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No Controversy Allowed! On Getting Kicked Out of a Middle School
For twenty-five years I’ve been a humane educator, someone who teaches about the interconnected issues of human rights, environmental preservation, and animal protection and encourages positive choicemaking and changemaking for a better world. These days, through my work at the Institute for Humane Education, I train others to be humane educators who can integrate critical global issues into their curricula and teaching, but periodically I still visit schools and give talks or teach classes.
I was invited to give presentations at two middle school assembly programs in New Hampshire, followed by an evening community talk, based on my book, Most Good, Least Harm, which explores ways in which we can each make choices in our lives that do the most good and the least harm to ourselves, other people, other species, and the environment. I was a little worried about maintaining the interest of one hundred and fifty 6-8th graders in a hot gym for the two hours I was scheduled to speak, but I was not worried about my subject matter. I’ve taught thousands of middle schoolers, and I’m pretty good at making sure my talks are age-appropriate, relevant, and interesting.
So I was relieved when I was able to keep the kids’ interest for the duration and make the talk lively while still being able to maintain some proverbial order. I thought it went well. So did the teacher who’d invited me who was thrilled by the response of the enthusiastic and fully engaged students. Imagine our surprise when ten minutes after the presentation we found out that the second one was canceled. The principal – who’d come in a few times during my presentation but wasn’t able to attend the entire talk – felt it was too political and called ahead to stop me from speaking at any other school that day.
I asked to speak to him to find out what aspects of my talk he thought were too political. He could barely make eye contact with me. He was so anxious and upset. He told me that there were some words I used that were political, such as “war,” “healthcare” and “illegal immigrants.” While he admitted that I didn’t discuss current wars and the politics of them; health care reform or the various opinions about it, or the debates over how to handle illegal immigration, the very mention of these words was, he felt, too political. He worried that the kids would go home and share things from the assembly (whether accurately relayed or not) that would anger some parents.
It’s worth sharing the context of these so-called “political” words. I had begun the presentation by asking the students what they thought were the biggest problems in the world. One boy said “war.” I agreed with him that this was, indeed, a problem, and commented that we hadn’t yet learned to solve our conflicts without violence. The words “healthcare” and “illegal immigrants” came up in the context of a critical thinking exercise in which we analyzed the true price of two everyday items, a conventional cotton T-shirt and a fast food cheeseburger. I’d asked the students what the positive and negative effects were of these items on ourselves as consumers, on other people, on animals, and on the environment. I also asked what systems were in place that perpetuated these items; what alternatives might do more good and less harm, and what systems would need to change to make such alternatives ubiquitous. “Healthcare” came up because of the high healthcare costs associated with unhealthy diets, and “illegal immigrants” came up because so many are employed in slaughterhouses, considered the most dangerous work in the U.S. (Frankly, the points I made could just as easily come out of the mouth of a tea party activist angry that “illegals” were taking citizens’ jobs and then being treated for their injuries in expensive emergency rooms where they were unlikely to be able to pay the bills, resulting in a tax burden on Americans. But I digress.)
The main points of my talk had nothing to do with these “political” words. The take-home message included four key points:
1. Make connections about your choices and their effects
2. Model your message [a quote from Mahatma Gandhi] and work to change systems you don’t believe are right or good
3. Take responsibility for your actions
4. Pursue joy by helping others
The principal, softening a bit during our thirty minute discussion, said he appreciated the value of this message, but he was visibly terrified of the backlash he might receive. He also warned me that I could expect enraged parents at my community talk that night, and he said he was worried about me (I was not worried).
I recommended that he talk to each class and assess what they learned from my talk, so he spent the afternoon visiting each classroom to ascertain what the students took away from the presentation (and perhaps to undo any damage I had caused while having some base to cover himself if he got angry phone calls the next day). I was happy to hear that each class was able to accurately articulate the key points above.
No angry parents came to my community talk later that evening, just eager and enthusiastic ones thankful for the opportunity their children had had to think about the consequences of their lives and choices and their capacities to take responsibility for making a positive difference in the world. And no parents called the principal in the ensuing days to complain.
Was my talk political? Only if by political we mean that it ultimately had relevance to governance. It was certainly not partisan, and it’s preposterous (and worrisome) to suggest that words like “war,” “healthcare,” and “illegal immigrants” cannot be uttered in schools. What that implies about the learning that is permitted in school is frighteningly 1984-esque.
