemented very reasonably,” said Dan Gauvin, a junior transfer student at Saint Rose. “However, in classes where it’s not