Purpose: To talk about what old broards talk about.
Sunday, January 11
of Mice and Men
We're reading this in class and one of the students in the room has Downs Syndrome. Every day I see the best and worst of humanity and it usually makes my head hurt.
The kids haven't been bad so far, but we had a few insensitivity issues earlier in the year, so i watch them like a hawk. the admin. isn't really quick to deal with certain types of discrimination, especially if the victim can't say "they're discriminating against me." other types of discrimination are dealt with so swiftly, we hardly know they happened.
on the other harnd, the mother is insisting that steinbeck supported the eugenetics movement and wants us to teach a lesson saying as much. i called in sick today, i actually lost sleep over it last night and tossed and turned until well after 3am.
i think the book is a great opportunity to explore many types of dicrimination and talk about sensitivity and equal rights, as well as the bonds freinds have and the limits of friendship. i personally don't think lennie's death was a statement in support of eugenics, but one of the hardest acts of love ever re the parallel with candy's dog. not that lennie is the same as a dog because of his disability, but that george loved lennie and wanted to help him rather than let a lynch mob torture him to death. i personally think it's a statement of what no human deserves happen to them and how we must do hard things at times because of love.
However, i cannot teach my opinions and given the make-up of the class, we won't have many deep discussions about it either. i have to navigate a political mine field that i'm a pawn in. the mother's political group wants to ban the book, stating that the Lennie character is an over-blown stereotype and that steinbeck is on par with hitler. she didn't want the book taught to the class, but the county midterm test is on the book, so she was shot down. since her daughter does not have to take tests, they offered to remove her daughter from the room and or give her a different assignment, but the mother said no because her daughter needs to do everything that the other students do (except tests....)
I'm stuck in the middle and it's hard to watch that little girl suffer too. everyone knows what's best without seeing how "what's best" seems to really be what's worst for this kid. I really just want to vomit and then eat some tums.
Jilly, that mother is reprehensible. The mother could use this situation as a teachable moment herself, asking her daughter what *she* thinks the book means. It's a hard story, to be sure, but it's not about eugenics. It's about the darkness of humanity and love. I'm so sorry you're stuck in the middle.
the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, esp. by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics).
emma, they used to steralize people they thought shouldn't have children because of genetics. They also locked people away in institutions. Some people were mentally reatrded, others were mentally ill and some were just poor or the wrong color. Not a great period in our history, but I don't think the book is about genetic superority.
That mother may be reprehensible but she is legion. It's now the case that everyone with a lament, a bone to chew, an odd ball point of view, an assessment of a situation (valid or not) is encouraged to voice their opinion. This is the downside to the empowerment of individuals. Parents are asked and expected to get involved in their kids' education, to ask questions and demand answers, to be skeptical of professionals, and are labeled irresponsible if they don't. Your story, Jilly, is what sometimes happens when they do. Thirty years ago, maybe even twenty, this would not have happened. Was it better when parents sat in the shadows and watched passively as experts made difficult or blanket or even wrong choices for individuals? Probably not. But I'm not sure today's situation where every voice must be heard and attended to is much better. And I sure am glad my kids are out of school.
Ded, there's no middle between the two, and we really need it. Most parents can't name their kid's teachers, classes, friends etc. Few parents bother to come to conferences, return calls or e-mail. and the rare few that bother to find out whats going on in their kid's lives seem to care too much.
i know asking for the middle is hard, because how do you define it? but i love it when i find a "middle" parent and wish i had them more often. my biggest pet peeve i a parent that won't return any communication with us at school and then comes in and bitches and raises hell because their kid is failing.
I know they really have it bad. i see their kid 50 minutes a day for 5 days, and they have to LIVE with him or her. If the kid is bad at school 99% of the time, the kid is really bad at home. The parents don't know what to do, so they don't return contact because they're tired of hearing it.
Most of my job in special ed is being a glorfied "at school mommy." Most of the people i work with who have been doing this for 20+ years say the biggest difference is that 20 years ago, they didn't have to be mommy/daddy, and now we're the parents as well as the teachers, and this system is prime for failure.
I keep hope alive because the pendulum always swings the other ways eventually.
Jilly my wv is spatidic which perfectly fits this situation.
I don't think one person's opinion should be given weight enough to change an entire curriculum. If there is a movement, say, through a parental advisory board or some other such body whose bylaws point at education and critical thinking, not the authorial intention of one particular title, then it might have some benefit. Reading any particular book, no matter what its content, is not going to ruin a person. Even if Steinbeck truly felt that people with genetic flaws were animals, the text itself presents only ideas, not dogma or doctrine. So discuss the flaws in the idea, as supported by the text. Do not ban the presentation of the idea.
I think if I had another child, I would suck it up and homeschool. The pervasive hover-parenting and ideology-driven agenda, coupled with the broken child-herding system, is more than I'd want my new child to endure. I guess that's easy to say since there are no more kids coming.
