Posted by
techlizard on Tuesday, August 22, 2006 11:36:42 AM
A middle school teacher decided that the best way to provoke thought among his seventh grade students was to
burn two American flags in front of his classes. Here are my thoughts:
1. This guy is a bad teacher. A good teacher can provoke thought amongst seventh graders without setting things on fire or being absurdly provocative.
2. This guy is obviously craving attention. He apparently even asked his students to be sure and tell their parents what he'd done. I assume he wants to be a liberal martyr - there is no higher honor among left-wing radicals than to be pilloried and ridiculed by the uneducated and unenlightened.
3. The ACLU is invoking the teacher's "academic freedom" -- something that should not even exist in a middle school classroom. A public school teacher does not -- and should not -- have freedom of speech in the classroom. He or she is an employee, and should teach the curriculum outlined by the school board elected by the parents. These are OUR schools. The teachers just work there. If this guy can't do the job he was hired to do, he needs to move on.
4. 'Academic freedom' shouldn't be a legal or constitutional concept -- it's merely a philosophical concept that exists by agreement between universities and the professors they hire. Academic freedom has been addressed by the Supreme Court on constitutional grounds only rarely and then vaguely. In fact, the courts have yet to narrowly define this unique "right" bestowed upon a very narrow class of priviliged citizens.
5. This teacher should be fired for poor judgement. He is obviously too dumb and/or radical to be shaping young minds -- and is apparently incapable of leaving his own radical beliefs behind when he enters a classroom.
6. The president of the local Teacher's Association said, "It was not a political statement and was meant to illustrate a controversial issue." He went on to say, "It wasn't like he was taking one side or another." Yeah, I'm going to call
bs on that one. The demonstration, by it's very nature, involved taking sides. If you want your class of seventh graders to consider whether killing puppies is wrong, you're not going to burn one to death in front of them to make your point.
7. It would be really cool if one of this
teacher's students stood up and said, "Sir, I just want to excercise my academic freedom by telling you that you're a piece of low-life scum, and I refuse to be brainwashed by you." It would be even cooler if this
teacher was never allowed into a classroom again.