I hope, in her academic career, that my daughter encounters teachers who disagree with her. Learning to understand and respect other positions helps us to strengthen and challenge our own beliefs. If my daughter grows up to vote straight-party Democratic without questioning why she’s doing so, I’ll have failed her, as her schools will have.
That said, there’s a limit to what I want my daughter exposed to. And I can state without hesitation that my daughter would never set foot in this man’s classroom again:
The day went as usual at Marianna Middle School, but one thing is different: 7th grade teacher and coach Greg Howard is no longer an employee. He was suspended without pay for 10 days starting Thursday for making racial slurs at presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Our source told us Howard asked his students what “change” stood for and proceeded to write out the acronym “change”- come help a n(word) get elected.
Jackson County’s Deputy School superintendent says he’s received conflicting reports, but he can confirm change and the n-word were used.
Crystal Dragon Jesus, are you kidding me? How big a racist buffoon must this guy be to think that was appropriate to write in a classroom? With six African-American students in it‽ I find it difficult to type the n-word even when quoting it directly from another source. I don’t say it — ever. And if a friend used it in private conversation, I’d be stunned and reproachful. I can’t imagine being so sanguine about it that I’d use the word in front of kids.
Unfortunately, Jackson is keeping a job — though he’s being kicked over to adult education. That’s not good enough. A teacher who is comfortable using racist epithets is not someone who should be teaching in 2008.
(Via CPL)
This seems inappropriate, considering how juvenile his ‘joke’ was.
—Myca
This sounds worthy of a petition saying “Fire that man!” Either that or “Put him in his school district’s equivalent of the rubber room!”
He’s probably well-protected by his union–and this is not the kind of behavior that deserves firing, like abuse of a student or use of alcohol during the work day.
*boggles*
I’d be really interested to get the African-American students’ view of what you just said.