The "S" word, "stupid," is one I don't let my children get away with using. They're not allowed until they're older and can wield it wisely.
I, on the other hand, am *%$ years old and have earned the right to use the word as I see fit.
Nowhere does it seem more applicable than in situations involving public education and its repeated breaches of the public's trust.
Apparently I can now add three teachers in the Los Angeles public school system to my list of half-wits in academia.
The L.A. Times reports that three white, male teachers (yes, their race is relevant here) at an elementary school in south L.A. have been suspended following their incredibly STUPID choice of black American role models for study during Black History Month. The men teach 1st, 2nd and 4th grades respectively.
The teachers in question allegedly had their predominantly Hispanic students carrying photos of black Americans of questionable judgment or character in a BHM parade.
(Don't get me started on why I think having a parade of ANY sort during valuable school time is a ridiculous use of that time. And I won't bore you, here anyway, with my thoughts on how history ought to be taught to everyone, not just children of a particular race or religious background.)
The people these teachers thought worthy of further study and celebration? O.J. Simpson, RuPaul (a female impersonator), and basketball player Dennis Rodman.
Yeah, one look at Simpson's name was enough for me to conclude the teachers, in fact, lost their minds. RuPaul and Rodman are pretty benign in comparison.
It gets worse. These guys' names were actually on a list of prominent black Americans approved by the school!
I'm not black but even I can name off the top of my head a plethora of more logical choices: Harriet Tubman, George Washington Carver, Booker T. Washington, Maya Angelou, Texas politician Barbara Jordan, Martin Luther King (!), Oprah Winfrey, Madame C.J. Walker, Marian Anderson. What about dancers Alvin Ailey, Katherine Dunham or Lauren Anderson?
Heck, if I researched Google for about 20 minutes I could come up with a mile-long list of notable and awesome black Americans that any child of any race ought to be familiar with as part of their academic studies.
But then again I take education seriously, sort of like breathing oxygen. Just ask anyone who knows me.
Seems the moronic teachers at the L.A. elementary school would rather poke fun or make some sort of political or socially slanted point than actually spend time teaching their young charges about the finer qualities of famous Americans.
Wonder how much time they spent dreaming up the nonsense that rightfully got them suspended?
At the end of the day the only harm done is that kids who likely need every solid learning opportunity they could get instead got cheated by a handful of STUPID grownups.
Oh, and according to the newspaper, the school district sent out a "human relations and ethnic diversity team" to help the school prepare more appropriate BHM lessons.
(If a school and its administration have to have outside help to come up with appropriate lessons for a specialized history study what does THAT say about the rest of their offerings? BHM may be getting the scrutiny now, but what about the math, science or reading curricula used on a daily basis? Makes you wonder . . .)
2 comments:
You know me, I can’t keep my mouth shut. However, as I always told my students (and by the way it was in public school) that one of the best things in America is the right to your own opinion and the right to express that opinion. Many of the things you have said about public school are no doubt true. I also do not doubt that you are a wonderful homeschooler. I know you, I know your background, which is very conducive to being able to homeschool your children. However, we must keep in mind that when a public school teacher, school administrator, board member, etc. makes some stupid or criminal act, it is very likely that the news will pick it up and we will all know about it regardless of where it occurs. I have to believe that for each of these public incidents there could very well be a homeshool incident that we are not privy to because of the fact it is private. It occurs in the privacy of the home.
I did not homeschool my children, and I do not think my children will homeschool their children. Do I think that made me a bad parent or that it will make them bad parents no. Why? Probably because I was a public school teacher (and now a public school professor). Since my son is now finishing his Ph.D. (in education) and my daughter is working on her masters for a nurse practitioner, I don’t think they suffered in their education preparedness.
I did know the names of my students. I did ask on numerous occasions if there was something going on they needed to talk about or that I could help with. I met with parents at parent-teacher conferences. I knew parents who were really good kind people, but even just speaking with them a few moments I think I could definitively say that they would not be able to do a better job of educating their children at home than we could do at school. Some parents, even if qualified, don’t have the luxury of not being able to work. Having been a single parent myself during part of my children’s education I know it would not have been an option if we still wanted a roof over our heads and food on the table.
In Sunday School we have been studying discovering our “gifts” and whether these gifts can be considered as such even if it is our vocation. I think certainly you can exercise your gift through your profession. There are hundreds of thousands of good teachers out there. They rejoice with, cry with, worry over, and God forbid I say this, they love their students.
One size doesn’t fit all -- either in public school or home school. You get the good with the bad. On a percentage basis there are very likely the same number of incompetent homeschool teachers as there are public school teachers (I have met some of them). However, in the public school even if you get a bad teacher for one subject or one year, odds are you can get a good one for the other subjects or the next year. If you have a bad homeschool teacher you are stuck with the bad teacher the entire educational experience.
This is so not about homeschooling vs. public schooling and I'm sorry you've interpreted it that way. This IS about teachers who were entrusted with instructing very young children during a special focus on Black History and failed miserably because they purposely chose to do so. What adult in his right mind would encourage little kids who are too young to know any better to celebrate the likes of OJ Simpson or Dennis Rodman as role models for black Americans? Those teachers in LA knew exactly what they were doing and it was mean-spirited, cynical, and a breach of the public's trust. Folks in California deserve better and those kids sure do. Ive said it before and I'll stand by it now -- kids in poor communities need even more quality education than kids in well-off suburbia. That "quality education" doesn't necessarily equate with homeschooling. The LA teachers wasted their students' time, upset a lot of parents, and wasted district resources because a special outside team had to be brought in to help fashion a more appropriate lesson plan. Kids are kids and wherever or however they are educated they deserve to be in the care and company of adults who can be trusted to improve their minds, not waste their time. Homeschoolers who don't do their job are just as worthless as traditional school teachers who don't do theirs. Love you!
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