Thou Shalt Not Abuse Academic Freedom. Thou Shalt Not Slander or Libel your Students. My feelings of vulnerability in these two areas are personal, and yet, they reflect on the predicament of diligent, caring teachers generally. There is a fine, sometimes not easily distinguishable, line between teaching and advocating controversial issues, current events and controversial literature. Advocating positions on such issues, events or literature may be read into the way that one presents them to students.
Parents are ultra sensitive to such things.
Often parents view the mere act of exposing a student to an issue, culture or writing, as an attempt to influence the student toward the same. For example, a couple of years ago Westside Elementary School in Douglas, Georgia, was fortunate enough to have a Japanese teacher in residence for six months. She was intelligent, very polite and soft-spoken. She moved from class to class teaching the students about Japanese culture. Some parents became convinced she was teaching witchcraft and that she was anti-Christian.