Was my talk controversial? It shouldn’t have been, but even if some thought it was, we should welcome controversial topics in school. What better place to grapple with differing ideas? If students cannot uncover and discover truths in school and explore systems in an effort to become not only better educated about the realities behind our choices but also gain the power to be conscientious choicemakers and future changemakers through their careers and professions, then what are we hoping to achieve through schooling? Questioning, thinking critically, assessing systems to ensure they are just and humane are deeply American values, built into this country’s DNA. Only in a totalitarian state would my talk have been too dangerous; it certainly shouldn’t have elicited fear in the U.S.
I do not blame this principal, though. He faces stresses and challenges in his job that I not only don’t know about, but can only imagine make his work as an educational leader difficult. We live in an educational climate that is terrified of controversy, making schooling blander with each passing year, and depriving our children of the critical and creative thinking skills they need to face a challenging and uncertain future. Despite all the evidence that shows that discussing controversial issues in school leads to greater educational achievement, skill, and learning, we shy away from the issues that may be most important and relevant to our children’s future.
Getting kicked out of a middle school raises a fundamental question, perhaps the most important question we can be asking at this point in history: What is schooling for? The prevailing view is that schooling’s purpose is essentially to provide students with verbal, mathematical, and scientific literacy so that they can find jobs and compete in the global economy. But in the face of grave global challenges, from climate change and species extinction to a growing population that lacks access to clean water and food to inequities and conflicts to a looming energy crisis to institutionalized cruelty and brutality toward both people and animals, it’s myopic to cling to such a meager educational goal as the ability to compete in the global economy.
It’s my belief that the purpose of schooling ought to be to provide all students with the knowledge, tools, and motivation to be solutionaries for a restored, healthy, and just world, and this is why I’m a humane educator. I believe our students need to be critical and creative thinkers who can solve global challenges with innovation, common sense, and a humane ethic. An inability to assess information critically and creatively, especially in an Internet age of massive information and misinformation, leads to an inability to participate honestly and realistically in a democracy and within complex systems.
Yes, such education would mean that students might question their parents’ beliefs. Yes, it means they might question their teachers. Yes, it means they might question entrenched institutions and systems, including economic, agricultural, energy, transportation, production, defense, and political systems. For some this is very dangerous. I, however, believe we should wholeheartedly welcome such questioning. Perhaps our children might then discover ways to ensure that these systems are just, peaceful, restorative, healthy, and humane for all.
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91 Comments so far
Show AllZoe Weil f you are ever in NY I would love a visit from you, my students would enjoy it.
Thanks! Would love to come to your school and am periodically in NY. Visit our website: www.HumaneEducation.org and sign up for our e-news. You can see my schedule there and also request a talk for your school when I'm in the area. Zoe (zoe@HumaneEducation.org)
Thank you I will follow up and I will be requesting a visit in the Fall. Once again thank you for your response.
The parents and students had no problem. The principal is, obviously, a bigot/coward kneeling before some like minded conservative control freak.
As a retired teacher with more than 25 years in the classroom I'd say your diagnosis might well be correct. We teachers always said that an administrator who was constipated could be quickly cured by simply mentioning the word "lawyer." Administrators have hidden behind No Child Left Behind and such stupidities because it allows them to stay away from legal issues and irate parents--they can point to statistics and justify all that occurs on the basis of the tests. Such open ended discussions as described in this article take a strong administrator to understand and perceive the value therein no matter what the administrator's political persuasion. Such exist, but they are becoming more and more rare. Rocking the boat is the unforgivable sin of the education world.
What is education for? I dunno myself, I thought there was something about a better job waiting for me after graduation... But I've graduated from 3 places now, and I still made more money each year when I was a freaking high school dropout.
I feel bad for all the college kids who put themselves hugely in debt because they believed that "to get a good job, get a good education" slogan.
In our zeal to train our students to work (at low wages) for corporations, we have sacrificed what Ms. Weil discusses in this article. To me, this is one of the main goals that public education is not meeting.
Let the corporations train their own employees at their expense instead of paying those huge bonuses to management. Public education should be developing the values and basic skills for the students to be able to learn and hopefully prosper in the field of their choice (if there's a job for them).
