My name is Diana Cox. This is my husband’s blog page – but he shares with me sometimes.
I’ve taught Texas Government as adjunct faculty at Tarrant County College (North East Campus, Hurst, TX) for 5 and a half years.  For those that don’t know – yes, Texas Government is a required course in Texas for a bachelor’s degree from a state school (it includes geography, economics, demographics, light history, voting procedures, elections, function of state government, local government, federalism, and public policy. So the content is not just “Yay, Texas!” but there is some of that, too – at least in my class).
Like most, throughout my educational experience, I’ve had and/or heard of many professors/instructors who teach in a politically biased manner.  Partially motivated by this, I set forth the goal of teaching a (mostly) politically unbiased course – where I would strive to provide both sides of an issue, or at least present the major arguments on each side.  I would advise my students of this at the beginning of the semester.  I felt that students are there to learn about the subject, not to be indoctrinated (or turned off) by an opposing viewpoint – but to have the information to be able to think and form their own opinions.  To be fair, this approach isn’t purely noble – as I know that to best be able to argue one’s own side, it is most effective to know what the other side believes (and why) – so it helps me to solidify my own beliefs and arguments as well.
At the end of each semester, I would set aside time (between a quiz and an exam review – ensuring my own “captive audience”) to share my partisan affiliation (after making my students guess) and share my own personal political stances and reasons.
I’ve told friends/family about this over my years of teaching – and have had several requests to either attend or to just hear it.  As I’ve decided to take a break from teaching, I did record my final (for now) “speech” – I hope you enjoy.
Spoiler Alert: I’m Republican.

Note: This is “off the cuff” – my only notes being some bullet points on the subject areas I wanted to cover.  It is primarily conceptual and anecdotal – given a limited time frame, it doesn’t go into deep statistics or numbers.

Another Note: This is 1 of 2 speeches/monologues/diatribes (whatever you want to call it) – the second is about 10 min longer, slightly different in some ways, but generally the same ideas.  If for some reason you’d like to hear it, email me and I’ll send it to you.  My sweet husband reviewed both and we agreed this was the better one for sharing.