Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Those Who Can, Do....Those Who Can't, Shouldn't Be Teachers

We hear a lot these days about gay kids being bullied in school, some to the point of suicide, others raped and sodomized and beaten to within an inch of their lives. It ain't pretty; people are still mindless fools when it comes to being accepting of others.
But you hear these stories and you think Where were the teachers? Didn't the kid tell a teacher he was being bullied?
How could we expect that when we have stories like the one out of Minnesota, where two teachers who were accused of repeatedly harassing a student they thought to be gay are on leave without pay from their jobs. Diane Cleveland, a 39-year-old social studies teacher, and Walter Filson, a 56-year-old law enforcement teacher, went on leave within the past week.
An attorney for Diane Cleveland stated: “Our position is that she is taking an unpaid, voluntary leave of absence at her request. … This was done in the last week, and it was her decision and her decision alone.”
So, Diane Cleveland needs a lawyer to announce that she's taking time off? Is the school district so rigid that attorneys are required for teachers to take an unpaid leave of absence? Or, is it something much uglier.
It's uglier, indeed. Diane Cleveland allegedly told one of her classes "[his] fence swings both ways," and also announced to the class that the boy had a "thing for older men" after he proposed doing a report on Ben Franklin.
Walter Filson, who has yet to have a lawyer speak for him, though he is also on unpaid leave, was accused of saying to the boy, in front of other students, that the boy 'enjoys wearing women's clothes.' When the boy decided to report on Abraham Lincoln, Filson allegedly took a page from Cleveland's study guide and said, 'Since you like your men older ...'
How can we expect kids to stop bullying other kids when their own teachers set the example? Isn't school supposed to be a place where kids learn to be good, well-educated, sensible citizens? Why then are teachers like Cleveland and Filson even allowed to teach? Why is their brand of homophobia allowed a leave of absence, when their bullying asses should have been drummed out of the school?
The boy, Alex Merritt, who says he is not gay and left the school due to the harassment, was awarded $25,000 in damages in a civil suit against the school district.

5 comments:

  1. The question I want to know is was this behavior a pattern and how long has it been going on?

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  2. That teacher is a piece of shit, if she went that route.

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  3. When we had voluntary training about this, it eventually hit the faculty meeting. Very conscientious and generally compassionate teachers stated openly that because of their beliefs, they could not accept their rooms being safe rooms for gay students nor would they feel comfortable if gay kids came to them for protection, counsel, or safety.These were teachers, who up until then, I really admired.

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  4. That's inexcusable! They need to be on a list where they are never hired as teachers anywhere ever again. This makes me furious! Kids would tell me things teachers said to them, but I never heard about anything like those two in this post, thank goodness.

    There are teachers who damage students. When I was teaching intellectually gifted students, there were teachers who put them down and gave prizes to other students who made higher grades on quizzes and tests than they did. Like that was all right, too. This is a profession that is supposed to value learning!

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