In my limited experience teaching in public schools (my position was cut after one year), I remember talking to another teacher about ideas I had for some lessons which definitely required my students to use critical thinking skills. All of them followed the state's standards and benchmarks for the grade level and content area. But I recall her looking at me with a puzzled expression on her face as she commented, "That sounds interesting. But it's not going to be on the test."
"That sounds interesting. But it's not going to be on the test."
Right there is the central problem of American schooling. Not what is on "the test" but that there is, as the be-all and end-all of a course of education, a multiple-choice test as the "proof" of education. I was lucky enough never to have had to take one and also never to have had to teach to one.
The thing is, it's also a multiple choice test in most cases. Or for most of the final mark. So all the kid needs to do is learn how to find the right choice between two alternatives. Two of them will be totally and obviously wrong, the other two are close.
There is indeed a sickness in the schools if such a talk is considered "political". And so what if it is?
In the fall of Sept. 2001, Dr. Patch Adams** was going to speak at a local suburban high school; but as soon as word go out that he would be uttering the word "peace" he was quickly dis-invited. So, instead, Dr. Adams spoke at a mini-coference on peace and social justice we quickly put together, at a local university, with Michael Parenti, Helen Caldecott, and Francis-Moore-Lappe. Dr Adams gave a very moving talk that brought tears to my eyes. But it was preaching to the choir, and very few teenagers got to hear it.
** Who is, thankfully, nothing like he was portrayed by that most infantile of actors since Jerry Lewis, whose name evades me right now for some reason.
I laughed out loud reading this. What can you do but laugh? I mean a school principal objecting to his students even uttering some of the most basic words in the US version of the English language. What can you do but laugh? Crying,or vomitting, I think, may be too "political."
In NAZI Germany students had to join the Hitler youth. It's a fad that has caught on in the USA. I was able to be educated when higher education was teaching student how to learn to think. That was so 60's and the Nixonites and the Reaganites started the Repubican Party's war against education. How's that working out for US.NOT!
And not only is "no controversy" allowed, but the threshold of what qualifies as "controversy" is so low as to be some sort of weird social-psychological disorder.
It's commendable that Ms. Weil takes a charitable view of the principal. I expected that such a worm would emerge from her narrative apple, but still shuddered when it appeared.
Surely, such pissant school administrators are a pedagogical caricature that combine the quintessential Amerikan Babbitt with the Good German mentality: petty, pompous, small-minded, uptight, frightened, rigid, and conformist to a fault.
And those attributes are just off the top of my head, based on experience; it's too distasteful to compile an exhaustive list.
They abhor anything that's in the least even potentially controversial, not to say subversive. Worst of all, they probably really do see their exercise of authority or "extracurricular" interventions like the one described in the article as constructive and helpful; they are forever saving others from themselves and, in their eyes, preserving salutary order and tranquility.
Their professional lives are based upon slavishly and severely discouraging Rocking the Boat or Making Waves.
Perhaps they see these qualities as virtues responsible for their own success, and pride themselves on being Persons of Principal.
"Their professional lives are based upon slavishly and severely discouraging Rocking the Boat or Making Waves..."
And as a federal govt. worker, I can vouch that such behavior is considered the height of "professionalism" and puts one on ladder of promotion to a highest levels in a cushy office on the same floor as the Cabinet Secretary in the Federal Traingle.
Not all government workers -- most, perhaps, but not all. I spent the last nine years of my work life at a mental health clinic full of social workers, psychiatrists, and nurses who all truly were dedicated to helping some of the most messed up people this society has, a population (homeless mentally ill) with few sympathetic supporters, and no lobby to speak of. I can truly say that I'm proud to have spent much of my working life helping spend taxpayer money on the poor and oppressed. It was work I was proud to do (though I was only a clerk-receptionist).
They help modify my tendency toward cynicism and help me work my way up from misanthrope to curmudgeon.
Maybe in this job market, he doesn't dare rock the boat. So many of are being strangled from within that we're willing to put up with an enormous amount of abuse and oppression. Not defending this craven turd, but only saying we should expect more of the same. The ruling class wants to make our children compliant and puppet like, so they will fall in step with things without questioning. Look how their day begins: with a pledge of allegiance to the 'evil' empire.
