Full disclosure, and please don't hate me, Sparky: I got a sex ed teacher sacked from teaching sex ed (he stayed on as a math teacher, however) for endless instances of totally wrongheaded lectures that fed right into every smug assumption the 14-year-old boys had about the world and sex and women, and that made most of the 14-year-old girls feel like shit. He'd talk at length about the physical proportions of his ideal woman, write them on the blackboard, and include them in quizzes; give lectures about how incomprehensible it was that handsome men could let themselves be roped into liaisons or marriages with homely women; bring in a pair of guest speakers from a local GLBT group (though in 1985 I think it may have been just GL), then spend the entire next class talking about how just because the school expected him to let them talk didn't mean he or we had to think anything they said was right or moral; etc., etc., etc.

He also gave lectures, and quizzes, on Greek mythology, his own personal history, and the rules and procedures of the Prison Parole Board of Louisiana, and also kept a running tally of bonus points for extra-clever students (invariably boys). His opinions were not just wrong, they were shitty, and counterproductive to the stated aims of the class, and they made his female students, who were mostly too young and insecure to challenge him, feel like crap. He had every right to his opinions, but I still don't feel the least bit bad about preventing him from using taxpayer money to fund his whack-ass bully pulpit.

The only thing that pissed me off more than him, really, was that after a semester and a half of everyone I knew complaining and hating him and crying, when I finally sat down and wrote a letter to the principal detailing incidents and naming students who could corroborate what he'd said, not one of them had the courage to co-sign the letter with me, and I got a public dressing-down in class that left me in tears with everyone glad I'd done it but everyone too fucking chickenshit to stand there with me.

Huh. I can't imagine why I'm less than enthusiastic about going to my 20th reunion.

He'd talk at length about the physical proportions of his ideal woman, write them on the blackboard, and include them in quizzes

!!!

But then, I suppose that you could argue that my telling girls to use protection endangers their mortal soul, so I guess you have a point. But, it's still wrong of her.

Pretty much what I'm trying to say. I want to be free to tell students what I think, I have to keep the floor open for other beliefs and hone my advocacy skills.

And askye, your going to the principal and asking questions is exactly what should happen -- hear something you don't like? ask questions, form your own opinions and start talking about those.

JZ, that's way worse than my teacher!

But I had the same thing happen with classmates who said they were with me and then turned around and said I'd "Betrayed" the teacher. The little shits. It was an eye opening experience and I lost a lot of respect for some "good" (both academically and I thought morally) students.

hard for a middle schooler to do.

But I am glad to say I never had a teacher quite as bad as some of you .

But it wasn't just opinion and belief, it was factually wrong. It would be like re-writing the times tables charts. How many kids would think to ask? Why should they have to? Why should it be ok for a teacher to do that in the first place?

confused me. As a nonreligious person I find anybody's idea that they have to fix things so everyone believes what they believe, terrifying.

Thanks for pointing out where I was confusing, beth. I should have said "some" anti-dominionist "bloggers" (because I'm seeing it a lot). It's tinfoil hat time (for the above mentioned), because some people are seeing Dominionism wherever there is Christianity, or in sects/schools of thoughts that are pretty far away from Dominionism. I see way too much equating of one with the other. There are Dominionists out there, and they scare me, too, because I'm pretty sure my Christianity isn't their Christianity, and my "right" isn't their "right" and my free isn't their "free". But (the general discussion) I see about it on the internet (in blogs, primarily) is pretty uniformed.

but if your wrong belief endangers your students, is that permissible?

How was she endangering the students? If she only expressed her beliefs, then I'm still in the free speech zone of things, and you fight what you believe are wrong ideas with the expression of your right ideas.

Maybe it depends on the definition and scope of endangering. I mean, I don't want my girl growing up thinking other people's illegal and immoral reaction to her general presence is her fault. I don't want my boys growing up thinking they can blame girls when they can't control their impulses, because that will land them in prison, where they will be in danger.

Teachers hold a lot of sway with their pupils, which is why schools work to the extent they do, and is a great thing, in the hands of a good, thoughtful teacher. Already though, if I say one thing, and my child's teacher has said another (or said the same thing differently enough that it seems in contradiction to my kids) they are inclined to doubt me, because the teacher is a general knowledge-authority.

Are middle-schoolers considered capable of the same type of reasoning that adults are?

That's a serious question.

No. In fact their brains are not physiologically capable of the same type of reasoning (which is one of the rationales behind the age of consent, by the by).

JZ, that's way worse than my teacher!

I don't know about that. Mine was aggressively sexist and slightly mad, but he never said that women and girls are responsible for their own rape. That's just fucking appalling.

It was an eye opening experience and I lost a lot of respect for some "good" (both academically and I thought morally) students.

Yup. And damn, how awful that they then turned around and pointed fingers at you for saying what they couldn't!

Since then, the few times I've found anything bad enough to speak out about, I haven't even bothered asking other people for support. Complaints and promises beforehand don't mean shit.

Geez Louise- the worst thing my health teacher ever did was tell REALLY personal stories about herself and her kids.

A friend who was a year younger than I was ended up having a health teacher who was male and just out of college. He was from the town, and had been a senior when I was in school, but everyone he "knew" had graduated. I remember laughing and laughing with my friend, because he was always at all the keggers and road parties and it was sort of ridiculous that he was trying to teach her "health". Although, to be fair, most people took health as a freshman, and so the other students in her class weren't at the same parties.

Sparky, I will admit I actively tried to get her fired. I even bugged the administrators about it, etc. I did that because she basically said, child abuse is the child's fault. (because men biologically have to have willing or forced sex when they are aroused).

I never understood how my classmates could like her after that.