While askye is, indeed, awesome, I have to hold on to a vision of the world where people don't get fired solely for their beliefs, even if they are wrong like a wrong thing. signed, loves being a tenured academic type

She can believe whatever she wants. She can even say to her pals whatever she wants. When she teaches fictions as facts (and in this case dangerous ones) she's incompetent and its time to fire her ass if she won't stop doing so.

To go back to askye's teacher for a minute....

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.

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

That's a serious question.

I would never expect a 10- to 13-year-old to have reasoned out her beliefs on human rights to the same degree that an adult has. If, in fact, the child -- and that's what they are: children -- has reasoned out her beliefs on human rights AT ALL. Some 10-year-olds are still fucking up math; I can't imagine how they could rationally argue for the rights of women to walk down a street unassaulted.

I tried to post this but the thread rolled over....

The teacher, L, said these things in class as part of our health lesson (actually it was Child Development). We were watching Nova's Miracle of Life and there's a part where it talks about arousal.

At this point she stops the tape and tells the class that when men get aroused they have to have sex to "relieve" themselves. And that anything can arose a male no matter how little, even if a woman isn't aware of this. Because of this arousal men rape women. We were all shocked and asked questions.

"If a woman walks down the street in a parka and is grabbed and raped is it her fault?" Yes. "If a woman isn't doing anything or is on a date and a guy rapes her..." Yes. Because it can be the way she smells or looks or anything, etc. "What about a child, if a child is raped is it the child's fault." And while she didn't come out and say Yes, she heavily implied that yes it is the child's fault. It's not something concious that a child or a woman does, but it's still their fault.

The next day I went to the principal's office to talk to her about that.

Thanks for the clarification Cindy. I am reading thru ick which makes me a bit thick

but this

The Anti-Dominionists are fast approaching Tinfoil hat time

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

First Ten?

(ETA: YES! Just in time to leave for the evening....)

The Tick (animated) Season One will be relased on August 29.

[link]

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.