Great post, as usual, Obedient Servant!
"Persons of Principal"? A pun, I think. Remember the way to remember the spelling between principle/principal? The latter is "pal" because the principal is your pal!
My daughter tells me "everyone has their own opinion" was battered into her head throughout school, which translates into "let's not allow discussions about opinions, as somebody might get offended."
What spins off this central message is that everything must be taught as a fact, even if it's really an opinion. This shuts off any way for the students to think critically or creatively. It would be politically dangerous to bring up anything currently controversial because, indeed, the parents might well cause a fuss for the school’s nerve in “putting ideas into their children’s heads”—dear no, we wouldn’t want to do that! Thus there is no way they can try to comprehend the current issues they might randomly pick up from a news show or gazing at a headline. The connection to the ferment of the larger world is sealed off. These effects, of course, are exactly what the prison/processing factory mode of public education is all about.
You can't teach children to think critically without rocking the boat, not unless you find a topic so trivial that nobody cares about it anyway. If they investigate the effects of T-shirt manufacture, imagine the issues they'd run into: international trade, pollution, labor issues, the list goes on and on. Eegad! (or however you spell that.)
Your remark that people such as the school principal are "in their eyes, preserving salutary order and tranquility" reminded me of something Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail":
"I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate ... who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice ..."
Our desire for justice and peace is easily smothered by the fear of what might happen to us if we were to seriously challenge the established order. Sadly, the majority of American people these days seem to be suffocating in their own fears.
Schools regularly hold assemblies put on by ex-military that extol the sacrifices of our soldiers in upholding our freedoms--even if the conflicts had nothing to do with "upholding our freedoms." As a public school teacher I've watched assemblies put on by evangelical preachers--which, while they did not mention "God" specifically, told students they could attend a special gathering after school to hear more (in that gathering Christianity was, indeed, preached). Nobody has any problems with such assemblies--it's just those that call upon students to think that cause all the trouble.
"Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mundane
educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library
and educate yourself if you've got any guts. Some of you like pep rallies
and plastic robots who tell you what to read. Forget I mentioned it."
-- Frank Zappa
"When I think back
On all the crap I learned in high school
It's a wonder
I can think at all
And though my lack of education
Hasn't hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall."
-- Paul Simon
"A 'no' uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a 'yes' merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble."
- - Mahatma Gandhi
"All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education."
-- Sir Walter Scott
"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught."
-- Oscar Wilde
"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence."
-- Robert Frost
"There is nothing so stupid as the educated man if you get him off the thing he was educated in."
-- Will Rogers
We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the class room
Teachers leave those kids alone
Hey, teachers! Leave those kids alone!
All in all, it's just a
Nother brick in the wall
-- Pink Floyd
In rejecting formal schooling, you've thrown the baby out with the bath water. Lots of people need the structure of school: a measured, sequenced approach to learning that is partly based upon the structure of the discipline and partly based upon the developing abilities of the student. In other words, you don't teach genetics to six year olds and you don't teach evolution before genetics. Good teachers can make a subject come alive, their enthusiasm infecting their students. And high standards should be upheld to signal the achievement of a student in mastering a discipline, both for the sake of the student and for the sake of anyone who wants to find out if, indeed, someone does really know mathematics, science, or English.
I can only speak from my experience. I know ecology and botany well, having taken many courses in those fields. I can walk through a woods and can see things most people cannot--because they did not take the time to learn what I know. Those classes I took--they connected me with dozens of people interested in the same things I am interested in. I am a member of a larger learning community because of the classes I took. Maybe school never "took" with you, maybe you dropped out before you met good teachers, maybe you were made to feel dumb in school. Sorry about that. But schooling made me a more observant, wiser person. I feel gratitude for those who helped me learn in high school and in college.
That's a pretty stellar list of people I quoted. I'm proud to be in their company.
You went to a better school than I did. Didn't make me feel dumb, made me feel like they were dumb. I could see even then that most of it was propaganda to brainwash you into being an obedient worker-consumer, doing what you're told, regurgitating the U.S. history cover story, which was a little light on things like slavery and the post Civil War gilded age, labor movement violent suppression, and all the interesting stuff I learned in my brief stint in a Junior College (now they're called "Community Colleges"; the term Junior College seemed patronizing even way back then).
