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Teacher loses job over fund raiser idea for TM

Pinkie said:
Even if I believed this was a proper use of the public schools, there are plenty of dead teenagers to mourn without choosing one that has become a lightning rod for racial tension.

What high school hasn't lost a kid to a car crash? A dread disease? In the military?
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Now I can't click on "like."
 
justabubba said:
should have been an option so it wasn't so one sided
for the same dollar, the students could be like zimmerman and bring a hand gun to school
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It's patently ridiculous to compare wearing a sweatshirt to carrying a hand gun to school.
 
Pinkie said:
Even if I believed this was a proper use of the public schools, there are plenty of dead teenagers to mourn without choosing one that has become a lightning rod for racial tension.

What high school hasn't lost a kid to a car crash? A dread disease? In the military?
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And school children frequently participate in memorials to honor those who are lost.
 
sharon said:
And school children frequently participate in memorials to honor those who are lost.
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Yes, they do. But the administration has the obligation to keep the peace and foster a quality learning environment. A topic as divisive as the Zimmerman trial is (probably) no appropriate because it is too disruptive.

Also, to be honest, I don't see what there could be for kids to learn, before the trial has happened.
 
If you can't click 'like', hit refresh. It happens to me whenever I see new posts after posting a reply, and refresh clears it right up.

And yeah, the appropriate comparison to Mr. Zimmerman's cause wouldn't be handguns, it would be neighborhood watch windbreakers.

Imagine them both showing up on the same day, and you'll understand why this is such a monumentally bad idea.
 
sharon said:
And school children frequently participate in memorials to honor those who are lost.
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TM didn't attend that school so your message is just wrong, nor was this about a memorial.

It a teacher asking on behalf of students that the school adopt as school policy that students could break dress code ONLY to wear "hoodies" to support someone alleged to have violently assaulted someone resulting in his own death while on his 3rd school suspension. Maybe they should instead be allowed to spray obscenities on lockers and skip school for 10 days to show their "support" for TM.
 
Viktyr Korimir said:
If you can't click 'like', hit refresh. It happens to me whenever I see new posts after posting a reply, and refresh clears it right up.

And yeah, the appropriate comparison to Mr. Zimmerman's cause wouldn't be handguns, it would be neighborhood watch windbreakers.

Imagine them both showing up on the same day, and you'll understand why this is such a monumentally bad idea.
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That is the best comparison. Why just announce "racial division day" and post notice that all fighting is restricted to the basketball court?
 
MaggieD said:
Complete over-reaction. I'm with the teacher -- whether or not the fundraiser was her idea. Teaching about current events...newspaper reporting...editorials...I can definitely see that as part of an English class curriculum. I have no problems with that. If they fired her, there must be more to the story. That's something I learned in English class when it came to newspaper reporting. ;)
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What does paying $1 to wear a hoodie to school have to do with English? Let alone education at all?

Completely inappropriate, and likely to cause trouble to those who support GZ.

School is just not the place.
 
joko104 said:
TM didn't attend that school so your message is just wrong, nor was this about a memorial.

It a teacher asking on behalf of students that the school adopt as school policy that students could break dress code ONLY to wear "hoodies" to support someone alleged to have violently assaulted someone resulting in his own death while on his 3rd school suspension. Maybe they should instead be allowed to spray obscenities on lockers and skip school for 10 days to show their "support" for TM.
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You mean wear a hoodie for one day? The school children who know anything about this case know that TM was unarmed and walking home from the store.
 
This topic shows how much many school systems are screwed up.

This was an ENGLISH class. What the topic literature? NO! Was that class discussion about proper sentence structure? NO!

It was about a teacher deciding it would be cool to discuss a current political topic she was interested in with the class. In short, she decided that she'd rather not teach English that day - and hell yes many students would rather not either.

I suppose the teacher COULD have assigned the students to READ about the case and the WRITE a paper on their opinion - grading each for ENGLISH skills - not the opinion - but that is NOT what happened.

