Here's a weird story out of New Jersey. It seems that a middle school teacher got in trouble with parents and administrators for having a picture of the president on her wall, but declining to talk about politics with her students who questioned her about it. See here for the details. The story itself makes no one look particularly good, least of all the administrators and the parents who sound like a bunch of bigots. Here's part of it:
Parents e-mailed an assistant principal accusing Pillai-Diaz (the teacher) of suppressing free speech because the teacher refused to talk to pupils about why the color photo (of George and Laura Bush) hung in the room.
"Students said, 'You like George Bush? He's killed people,' " Pillai-Diaz said. "As a rule I don't talk about my politics in the classroom."
According to Pillai-Diaz, Assistant Principal Mark Daniels said he had no problem with the photo, which hung next to posters of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. But Daniels told the teacher she should address questions that arose because of the photo.
"He wasn't giving me the power to direct conversation in my classroom," said Pillai-Diaz, who regarded the picture just as an image of the current president.
Thursday, at back-to-school night, the controversy exploded after a parent asked why the picture was up, Pillai-Diaz said.
"The way she asked was a political assault," the teacher said.
Then the parents started their own debate about the picture, and one mother stormed out of the classroom, Pillai-Diaz said.
Friday morning, the teacher, who is in her sixth year of teaching and her first in South Brunswick, was called into the assistant principal's office. Daniels told her to remove the picture, Pillai-Diaz said.
"He said, 'If you care about your job, you'll take the picture down,' " she said.
Pillai-Diaz told the assistant principal to take the picture down himself. Then she sought Principal Jim Warfel, who gave her an upbraiding.
"He said, 'You've caused more disruption, hatred and anger than anyone I've ever known,' " she said.
The teacher said the principal told her to "get out," so she left and headed to the South Brunswick Police Department.
An officer accompanied Pillai-Diaz back to the school because she said she feared for her safety when she went to collect her belongings, police said.
Once Pillai-Diaz felt safe at the school the officer left, police said.
In the school, Pillai-Diaz had a two-hour meeting with Superintendent Gary McCartney and a representative from the teachers' union. Both parties told the teacher she would lose any fight she would try to start about the picture, Pillai-Diaz said.
Viewpoint has no idea what all is going on here, but it sounds like teachers in this school cannot post pictures of the president of the United States in their classrooms unless they are prepared to talk politics, whether such a discussion is relevant to the lesson or not.
It's not hard to imagine what the principals would have done had she actually been talking politics and the parents complained about that, especially if she were defending George Bush against students' criticism.
Don't these people have enough problems without making an issue out of this? Don't these parents understand that it is completely appropriate to honor the president? Don't the administrators understand that it's their job to defend their teachers from unreasonable parental criticism? Doesn't the teacher understand that when students initiate a question about Bush's policies she's missing a good opportunity to provide valuable education if she declines to answer it?
Unless there's more to this story than meets the eye, which there probably is, the parents here look stupid, the administrators look pusillanimous, and the teacher looks paranoid, maybe for good reason.
Thanks to JoanneJacobs.com for the tip.