The public school teachers deserve to be paid better and not be harassed because their baby sitting of mediated children is a stressful thankless task that frees the parents up to be wage slaves.
One or two teachers were good -- there was an English teacher who did a great job on English language literature, and another one who spearheaded the school paper. But for the most part, they were hacks who were grateful to have pre-fab lesson plans to follow because they wouldn't have been able to inspire much of anyone on their own mental dime.
When people hear home schooling, they automatically jump to the creationists shielding their children from those wicked lies that we are descended from apes and the earth is only 6000 years old and so on. Those kids are stuck there until they're 18. For saner people who choose to homeschool, it's a good thing those creationists are homeschooling, because the religious component is the most powerful argument for allowing the practice; otherwise homeschooling would be outlawed.
There are many other reasons to choose to keep kids out of the public schools, and this article, which shows how rigidly schools keep children contained from the larger world, scratches the surface. So does all the true things about the flag waiving and disgusting assemblies with the military and the crazy pastors and all the rest. I could go on, believe me. The central issue, though, is that our method of schooling simply does not answer to the way kids learn, as Marie Montessori so profoundly proved.
Our method of schooling forces children into long-term boredom for much of the day, gives the school precedent over the parents in the raising of the child, and segregates the children from the world of real activity, replacing this larger world with exercises that, all too often, have no meaning to the children other than “I’d better do this or I’ll get in trouble, or get a bad grade.”
Children are not free to pursue their own interests. A child free to do so can learn an enormous amount quite rapidly. But in school, when that bell rings, the attention has to be off to a different thing. Ah, you say, but how will they learn their other subjects? The problem is, forcing them through years of math doesn’t work if they hate math. I know lots of college students who can’t add fractions. When kids need to know math for some practical reason, they’ll learn it, and if they find it fascinating, they’ll pursue it.
Many homeschool because they know that the system is not designed to advance children’s minds, but actually to impede its growth. This is by design; two many smart, inventive, self-reliant people running around would be a disaster for the powers that be. The system is designed to create people used to boredom and having somebody be in constant control of their time and the direction of their actions and thoughts, brought to you by the Ford, Morgan, Carnegie, etc. educational foundations, who wanted to make good workers and good consumers and pressed for the forced schooling we have today. Gatto lays the proof of this out rather well and thoroughly.
The freshman English students I meet have been mentally hobbled, stupefied. Most don’t know how to think critically and can’t really read anything of any sophistication—I have to actually teach them how to read with comprehension. Most hate to write. I have to teach them to like it. It’s pretty sad. The thing is, they could be a lot smarter if they’d been properly educated. But no, they were merely schooled.
And you know what's really sick? Almost invariably, the students who tell me they were put on Ritalin are some of those students most able to concentrate, often my most intelligent students. They just didn't want to sit there and take the bullshit.
ELIZ: I observed your comment about homeschooling in a post a few weeks ago, and let it pass. This time I cannot. While I do not disagree with many of the points you made by way of example, the problem is that public education is a great ideal. To undermine the public school system (and a lot of parents keeping their children home, or otherwise voting for the charter school model supports that outcome) because of the direction taken by powerful persons today is like throwing away the cure since a few find it tasteless.
Instead of joning with the Right, which represents a significant demographic that home schools FOR religious reasons, and reinforcing the idea of home schooling, it makes more sense to work against the commercialization and corporate-control of education. You, as an educator, are well-positioned to do that. However, when you instead endorse the rather libertarian path of privately home-schooling your children (or seeing that approach as viable for others), it's yet another attack on public education. Few things are more important to the integrity of a nation than the education of its citizens. Public education is one of the great staples and ideals of the modern world.
I think it's a very slippery slope to look for reasons to keep children out of public school. The greater good would suggest, to the contrary, that principled actions be taken to preserve public education by getting the CONS out of it! And as for schools being dangerous, a cursory look at the culture of America's ghettos, added to the celebration of violence in music, video games, movies, and TV, coupled with the ethos of the make-war state, explain that. The schools are not the cause, but rather a symptom of the epidemic of violence that informs much of American life and culture.
If children are kept home, two Americas result. For many children, home IS that violent territory. Should privileged children removed from it never develop empathy for, or an understanding of the factors that send so many into lives of desperation, where is THE education?