Damn political correctness in school. Teachers who'd rather just ramble and chatter at students having exactly NOTHING to do what what they are teaching - and wanting to change what a school is for.

- - -

My daughter was lucky enough to be able to attend a very limited attendance at a very small public (school system) Charter school. Students were drawn by lottery - among the huge list of students who wanted to attend and parents who wanted them to. They were different than any other students.

While the regular public school did all the cool discussions like that English teacher was doing, getting into politics, reading the newspaper and instead of teaching chatting with students about some article the teacher wanted to talk about, the charter school was INTENSE about school was for education. Political discuss was strictly banned in the school. In fact, to openly endorse a politician in class was to be suspended.

For the relevant class to politics (government), students were assigned political events to attend and write a paper on.

There was no "gay sensitive" training, no "social awareness" and "hot political and social topics" chats in school. In school they taught academics.

The result? Those students - not 1/10th of 1% of the student population, took first place in EVERY science fair event including math, astronomy, psychology, computer science, environment, engineering and all others. 100%. Their students were literally invited to give presentations of what they learned at area universities and even to professional scientific symposiums of scientists from around the world. And all were accepted to colleges and most receiving generous scholarships - yet no different than the other students.

And, by golly, many of the students openly gay and all races. Yet they were equal and they all knew it. Why? Because they all took the same tests. That was the equality.

AND in the current elections going on, yare the most polically involved of all. But not via school. In the community.

Wearing hoodies to school to protest or support some criminal case somewhere else? Obviously the school would have to devote many, many hours for students to even know what the hell that was about at all - other than a black teacher telling them a black kit was murdered in Florida as her opinion, thus a truism declared by the teacher to the student as "the facts." Exactly every minute and focus on that is 100% diversion from what the purpose of the school is - academic education. That is what most schools are failing at. And this is one reason why.

The teacher tried to use her students for her own social or political agenda on a hot button topic, then flip it around claiming it was the student's idea. Just because she tells it that way doesn't make it true. Obviously it was HER decision to allow class time changed to that non-English-class topic. She was not a government class teacher nor a social studies teacher.

Rather than teaching she decided she'd rather pursue a political and social crusade agenda via her students - all glad to join in rather than write a paper, read Shakespeare, take a spelling test or indentify the various components of sentences.
 
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There's nothing inherently wrong with asking an English class to track a current events story.

There might not even be anything wrong with asking them to track one that's controversial. But if keeping the peace is a big challenge for a school, administrators have to put the welfare of students above the interest in an assignment.

Whatever the case, the administrators seem to have overreacted by firing the teacher for even suggesting this.
 
sharon said:
You mean wear a hoodie for one day? The school children who know anything about this case know that TM was unarmed and walking home from the store.
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Sharon, with all due respect, you do not seem to allow for the possibility that Zimmerman has a valid self-dense claim.

What has happened to your belief in our system of justice? The man's on trial for murder. Shouldn't you at least wait to see what evidence is introduced to prove or not prove that claim before condemning him?
 
sharon said:
You mean wear a hoodie for one day? The school children who know anything about this case know that TM was unarmed and walking home from the store.
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Then they know a lie the media told. He was not walking home from a store. He would have already been home if he had.

^In that all is one of the many problems of it. Diverting the entire school to "debating and raging" about the GZ case, for which every minute of that is a diversion from education.
 
Whether or not it was her idea, I don't believe her asking the administration warranted firing.

I will say, however, that there are several unknowns here. It's quite possible there are underlying issues here.

On a related note: When I was in high school I often felt that I did not have a voice. Policies were put into place that were poorly constructed and never explained and punishments for violating those policies (even inadvertently) were often very serious. Once, a student lost her exam exemptions (straight-A students didn't have to take EOY/EOC exams) because she had a butter knife in her vehicle that was discovered during a random vehicle search. The policy supported the punishment, but anybody with an ounce of logic could look at her record, realize it's a damned butter knife, and decide that the punishment was unwarranted.

