Usually, my rants against public school are just that -- AGAINST public school and all that the institution has come to represent. I rarely vent about teachers because usually it's the teachers who are caught and held fast by stupid procedures, moronic state and federal laws, and apathetic parents and/or students.
Tonight's posting is a rant against stupid administrators and parents and a big thumb's up for a teacher who apparently tried to put together a worthwhile history project but ended up suspended from her job.
No good deed goes unpunished, and the following story is a classic example if ever I saw one.
Atlanta-area high school teacher Catherine Ariemma is on paid suspension after four of her advanced history students walked through a cafeteria in KKK costumes. The students had been filming a video about racism in U.S. history and Ms. Ariemma specifically included the Klan because, as she put it, "You cannot discuss racism without discussing the Klan. To do so would be to condone their actions."
Ariemma, an award-winning veteran of the classroom who was cited for excellence by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and the Professional Association of Georgia Educators, accompanied her students through the school but as they passed through the cafeteria she realized too late that there were still students in there eating.
She didn't want her costumed students walking through the school alone because, as she said, she didn't want anyone to see them in their flowing white robes and get the wrong idea.
Ariemma, it seems, was damned if she did and damned if she didn't.
A student who saw the procession of kids in Klanwear complained to his parents. They, in turn, complained to district officials. And then a community activist got involved and all hell subsequently broke loose.
Now the community activist wants special security for the student who filed the original complaint. Oh, and he wants the school district to arrange for "sensitivity training"for its staff, city employees and sheriff's deputies. (?????) He also wants to make sure Ms. Ariemma is dealt with in a "fair and just" way but not so fairly and justly that the situation is ignored.
The activist says, "Good common sense should have told her this was not a good idea."
Which part wasn't a good idea? The part about giving her students an awesomely impressive hands-on project that no doubt had the potential to teach them far more about racism in American history than reading it from a crappy textbook? The part about making a video with costumes and scripts? The part about including the Klan in the conversation? The part about escorting the students personally through the school? Oh, wait, it's the part about not knowing when every single student was going to be in class rather than at lunch, right?
Like a teacher doesn't have enough to keep track of that she must also know the schedules of every single kid in a high school??????
The worst, to me, is that Ms. Ariemma's own superintendent of schools is not backing her up. Nope, he's siding with the politically correct kumbaya crowd led by the community activist. His take on the teacher's faux pas is: "In my opinion, it was offensive."
He concedes Ms. Ariemma could lose her job over it.
So here you have it, dear readers. At a time when good teachers are as scarce as buried treasure and students nationwide struggle to grasp the most basic themes in American history, a teacher who has never been reprimanded for anything but has, instead, been lauded by various and sundry entities may find herself in the unemployment line.
And all because she tackled a tough subject in an effort to actually teach a lesson.
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