9 comments:
That makes me sad, Jilly. Would be a good short story.
The kids haven't been bad so far, but we had a few insensitivity issues earlier in the year, so i watch them like a hawk. the admin. isn't really quick to deal with certain types of discrimination, especially if the victim can't say "they're discriminating against me." other types of discrimination are dealt with so swiftly, we hardly know they happened.
on the other harnd, the mother is insisting that steinbeck supported the eugenetics movement and wants us to teach a lesson saying as much. i called in sick today, i actually lost sleep over it last night and tossed and turned until well after 3am.
i think the book is a great opportunity to explore many types of dicrimination and talk about sensitivity and equal rights, as well as the bonds freinds have and the limits of friendship. i personally don't think lennie's death was a statement in support of eugenics, but one of the hardest acts of love ever re the parallel with candy's dog. not that lennie is the same as a dog because of his disability, but that george loved lennie and wanted to help him rather than let a lynch mob torture him to death. i personally think it's a statement of what no human deserves happen to them and how we must do hard things at times because of love.
However, i cannot teach my opinions and given the make-up of the class, we won't have many deep discussions about it either. i have to navigate a political mine field that i'm a pawn in. the mother's political group wants to ban the book, stating that the Lennie character is an over-blown stereotype and that steinbeck is on par with hitler. she didn't want the book taught to the class, but the county midterm test is on the book, so she was shot down. since her daughter does not have to take tests, they offered to remove her daughter from the room and or give her a different assignment, but the mother said no because her daughter needs to do everything that the other students do (except tests....)
I'm stuck in the middle and it's hard to watch that little girl suffer too. everyone knows what's best without seeing how "what's best" seems to really be what's worst for this kid. I really just want to vomit and then eat some tums.
Jilly
Jilly, that mother is reprehensible. The mother could use this situation as a teachable moment herself, asking her daughter what *she* thinks the book means. It's a hard story, to be sure, but it's not about eugenics. It's about the darkness of humanity and love. I'm so sorry you're stuck in the middle.
::::had to look up eugenetics:::::::
the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, esp. by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics).
emma, they used to steralize people they thought shouldn't have children because of genetics. They also locked people away in institutions. Some people were mentally reatrded, others were mentally ill and some were just poor or the wrong color. Not a great period in our history, but I don't think the book is about genetic superority.
jilly
That mother may be reprehensible but she is legion. It's now the case that everyone with a lament, a bone to chew, an odd ball point of view, an assessment of a situation (valid or not) is encouraged to voice their opinion. This is the downside to the empowerment of individuals. Parents are asked and expected to get involved in their kids' education, to ask questions and demand answers, to be skeptical of professionals, and are labeled irresponsible if they don't. Your story, Jilly, is what sometimes happens when they do. Thirty years ago, maybe even twenty, this would not have happened. Was it better when parents sat in the shadows and watched passively as experts made difficult or blanket or even wrong choices for individuals? Probably not. But I'm not sure today's situation where every voice must be heard and attended to is much better. And I sure am glad my kids are out of school.
i agree with ded.
Ded, there's no middle between the two, and we really need it. Most parents can't name their kid's teachers, classes, friends etc. Few parents bother to come to conferences, return calls or e-mail. and the rare few that bother to find out whats going on in their kid's lives seem to care too much.
i know asking for the middle is hard, because how do you define it? but i love it when i find a "middle" parent and wish i had them more often. my biggest pet peeve i a parent that won't return any communication with us at school and then comes in and bitches and raises hell because their kid is failing.
I know they really have it bad. i see their kid 50 minutes a day for 5 days, and they have to LIVE with him or her. If the kid is bad at school 99% of the time, the kid is really bad at home. The parents don't know what to do, so they don't return contact because they're tired of hearing it.
Most of my job in special ed is being a glorfied "at school mommy." Most of the people i work with who have been doing this for 20+ years say the biggest difference is that 20 years ago, they didn't have to be mommy/daddy, and now we're the parents as well as the teachers, and this system is prime for failure.
I keep hope alive because the pendulum always swings the other ways eventually.
Jilly
my wv is spatidic which perfectly fits this situation.
I don't think one person's opinion should be given weight enough to change an entire curriculum. If there is a movement, say, through a parental advisory board or some other such body whose bylaws point at education and critical thinking, not the authorial intention of one particular title, then it might have some benefit. Reading any particular book, no matter what its content, is not going to ruin a person. Even if Steinbeck truly felt that people with genetic flaws were animals, the text itself presents only ideas, not dogma or doctrine. So discuss the flaws in the idea, as supported by the text. Do not ban the presentation of the idea.
I think if I had another child, I would suck it up and homeschool. The pervasive hover-parenting and ideology-driven agenda, coupled with the broken child-herding system, is more than I'd want my new child to endure. I guess that's easy to say since there are no more kids coming.
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