Tag Archives: Teacher

News

Public school teacher penalizes students for saying “bless you” after sneezes

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From NBC News.

Excerpt:

The common practice of saying “God bless you” after someone sneezes is a part of American culture.

But it sparked a new controversy at a Bay Area high school this week.

Teacher Steve Cuckovich docked his students scores if after they said “bless you” in the middle of class. He says talking of any kind is disruptive and takes time away from class.

Cuckovich teaches health at William C. Wood High School in Vacaville.

“The blessing doesn’t make any sense anymore,” Cuckovich told the Fox affiliate in Sacramento.“When you sneeze in the old days, they thought you were dispelling evil spirits out of your body. So they were saying, ‘God bless you,’ for getting rid of evil spirits. But today, what you’re doing doesn’t really make any sense.”

I’m not at all surprised that a public school teacher would impose his secular point of view on his students, and using the power of the grading pen to make it stick. People on the secular left are very likely not to want to engage in critical thinking or debate with those who dissent from their view. They often use the power of the state to drum out any alternative source of values from individuals, especially religion.

News

Public school teacher suspends student for disagreeing with homosexuality

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From Fox News.

Excerpt:

An honors student in Fort Worth, Texas, was sent to the principal’s office and punished for telling a classmate that he believes homosexuality is wrong.

Holly Pope said she was “absolutely stunned” when she received a telephone call from an assistant principal at Western Hills High School informing her that her son, Dakota Ary, had been sent to in-school suspension.

“Dakota is a very well-grounded 14-year-old,” she told Fox News Radio noting that her son is an honors student, plays on the football team and is active in his church youth group. “He’s been in church his whole life and he’s been taught to stand up for what he believes.”

And that’s what got him in trouble.

Dakota was in a German class at the high school when the conversation shifted to religion and homosexuality in Germany. At some point during the conversation, he turned to a friend and said that he was a Christian and “being a homosexual is wrong.”

“It wasn’t directed to anyone except my friend who was sitting behind me,” Dakota told Fox. “I guess [the teacher] heard me. He started yelling. He told me he was going to write me an infraction and send me to the office.”

Dakota was sentenced to one day in-school suspension – and two days of full suspension. His mother was flabbergasted, noting that her son had a spotless record, was an honor student, volunteered at his church and played on the school football team.

[…][Liberty Counsel attorney Matthew] Krause called the incident “mind blowing” and said the teacher had frequently brought homosexuality into ninth grade classroom discussions.

“There has been a history with this teacher in the class regarding homosexual topics,” Krause said. “The teacher had posted a picture of two men kissing on a wall that offended some of the students.”

Krause said the picture was posted on the teacher’s “world wall.”

“He told the students this is happening all over the world and you need to accept the fact that homosexuality is just part of our culture now,” Krause said.

The school district would not comment on why a teacher was discussing homosexuality in a ninth grade German class.

Wow, this happened in Texas? But in a way, it’s not surprising because the public education segment of society is so liberal. (It’s a public school) I find the fact that the boy’s parents are forced to pay taxes to support this school alarming. I find the power differential between student and teacher and the power of the marking pen alarming. If people are going to discuss these issues, they should have a free choice of where to go to school and speak about these issues without fear of being graded down by activists. This is a case where you have the government forcing their opinions onto individuals using the individual’s own money to pay for the indoctrination.

I do think we can learn something from this, though. I think you can have a lot more success talking about moral issues like this if you don’t say “The Bible says” or “X is wrong”, but instead just talk about what social science says about what children need growing up, and the health risks of the homosexual lifestyle, and so on. If you’re going to talk about anything like this with non-Christians, you’re exposing yourself to persecution, because they are not accustomed to discussing morality objectively. So the best thing to do is to talk about the evidence, and worry more about how behaviors can harm children, society, and even the person who is choosing to do the behaviors. Start with a simple example like fatherlessness and no-fault divorce. It is  easier and safer to talk about evidence, and whether the evidence is true or false, than to make judgements without evidence, and to erect barriers. The student has not been well prepared by his parents for the world as it is, and he is in for a world of hurt because of his ignorance.

Be sure you are aware of the secular case against gay marriage before you start to talk about things like this. I can also recommend excellent books about homosexuality to anyone who is interested, which explain what causes it and how it affects a person’s health.

News

Should teachers be paid more money?

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From the American Enterprise Institute.

Excerpt:

Mark Perry posts regarding the new AEI Education Outlook by University of Missouri economist Cory Koedel which shows Education to be by far the easiest course of study in most colleges. Mark finds additional evidence from Cornell University to back up Koedel’s claim. Education majors enter college with lower SAT scores than students majoring in other fields but leave college with higher GPAs.

[…]But, as a forthcoming paper that I have co-authored with Jason Richwine will show, the low standards applied in education degrees also complicate the task of determining whether public school teachers are fairly paid. Teachers claim to be underpaid because they receive lower average salaries than private sector workers with similar levels of education. (Our paper shows that, even if this is true, they more than make up the gap through generous benefits, but we’ll ignore that for now.) But note that the control variable here is the level of education — meaning, Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree, and so on — and not the quality of education nor, more importantly, the ability or productivity of the worker.

[…]Put bluntly, public school teachers enter college with below-average SAT scores, major in the easiest undergraduate course of study, take Master’s degrees in education that have no appreciable impact on teaching quality, and then wonder why they’re not as well paid as someone who got a Master’s in chemical engineering. They shouldn’t.

Education is what you study when you can’t get into anything else, and you don’t learn anything in it. What we really need is to hire teachers with real degrees in math, science and business. There should not even be an education MAJOR.

Here’s a fun story about the Chicago Teacher Union (CTU).

Excerpt:

Like many Illinois citizens, the CTU has seen reports that three out of four state high school graduates are not ready for college.  And the union’s response has been, well … the CTU hasn’t really said anything about it.

You see, the fact that students are leaving Illinois’ K-12 public education system totally unprepared for college, the workplace or life in general – that’s not really the CTU’s thing.

Instead, the union is “upset” and feeling very “disrespected” because the Chicago Board of Education doesn’t have the money to pay CTU members the four percent pay raise they were promised in their contract.

The union is also steaming over the fact that more than 1,500 teachers have been laid off, some of which have been placed on a “secret” do-not-hire list, CTU President Karen Lewis told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Pay, benefits, working conditions – these are the things that the teachers unions are willing to strike over. If only 23 percent of Illinois high school grads pass a college-readiness test, well, what do you expect them to do about it? Lewis is quick to point out that union teachers are just simple “workers,” doing the best they can with the kids they are given. (It’s mostly the parents’ fault, anyway.)

Sure, some trouble making education reformers may suggest that kids are doing badly on the tests because their school days have been frittered away on silly social justice lessons, but the fact that the CTU is being stiffed on its four percent pay raise only underscores the need for such a curriculum.

Teachers don’t like it when you expect them to earn their salaries. They just go on strike.