However, we can assure the public that the staff members involved in this incident were treated fairly and appropriately. No employees were or will be fired as a result of this incident.Do you know who's teaching your child? And what they're "teaching"? Who decides when a child is old enough for nudity, rape and suicide - parents or teachers?
Maybe it’s all the rumblings about union salaries, pensions and power in the news, but there is a broader question raised by a recent incident at Greeley School in Winnetka. That’s where a couple of substitute teachers showed parts of an HBO movie called The Middle Passage to fourth graders a few weeks ago. Some parents were upset that their 9-year-olds were viewing a movie that included nudity, child rape and suicide aboard a slave ship.
Of course parents who questioned this were accused of being vile bigots...
Who is politicizing education? For the children. Who is treating children as pawns for their agenda? Is this a "safe learning environment"? Causing some children to cry until midnight and have recurring nightmares and fears?
What next, Winnetka, a Laurie Dann reenactment? For educational purposes, of course.
The issue came to light after Patrick Livney and three other parents of Greeley School fourth graders complained about the film.
Livney said it’s had scarring effects on his daughter and other students at Greeley.
“Now we’ve got a situation where there’s demonstrable damage done to 9-year-olds’ brains. We have fourth graders talking about depressing classrooms, depression. Boys going around talking about ‘rape dogs.’ Are you kidding me?” Livney said. “After five great years at Greeley, (my daughter) doesn’t want to go to school.”
He said some boys now don’t want to go into the water “because this movie shows sharks devouring slaves who were purposely thrown overboard.”[snip]
From a harshly sarcastic email by Jen McQuet, a Winnetka parent, published in TribLocal:...For wanting to protect their children from vile imagery. (You know, something a bit like this but much, much worse.) More at leftie Huffpo, which overwhelmingly voted it was OK to show this to grade school kids.About 20 million Africans were taken from homes and families and sold into slavery to work plantations in North and South America. More than half died. But the real tragedy, really and seriously, is that a privileged little girl from Winnetka had to see some scary pictures of it. That's serious, long-lasting damage.
Who is politicizing education? For the children. Who is treating children as pawns for their agenda? Is this a "safe learning environment"? Causing some children to cry until midnight and have recurring nightmares and fears?
What next, Winnetka, a Laurie Dann reenactment? For educational purposes, of course.
What's worse, a teacher having child porn on a computer (whose dad, a teacher, was the union shop steward) or visual abuse in the classroom.
I talked to a parent who told me this movie had apparently been shown the previous year as well, but nothing was said, nothing was done. Are parents now so cowed by political correctness and the teachers union--who might ostracize a child and harm their future prospects--that they won't speak up even at such brutal, horrific images being shown to children in the classroom?
The Winnetka school board podcast (parents start about 2 min. in) of the subsequent meeting Tuesday:
The movie, “Middle Passage,” which tells of the brutal voyage of a slave trading ship from Africa, was shown by two different substitute teachers in two different classrooms. But the video is not an approved part of the curriculum; nor, apparently, was it prescreened by the Greeley principal or at least one of the regular teachers who advised a substitute to show it to her class while she was working elsewhere in the district that day.
Emphasis mine. What was this other teacher doing? (And, as any public school parent knows, substitute teachers are rampant--especially covering for that Friday-Monday flu.)
The new policy is ultimately toothless.
The new policy is ultimately toothless.
Where are the consequences for this stunning lack of judgment? These children have been robbed of their childhood.
The letter from the school administration. Here's the capper:
However, we can assure the public that the staff members involved in this incident were treated fairly and appropriately. No employees were or will be fired as a result of this incident.What? Oh, we should have sympathy for the teacher. There are good teachers and bad. There are excellent teachers and horrific ones--but the teachers union does not distinguish between the two, and actively protects and rewards the horrific under their collective bargaining agreements and contracts.
You know, these children are in their formative years. If they lose learning time in school or are deliberately traumatized it can affect their future learning dramatically.
What it takes to get rid of a bad teacher, Chicago Tribune, via Reason. 27 steps. More from the school board meeting:
“It wasn’t shown, but it was heard,” Livaditis said. “Now I have to explain rape to my child.”
At Tuesday night’s meeting, she asked the superintendent to read the warning on the video sleeve. The video has no rating but, in small print, it states the movie has “adult content, nudity and violence.”
Are nine year olds adults?
There are adults who face consequences for their behavior, and then there are teachers.
As we know, there are two classes of people.
The next school board meeting is March 22:
There are adults who face consequences for their behavior, and then there are teachers.
As we know, there are two classes of people.
The next school board meeting is March 22:
The School Board will begin to address the policy implications of this incident at its next regular meeting.Oh, and par for the course, with absolutely no sense of irony, the district seeks to instruct parents that they are letting their child watch too much TV at home: TV Tune Out Week March 6-12
You think you don't have control over your child's education now...
With the teachers union the inmates run the asylum. Your child is not your own.
P.S.
With the teachers union the inmates run the asylum. Your child is not your own.
P.S.
@Suntimes Suntimes
Aurora parents say a teacher sprayed their 7th-grader in the eyes with blackboard cleaning solution http://suntm.es/i0iR4A
Teachers’ Unions 101: “A” is for “agitation” Michelle Malkin:
If public school teachers spent more time teaching in classrooms and less time community-organizing in political war rooms, maybe taxpayers wouldn’t feel as ripped off as they do. Before the Big Labor bosses start complaining about “teacher-bashing,” let’s be clear: An increasing number of rank-and-file teachers feel exactly the same way.More. Via the Instapundit. REPORT: Lawyer for Ohio police threatens state legislator who voted against unions. Another reason why the police shouldn’t be allowed to unionize. These kind of threats are wielded against teachers from their unions as well. Not to mention the implied threat to children and their parents.
P.P.S. Golly gee, what's going on nearby at Northwestern?
mypointis at 11:21 AM March 3, 2011Senator Dick Durbin was there Sunday at a press conterence saying what wonderful things Northwestern is doing and they need to continue giving them large sums of money from the Obama Stimulus Package
Update. Thanks for the link and the comments, Pundit & Pundette.
2 comments:
Just unbelievable.
It just keeps getting worse, doesn't it.
And every new group of parents is shocked.
Younger and younger, more and more brutal.
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