Neutrality in Education: Challenging the Call for Teacher’s Neutrality With the Concept of Judgement

Starting point of this paper is the online portal Neutral Teachers, which was launched by the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) to enlighten students, parents, and teachers about the principle of neutrality that civil servants have to follow. As most teachers in Germany are civil servants, the principle of neutrality applies to their positions. In a first step, the German discussion around teacher’s neutrality will be analysed with a focus on the debate about the Beutelsbach Consensus (1977), an agreement between teachers and researchers, which still has a lot of influence on how the German debate around teacher’s neutrality is conducted. This consensus is also used by the authors of Neutral Teacher to legitimate their website. In a second step, the discussion around teacher’s neutrality in the U.S.A. and Canada will be considered with reference to two different positions, which are nearly 20 years apart and illustrate an interesting shift in the debate. In the third step, Hannah Arendt’s conception of judgement will be explained with a special focus on the general standpoint and the enlarged mentality because these concepts offer a significant alternative to the call for teacher’s neutrality. The importance of judgement and its value for the teacher’s profession and a thing-centred teacher education will be outlined further in the conclusion.