Morning Edu-News (03.18.2008)
This one really hits home for me:
Anthony Maitilasso, a Sparta High School junior, spoke up at a school board meeting and was called to the principal's office a few days later to talk about it . . . Maitilasso, 16, said school officials wanted him to retract statements he made at the board meeting, saying he heard that a teacher was seen using drugs at the school more than a year ago.
Acting Principal James Bevere said Maitilasso was brought to the office simply to refute his assertion during the meeting that school officials blocked a story from running in the school paper about the possibility of having random drug testing for teachers. . . .
While Maitilasso wasn't disciplined, he characterized the tone of school officials as "intimidating." Maitilasso said he also received a call from Sparta Police, who wanted to talk to him about his statements to the board.
The point of the editorial was to call attention to what was (and probably still is) a typical setup for small Midwestern towns: no grocery store, no library, five startup-and-shutdown restaurants that for some reason can't afford the rent on Main Street to stay in business, but at least two bars and at least one liquor store that have been in business for decades.
The reaction to that editorial—as it was reported to me by some teachers in the school—was ferocious. The owners of each establishment (Dean Martin was the name of one of them. How hilarious is that?), as a group, stormed into the principal's office one day, demanding that I be forced to retract the editorial and apologize.
The principal at the time, Floyd Harris, did ask me to retract and apologize. I refused to do so. The school paper was cancelled. (Side note: I helped to deliver newspapers in the town at the time [yes, I was a paperboy], and Dean Martin, with his wife Kathy, school newspapers in hand, actually approached me—a 16-year-old boy—the very day that the editorial was published, on Main Street, and quite angrily told me that they were going to cancel their subscription. After that incident, I thought to myself, "Wow, did I hurt their business in some way by suggesting in a school newspaper, whose audience is composed mainly of young women and men not yet of legal drinking age, that people ought to step back and think about what it means to live in a community seemingly centered around alcohol?" I'm guessing that maybe I did.)
You can find some clarifications (and more muddying of the waters) here. I'm going to be keeping up with this one.
Oshkosh, Wisconsin:
Innovative Curriculum Substitutes the Word 'Brain' for 'Eyes,' Receives Funding:
I know if I give the students something specific to do – 'touch this,' 'say that' – it puts all of their brains on the same page," she said. "I make choices about the movements I will have them do and I know the reason I'm doing the things I'm doing with them."
Labels: education