This issue may become moot if the climate chaos continues as is likely. Localism may well come to replace what has broken down on state and national levels.
Siouxrose--My teaching experience consists of 5 years full time jr high Social studies/French in the suburbs, followed by nine years as a day-to-day high school sub in the west side of Chicago. It was over by 1980. I was also a product of the Chicago public schools. For me, it was the best socialization experience I could have had. Every socio-economic class was represented in grade school. In high school it was every class and every race. For a bright but very socially awkward teen, one of the most valuable lessons I learned was that non-college bound students still had aspirations and dreams which just didn't involve college and weren't any better or worse than mine. It served me well in teaching and then, various operations management jobs.
It is with a heavy heart that I have to agree with Elizabeth. It's just too late. She's right and so is John Gatto, who, after 25 or 30 years in the New York City schools, came to the same conclusion. The mindless totalitarians have taken over.
My hope would be that those who can, and want to make a difference, will do what Marian Wright (pre-Adelman) was doing in the 60's--setting up small schools to teach the disadvantaged in the rural south. But instead of going to the rural south, we need to be doing it in our own cities and neighborhoods. It's the only way I can see out of this mess. There are wonderful teachers and there are terrible teachers but too many have been trained in fossilized and political institutions and are not capable of doing the things so many here have identified, such as conflict resolution.
The creative teachers leave because the system has become about lesson plans and tests, not ideas.
One last point. The Athenians made Socrates drink hemlock. People can only be pushed so far before truth scare the **** out of them.
Not all education is political. Math isn't. Music isn't. Science isn't. Can't education be enriching? Can't it have social value? Can't it bring boys and girls together in a relatively safe environment? Can't it build a sense of teamwork, whether through band, the yearbook, or sports? PP, your expectations are quite high. Sometimes you just have to grit your teeth and put up with mediocrity and wait for the really good stuff to come to you.
Lots of schools aren't that safe. I went to a nice suburban school and was bullied unmercifully. Are you going to tell me it's safe to go to school in Detroit?
The idea that we should tell our children to go to school and grit their teeth through the pervasive mediocrity seems a bit unimaginative.
School bullying, the only way to combat it is to fight back and hit first. Even if that's the only punch that lands, the bully will think twice about bullying you again as most bullies don't like to get hit. Bullying starts with the USG and it bullies the world, really getting pissed off when a country or society, they bully, fights back. I'll cite Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, even Korea and even a few Latin American countries. The USG sets bullying as an example for USAn society as the USG is the worlds worst bully, indiscriminate murder from terminator Drones, the USG is a coward and compared to the 19 911 hijackers the USG cowers in comparison. The 19 defeated the USG in a 1 day war, 911. The most thorough, humiliating defeat of a bullying country in world history.The USG has been operating from Bush's temper tantrum, a 10 year temper tantrum of bullying. But then that's what bullies do for bullies are cowards, fearful cowards.
School bullying, the only way to combat it is to fight back and hit first. Even if that's the only punch that lands, the bully will think twice about bullying you again as most bullies don't like to get hit. Bullying starts with the USG and it bullies the world, really getting pissed off when a country or society, they bully, fights back. I'll cite Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, even Korea and even a few Latin American countries. The USG sets bullying as an example for USAn society as the USG is the worlds worst bully, indiscriminate murder from terminator Drones, the USG is a coward and compared to the 19 911 hijackers the USG cowers in comparison. The 19 defeated the USG in a 1 day war, 911. The most thorough, humiliating defeat of a bullying country in world history.The USG has been operating from Bush's temper tantrum, a 10 year temper tantrum of bullying. But then that's what bullies do for bullies are cowards, fearful cowards.
Unimaginative? Perhaps. But isn't that a fair coping measure for life itself--endure the mediocrity and treasure excellence when it comes along?
Elizabeth, I can understand your point of view because it is based on your experience and it is valid however, public schools in this country have the potential to transform society into a utopia. I attended public schools from k-12 in an impoverished and very violent community yet I attended State, City and private universities. I have been teaching in the exact community where I grew up in for 10 years and the violence persist but not among the students in the school. I have always been under the belief that the communities should be a reflection of its schools and not the other way around. If we all work towards that same goal the world that we all envision will be a reality but only through hard work, persistence and dedication.
