Monday, November 06, 2006

Pissant Pedagogues

I really enjoyed grade school.  Though I went to a parochial grade school, I came out of it without a closed mind, which is more than I can say about many schools, parochial or private, today.  As I went through the grades, though, I ended up bumping heads, more than once, with many of my supposed teachers whom I disagreed with over sometimes mundane subjects, like art for instance, and other times more important subjects, like who has authority over whom.

Here’s a young man, Tyler Stoken, who attends Central Park Elementary School, in Aberdeen, Washington, who has bumped heads, and, similar to some of my bumping heads experiences, was suspended from school, though for a totally ridiculous reason.

Then Tyler came upon this question: ``While looking out the window one day at school, you notice the principal flying in the air. In several paragraphs, write a story telling what happens.’’

The nine-year-old was afraid to answer the question about his principal, Olivia McCarthy. ``I didn’t want to make fun of her,’’ he says, explaining he was taught to write the first thing that entered his mind on the state writing test.

In this case, Tyler’s initial thoughts would have been embarrassing and mean. So even after repeated requests by school personnel, and ultimately the principal herself, Tyler left the answer space blank. ``He didn’t want them to know what he was thinking, that she was a witch on a broomstick,’’ says Tyler’s mother, Amanda Wolfe, sitting next to her son in the family’s ranch home three blocks from Central Park Elementary School in Aberdeen, Washington.

So what happened to young Master Stoken?

Because Tyler didn’t answer the question, McCarthy suspended him for five days. He recalls the principal reprimanding him by saying his test score could bring down the entire school’s performance.

``Good job, bud, you’ve ruined it for everyone in the school, the teachers and the school,’’ Tyler says McCarthy told him.

Suspended for five days by some dumb bitch itching for a gold star for Central Park Elementary School.  Ridiculous.

The principal had this to say in a letter home to Master Stoken’s mom.

McCarthy’s May 6, 2005, letter to Tyler’s mother detailed her son’s suspension. ``The fact that Tyler chose to simply refuse to work on the WASL after many reasonable requests is none other than blatant defiance and insubordination,’’ McCarthy wrote.

In the letter, she accused Tyler of bringing down the average score of the other 10 students in his class. ``As we have worked so hard this year to improve our writing skills, this is a particularly egregious wound,’’ McCarthy wrote.

I sincerely hope Master Stoken’s mother grooms his “definance and insubordination” positively.

Fourth Grader Suspended After Refusing to Answer Exam Question

Via Best of the Web, who notes this under “Zero Tolerance Watch.”

Posted by John Venlet on 11/06 at 02:12 PM
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