When teachers spoke up for her and spoke to the administration on her behalf, many of us felt like we had representation...like somebody with at least SOME power was willing speak for us when we had concerns or complaints about policy.

So if the reality of this teacher's situation is as reported, that she was just relaying a student's ideas to the administration, I laud her for speaking on their behalf. Many teachers don't...they just shrug their shoulders and dismiss kids who have concerns, ideas, or complaints about practices or issues in the school.
 
tessaesque said:
Whether or not it was her idea, I don't believe her asking the administration warranted firing.

I will say, however, that there are several unknowns here. It's quite possible there are underlying issues here.

On a related note: When I was in high school I often felt that I did not have a voice. Policies were put into place that were poorly constructed and never explained and punishments for violating those policies (even inadvertently) were often very serious. Once, a student lost her exam exemptions (straight-A students didn't have to take EOY/EOC exams) because she had a butter knife in her vehicle that was discovered during a random vehicle search. The policy supported the punishment, but anybody with an ounce of logic could look at her record, realize it's a damned butter knife, and decide that the punishment was unwarranted.

When teachers spoke up for her and spoke to the administration on her behalf, many of us felt like we had representation...like somebody with at least SOME power was willing speak for us when we had concerns or complaints about policy.

So if the reality of this teacher's situation is as reported, that she was just relaying a student's ideas to the administration, I laud her for speaking on their behalf. Many teachers don't...they just shrug their shoulders and dismiss kids who have concerns, ideas, or complaints about practices or issues in the school.
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'spoken' like a union supporter
 
justabubba said:
'spoken' like a union supporter
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If unions made it their primary directive to advocate for students and not themselves I'd agree. But they don't, as is on clear display in Chicago.
 
tessaesque said:
If unions made it their primary directive to advocate for students and not themselves I'd agree. But they don't, as is on clear display in Chicago.
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but you acknowledge a craving for having a collective voice when one's individual voice was inadequate to be heard. exactly what a union will do for the employees it represents
 
justabubba said:
but you acknowledge a craving for having a collective voice when one's individual voice was inadequate to be heard. exactly what a union will do for the employees it represents
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No, I'm asking for teachers to speak up for students because the administration ignores them. It isn't a collective voice, it's just A voice.
 
tessaesque said:
No, I'm asking for teachers to speak up for students because the administration ignores them. It isn't a collective voice, it's just A voice.
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which points to the weakness of the public ed system. its management
 
joko104 said:
Teacher says lesson on Travyon Martin investigation cost her her job

Students wanted to do a fundraiser for TM - that if a student paid $1 the student could wear a hoodie to school rather than the school uniform. The teacher, twice teacher of the year - an English teacher - took it to school administration. They said no and then fired her over it claiming she instigated it. She says it was all the students' idea. Not sure how this topic would be a school topic in an English class.

Whatjathink?
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She couldn't have been that bright if she thought it was a good idea to show children one sided news clips of a very controversial story and have them write articles on it.It looks like that not only did she try to brain wash them towards a certain point of view it also looks like she planted the idea of dress like Trevon Martin Day into her students heads.She should receive a suspension, but not a firing.
 
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jamesrage said:
She couldn't have been that bright if she thought it was a good idea to show children one sided news clips of a very controversial story and have the write articles on it.It looks like that not only did she try to brain wash them towards a certain point of view it also looks like she planted the idea of dress like Trevon Martin Day into her students heads.She should receive a suspension, but not a firing.
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:agree

:yt

:dito:
 
how legitimate is her charge if jesse 'hymietown' jackson and al 'twana brawley' sharpton have not shown up to organize a parade that will earn them face time on the news and a pocketful of money
 
justabubba said:
how legitimate is her charge if jesse 'hymietown' jackson and al 'twana brawley' sharpton have not shown up to organize a parade that will earn them face time on the news and a pocketful of money
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The story is months old.Obviously the story didn't generate a enough publicity for those race parasites to show up.
 
That's what she gets for trying to solicit aid for a cold-blooded murderer.
 
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