Music isn't political? It's my understanding that rock and roll is what really lead to the collapse of the USSR, not Reagan or Gorbachev.
Math isn't political? Higher math lead to the development of nuclear weapons.
Science isn't political? Science has been used for years to justify just about everything. Science doesn't change with the discovery of new facts. Facts are manufactured (discovered) to support the popular political stance of the time.
Band, yearbook and sports are just another form of tiering individuals into roles to support an organizational goal.
“I've never let my school interfere with my education.”
- Mark Twain
Ms. Weil: Thank you for your courage! The principal probably never considers things like the humane treatment of animals. To those solely focused on the human being, ANY other consideration is either taboo, or considered fanatical.
Thank you for sharing this story. There are indeed strong forces intent upon closing children's minds before they have a chance to open and breathe in life's potential options and extended possibilities.
To care about OTHER is a radical idea to many, especially in a society content upon marketing unnecessary products to the single-digit consumer, while using warfare to obtain the ingredients required by corporate operators.
After teaching in the public school system on and off since 1956, I now have become a strong supporter of home schooling. - because of issues such as discussed in this article. Also, I have come to believe that there is 'something' about the unique culture of New England that results in repression of political thought. Last week in Vermont, a public library banned my new book, BANNED IN VERMONT. I had donated copies of the book to the library so that it would be available at no cost to anyone. The book has received glowing reviews. (Some are up on Amazon.) One of the main themes of the book is censorship in New England.
When fascism came, it was not at the point of a gun, it was not brought by the government troops, it was not even imposed by the Corporate CEO or the Hedge Fund manager. Fascism quietly came in the guise of a misinformed teacher, a celebrity celebrating assassination, and a bespectacled librarian banning books.
Well said, and kudos to you. The apolitical nature is national; don't feel you have to move, unless it's out of the country. See my response above for my views on homeschooling.
Speaking of being misinformed (or uninformed), why support Amazon when they bowed to political pressure and banned Wikileaks?
Kids need exposure to teachers like you. All the best. Thanks for sharing. Too many people like that Principal in places of power. He even agreed with you!
Thanks!
As this author pointed out, one of the reasons kids are bored and disengaged in school is that they are not allowed to utilize their higher order thinking skills. We fail to allow students active time in school to cultivate natural critical thinking skills and this usually manifests itself in senseless rebelliousness and discipline problems.
Teachers will confirm that of any single school activity, student engagement is at its absolute highest when a debate or argument breaks out in class (sadly they are usually unplanned and to most teachers, these student initiated gems are distractions from the fast paced curriculum rather than valuable learning opportunities to be capitalized upon). Great teachers are able to direct these into profound learning experiences, and to create a classroom culture where students are able to express their ideas and questions, and have their thinking challenged as well as challenge the thinking of others in a respectful way.
Teaching and training are two entirely different things. Both are necessary in education, but the imbalance in American society of emphasizing training over teaching has caused us to create a college educated middle class that is highly skilled (questionable), but largely oblivious to how they are connected to the world and the far reaching impact of their decisions. They are equally oblivious to the forces that guide those decisions.
Kudos to Zoe Weil for reaching out to the middle schools. We need more people to interrupt our meaningless drone of teach-to-the-test-multiple-choice-suck-and-puke curriculum and remind everybody what teaching really is.
This is an excerpt from an article on my blog discussing essentially the same issue. You may find the entire article to be of interest.
http://steveosborn.blogspot.com/2010/03/if-it-was-good-enough-for-hitler.html
I wrote and published the article below on 27 March, 2006. The incident happened on 10 January, 2003. The case has wound its way through the courts, each time getting even more control over the schools by the school boards and limiting the teaching ability of the teachers. I am reprinting it in reaction to Obama's latest attack on education. i.e., Fire the teachers, close the schools.
Since 2003, the educational situation has steadily worsened, the teachers reduced to teaching their kids to be parrots, memorizing and regurgitating by rote, the answers to the tests demanded by the government. Read this carefully, the situation is more insidious than you think...
