NOW DEFUNCT :(

Monday, June 30, 2008

I Felt Like Posting Again

I was watching CNN just now and saw the story about a teacher being fired for using The Freedom Writers Diary as a teaching tool to help motivate her students. She claims that the book will help them because it helps to convey the message that the students are not alone in the problems that they face. The school board suspended her for a year and a half without pay, so they basically fired her. They didn't approve of the book's foul language, which I can understand, but I have read many books with terribly foul language before. The only book that I could never get into because of the language and content was Catcher in the Rye. But I digress. The book's content is a little questionable but the message at the end of the book I think pushes past the earlier content to give an uplifting message to all. The teacher did send out permission slips to all 150 students' parents, and only one family refused to sign. The school board has looked over the case and will allow the teacher to return in the fall. However, the teacher refuses to return unless she's allowed to teach the book. After all, it is in the school's library.

And for anyone who is/was interested in the Body Worlds exhibit at the Milwaukee Public Museum, there's a story about it here. It really was a fun and interesting experience. I'm even flirting with the notion of donating my body to the exhibit so that more attention can be brought to how JRA or arthritis in general can ravage the body. I think that if more people could really understand it, they wouldn't underestimate it as much as they do currently.

1 comment:

Theron Schultz said...

I wonder if they'd fire someone for teaching a book containing racial epithets.