Here's Matthew Tabor's commentary:
Teaching is a tremendous responsibility. That’s no secret....
Ms. Harris has embarrassed herself, her school system and her profession - and in that order of importance. But what she taught 15 young kids about political discourse is the real problem. Harris showed these children that it’s acceptable [and a desirable means to an end] to abuse someone into submission over ideology; that it isn’t important to respect one’s views, or engage in discourse that furthers understanding; that intellectual diversity and dissent is to be crushed for political expedience; that a sneering, mean-spirited contempt drives politics.
We’ve heard a great deal about hope, change and goodwill over the last two years. Ms. Harris’ disgusting display undermined the efforts of folks on both sides of the aisle.
What I noticed is Ms. Harris' hostility toward Kathy, the young McCain supporter. I see here, frankly, reverse discrimination.
All of this is interesting, especially since yesterday someone who claims to have been a former student in my classrooom sent me an e-mail alleging, "after the first day of you pushing your beliefs on the class by telling us we need to support our president, I decided not to waste my time."
Check the comments here and here, where some of my actual students call baloney on that.
12 comments:
I have deleted Haloscan commenting.
This is a test comment.
Part of the battle is correcting the vocabulary. Phrases like 'reverse' discrimination and 'reverse' racism only reinforce the idea that their is one standard for whites and another for non-whites. Our definitions and expectations of acceptable behavior need to apply EQUALLY to all people.
Sorry, should be 'there' and not 'their' - sloppy editing.
As a teacher I am apalled at this teacher's demeanor. Her words certainly don't match her actions. I received the best compliment from one of my African-American students yesterday. She told me that she couldn't tell who I voted and that she thanked for being fair to both candidates in class. Further she told her parents that I was very fair in class regarding the election. That's what I strived to achieve and apparently I did.
For those who read my deleted comment before I killed it off: Nevermind...
The teacher in the video was wrong. As LOT says, it's far better to have students wholly unaware of a teacher's political, social, & "wedge issue" views, whenever possible. The classroom isn't the place for any teacher to instill their beliefs.
That said, teachers also have to be able to express themselves on such issues outside of class--& in my experiences, those who teach tend to be more informed by curiosity & by life, & are thus more likely to have a view or two to express--which can make things sticky, whatever one's views happen to be.
I have deleted Haloscan commenting.
I was correct the first time, in that deleted comment... In ditching Haloscan, you killed off access to all the old comments from your blog... The good news is, it seems like they are still out there. I tried a few links from my blog to older (haloscan) comments here, and they do still come up. But you're still showing "0 comments" on pretty much all posts here, including the ones I linked to. You may have to return to haloscan to bring back general access to 'em...
Just so you know...
Reppy: I didn't delete my Haloscan account, just the commenting system here. Haloscan was having too many functionality issues, so I went back to Blogger commenting.
I understand, Donnie. When I was still able to access the comments, I figured that you hadn't gotten rid of the account entirely.
All I was saying is, unless one has the links to 'em, no one will be able to read any of them, right up to & including comments made via haloscan in the last 24 hours.
Every comment stream added to every post from day one up to the moment you changed from Halo to blogger this morning has no link to them on this blog...
Perhaps YOU can still access all of 'em--and I have a few links to comments I referenced on my blog--but most folks have no way to get to any of them, anymore...
If you're good with that, fine.
But I did want make certain you were aware of it.
And now I have...
Actually, it's a bummer, Reppy. I held off changing from Haloscan for precisely that reason.
It's a new day in America, so comment here to your hearts content and build up a new inventory. Better yet, write actual blog posts, and then you won't have to worry about the decisions other people make with their blogs.
What part of If you're good with that, fine. did you not understand?
Lose 'em... don't lose 'em...
It's fine with me, either way...
Thanks for the snark, though...
You're welcome, Repmaster!
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