Back in 1950, my wife was fourteen and in the eighth grade. The subject was History or Current Events. The Cold War was in full flower and Joe McCarthy was in his ascendancy. She had been told that Communism was evil and she was scared to death of Stalin, as she and the world had heard many tales of his murdering or imprisoning millions of his own people. The teacher was holding forth on the evils of Communism when Adrienne asked, “What is Communism?”
The teacher hushed the class, went to the intercom and called the Principal’s Office. Then she told Adrienne to go to the Principal’s Office.
“What for,” she asked?
“You’ll find out,” was the answer.
When she got to the office, she was told to wait, that the principal had called her mother to come and get her and take her home. When she arrived, Adrienne and her Mom were taken into the principal’s office. Adrienne and her Mom were told she must never ask that question again. The Principal told her that answering that question could get the teacher fired and the school in trouble. All Adrienne needed to know was that communism was evil and that we had to hate it and fight it. Talking about communism apparently made you a “Pinko.”
The balance of the article is about a teacher who was fired for using the word "peace" in her class just before the start of the Iraq conquest, and of the increased restrictions on teachers as the case (wrongful firing) makes its way through the courts. With the new Supreme Court, I hate to think what will happen if it goes that far.
(The article contains the legal opinions of some of the judges. Frightening!)
Really scary, minitrue. I read the article. We're back into it, the new McCarthy era, only now, unfortunately, the population has been made a lot dumber.
Good thing your 30 year hitch is done with because you probably would not be able to not hold back stuff considered controversial today, which is almost anything that doesn't up test scores.
Thinking back, there was one Social Studies teacher who was pretty left wing. She had the timerity to say that we ought not to be upset with nuclear weapons in Cuba because we had missles just as close to the USSR in Turkey and other places. The John Birch Society came after her hard, and I don't remember the outcome, but tenure was pretty tight way back then. I know she stopped being there in the next semester.
There was an algebra teacher who would lose his temper and grab kids by the ears and shake their heads. The parents got together and tried to get him fired, but tenure protected him very well. He was still there after the Social Studies teacher became an educational desaparacedo.
You've convinced me that not every school is as fucked up as the one I attended or the one my son attended. What percentage match your model as opposed to mine (and Zappa's, Simon's, Pink Floyd's)?
Obviously you had and were the kind of teacher I never got, and good! The kids in those classes probably don't fully appreciate how lucky they were.
Now how do we make all schools, especially the dangerous ones like Elizabeth described, be populated with teachers of that caliber? Does publicly villifying the Teachers' Union as right wingers in Wisconsin and all those other places are doing increase the skill set of those who do the teaching (and keep order and discipline in the classrooms without pissing the kids off and thereby killing what infinitesimal interest they have in the taught topics)? Does cutting the school budgets and firing loads of teachers, giving college graduates decreased incentive to follow that life path, make all schools full of passionately dedicated mentors of the young with the knowledge to back up their commitment?
The impression I get is that you believe that anyone who doesn't share a pollyannaish worship of all schools must be a dumb drop out. Well, I got kicked out, mostly due to disgust derived from reading books that weren't on the assigned reading list.
I don't believe the poor quality of the schools is the fault of teachers but of the process by which teachers are hired, kept aboard, and are supported. Let no nation be left behind, and math and science are extremely political, especially as taught in many (not all) U.S. schools.
Your comment brought back a memory. My fourth grade teacher, Loretta Manning, set me on my path. She made China and Chinese history the main subject of her class. We took a field trip to the Chinese Exhibit at the Seattle Museum, we studied the dynasties of China, the good and the bad. We studied Chinese art and poetry.
That year, now so far back, has stayed with me all of my life. When I came home on leave from the Navy, I looked her up. By then she was long retired. I thanked her for starting me off right and giving me an appreciation for learning and a love of all cultures.
Would you believe she still remembered me after all those years? She was a TEACHER and a wonderful human being. Thank you again, Mrs. Manning.
The war on schools is to increase the obedience training necessary for a conformist society. That's what it is all about, using budget constraints as the red herring. Politicians don't want a society that can think, they want a society instilled with mindlessness propaganda by using happy talk psychobabble optimism for the nefarious purposes of a dysfunctional government, on purpose, that is sociopathic and psychopathic. It's all about thought control.
Silence, the void left by what is not taught, is a form of resource extraction investment. Its shape, form and function are a long standing cyclical tool of leverage.