I watch with disdain, the circus in Tallahassee that concerns these bills which are supposedly designed to give parents rights in the classroom they apparently feel they don't have. This is an anomaly to me. Since when do parents have to have some kind of bill passed for parents to have rights over their children?
As I type this, I also would like to remind parents that schools still must have rules and regulations. This prevents chaos. Or it should. In today's classroom, I have had students throw things at me. I have had them tell me to fuck off. (I wonder where they heard that from?) I have had them tell me that if I took their cell phone, which students are not permitted to operate on campus, they were going to run home and tell momma that I took her phone away. Now, this is high school.
I have had parents pull students from my class when they were caught cheating and put in a class with a teacher they knew and would apparently give the cheating student a little more leeway. I have had parents who don't even know me, call for my firing because I said I would teach the truth in history. I have had parents up in arms because they thought they knew best for their student, regardless of what the school district via the state was told to teach.
I have a son and I had certain rights when he was in school. I had the right to expect he would be taught. That is it. If he did not cooperate, which he was not the best at, I would deal with him at home. His teachers could always contact me at home or while I was working with any concerns. Trust me when I say, I did spend many hours with teachers while I was trying to get him raised.
I never, not once, worried he was being instructed to be gay. I never worried about what books were in the library for him to read because I was too busy trying to get him to read something, anything. I didn't worry about if he knew about slavery because I taught him what was what. I did that, I did that having conversations with him. I did that showing him historical things. Was he the best student? No. Did he always listen? Do your teens listen to you?
When did it become okay for parents, any parents, to tell teachers they did not do their job? Isn't that the job of their boss and their bosses boss? When did it become okay for parents to determine what was "proper" curriculum for their student in public school? What about me? My taxes also pay for public school. What if I want certain books in the library? Do I get to scream at a school board meeting and talk about what right do "they have to indoctrinate my students." Most certainly not.
School is supposed to teach students to examine facts and then decide what side of the issue to come down on. Where did we lose our sense of diplomacy? What happened to civil discourse for students. Just because a parent says something is white, but it is really gray, should we be forced as teachers to teach all the students that is is white?
I continue to be concerned about the state of public schools today. Want Christianity? Send your kid to a church school. Want to teach the Koran. Send your kid to school that specializes in the Islamic faith. Practice Judaism and don't want your child exposed to any other religions? Send your child to Jewish School. Want your kid to learn about all three? Send your child to public school. Oh, wait! We can't teach he different religious philosophies because some parent might think we are indoctrinating their student.
What's a teacher to do? Well, you see them leaving. You see the mass exodus. I am still here. I keep thinking that if they run off all the teachers, they can instill people who really do indoctrinate and not teach. That will be a sad day. Let us hope it arrives later than sooner, or not at all.
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