Religious bigotry in seventh grade class room

I'm uncomfortable re booting this kid, much less booting him entirely.

I really dislike the "What do you think?" question.

When the person asking it doesn't like the answer, then you can get into trouble.

Make sure there is structure around the question or topic you teach. Some kids can't take a lot of freedom, and this kid sounds like one.

Well, that is about the child's sake.
He seems very programmed. He might later remember arguments.

Just saw this quote from the Dalai Lama:

We have to think and see how we can fundamentally change our education system so that we can train people to develop warm-heartedness early on in order to create a healthier society. I don’t mean we need to change the whole system, just improve it. We need to encourage an understanding that inner peace comes from relying on human values like, love, compassion, tolerance and honesty, and that peace in the world relies on individuals finding inner peace.

Not sure what you mean by "re-booting" the kid, but I agree there's no reason to boot him. In my experience,the parent's chose to boot the kid, and that was their choice. It was no loss to the team, but even if it was I would have respected their decision.

No reason this kid can't express his opinions without being obnoxious or offensive. The goal shouldn't be to shut him up, but to keep his input civil.

I tend to think that in a lot of classes any contrarian views are perceived as obnoxious and disruptive, but I doubt this is the case with Lash and I know how these little 7th grade monsters can be.

by booting, I meant home schooling.

This young person may in time remember a lot of all this.

You and I agree.

Oh, crap.

I am doubting this child would know what you (or I) would mean, re civil.



I will add, civil often isn't.

By way of an overview, I congratulate you on the instigation of a thread which raises the issue of the difference between "education" and "indoctrination". The interplay between "rights" and "responsibilities" (parental, individual, societal,,,) is central to this discussion.

And yet, on the issues of US war crimes and terrorism, and English grammar, Lash plumps for indoctrination.

And, the music reaches a crescendo. Your last lines are said while looking into the camera. The credits roll. The audience gets up, as the lights go on. One comment from a woman leaving the theater, "We never did find out what her religion was." A reply from her theater date, "It was all based on a true story, so maybe it wouldn't be appropriate to know her religion?"

I couldn't imagine a better description of a principal who is himself a failure.

If I can get out of the Crusades unscathed, I see a light at the end of my year with the Christian.

I'm having a REALLY interesting convo on a history teachers' online group related to your comment, fresco. An English teacher started a thread that basically asked if you (a history teacher) have ever had to teach history that was embarrassing to you as an American. I found this so bizarre.

If you aren't wed to imparting your particular nationalism or relgion on students - how can you be embarrassed of history? Aren't we supposed to teach events in recorded history? How can the course of human events be embarrassing? Horrid, yes. Sad? Oh hell yes. Never embarrassing.

No one should care.

I am embarrassed often by the behavior of humans throughout history.

Shouldn't we only feel embarrassed when we actually DID the thing? Would you avoid teaching the Trail of Tears or Jim Crow due to embarrassment? Would it color how you covered the subjects?

To me, embarrassment connotes personal responsibility or guilt.

Fresco's a brit, I think.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

I think Gracie illustrated clearly that the US "education" system is completely wedded to imparting a particular false nationalist history. Even Gracie's own history teacher was ignorant of the long history of US war crimes, as was her well educated father.



They tend to become embarrassing when they are nothing more than gross lies, Lash.

How about that one should feel "remorseful"? For example, the problem I have with "German guilt" over the Holocaust is that yes, Germans mostly say it was wrong to commit genocide. And, yes, Germans mostly say it was based on canards about Jews, or whoever. However, how many Germans say they are remorseful for what was done? In my opinion, remorse might be an emotion that precedes embarrassment for what one's group might have done. So, without German "remorse" I just think Germans are spouting the proverbial "party line," but privately like the idea they were the winners of the German culture, and that the German Jews (that had been in Germany for a millenia, at least) are no longer competing in the society. So, no remorse, no embarrassment, no real regret, in my opinion.

So, I can say that being white is not something I want to identify with, since the atrocities that white people have committed against black people in this country is so beyond the pale, that I have been raised to think of as moral behavior, I am embarrassed to say my identity is white.

In effect, a person that feels embarrassment for history I think should be applauded; otherwise, I would wonder if an individual wants his/her cake and eat it too; meaning identify with all sorts of patriotism to a country/religion/race, yet feel they do not have to "feel" the wrongness of history, beyond an intellectual admittance of wrongness. In other words, a mea culpa doesn't make the grade; feeling embarrassment is really the litmus test for a sincere mea culpa, in my opinion.

Naturally, as a teacher, one is not supposed to promulgate guilt/embarrassment to one's students; however, how one feels as a teacher/scholar does not have to be the antiseptic feelings one can have to pass a test or earn a salary as a teacher, in my opinion.