Censorship in School

[ysabetwordsmith]

A black student was driven out of school for her essay about Frederick Douglass.  She pointed out connections between keeping slaves illiterate and failing to teach black students today.  This connection is pretty obvious to anyone familiar with history and modern education, but it really pisses off teachers when pointed out

Comments

[fabricdragon]

yup. i posted about this.... the school and the school district pretty well proved her point

Good for you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

The more people spread the word, the more likely something will be done about it.

[fayanora]

The link is dead. Gives me error 503.

Hmm...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I tested the links and all of them seem to work for me.

Re: Hmm...

[fayanora]

Okay, odd: the link that was dead has just done a Lazarus on me.

[judifilksign]

As a schoolteacher, I actively *teach* my students some of these points; Black History Month was February, so this is pretty fresh for me.

Usually, I amazed at how little my student population seems to care, even the black students with poorer reading skills. We get some kids who get involved in the contemporary debate as to whether Douglass was ghostwritten by a white man, and others who are just "tired" of the topic as being irrelevant to their lives.

The school and the school district have me astonished, and horrified.

I am going to take this article to my classes, and let them see how "irrelevant" this was! Thank you for sharing.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>As a schoolteacher, I actively *teach* my students some of these points<<

Good for you!

>>Usually, I amazed at how little my student population seems to care, even the black students with poorer reading skills. We get some kids who get involved in the contemporary debate as to whether Douglass was ghostwritten by a white man, and others who are just "tired" of the topic as being irrelevant to their lives.... )

[rhodielady_47]

I can remember feeling the same way about school when I was 13 years old. The problem, when you are 13 years old and bright, is that you really do get the impression that nothing is going on in the classroom

Well...

[ysabetwordsmith]

From the perspective of repairing the educational system, that stuff matters. It highlights a need for smaller classes, more teachers, better funding, and so forth.

From the perspective of students right now that doesn't matter at all. Schools are in fact failing to provide an effective learning environment. Smart students are frequently stifled; school actively interferes with their learning. Slow students are frequently shamed and fall further and further behind; they don't actually learn the material. Most of the material is aimed at average students, who usually do okay if they do the work. But to students at the ends of the bell curve, school can be maddening, and it's no wonder that some of them break under the pressure

Re: Well...

[rhodielady_47]

It also highlights a serious need for the old-fashioned TRACKING that schools used to use but got rid of in order to be more "politically correct".
Many school districts do have the "advanced placement" classes in place but only on HS level. One of the best kept secrets in American education is how often the AP classes are filled with white students while the regular classes hold everyone else!

At least when I was in HS, a bright student could go to school during the summer and cut as much as two years off their time in school.
I knew a pair of sisters who skipped two years of HS that way and then went into nursing school.
These days most school districts won't allow the smarter kids to do this any more.
(I skipped one. I only wish I'd known about this sooner so that I could have skipped two.)
:]

Re: Well...

[peoriapeoria]

Sounds like those AP classes are the old-tracking rebranded. Not cool.

Most kids aren't dumb, though some of them may be working uphill against challenges.