San Francisco school officials spent $50,000 over the past several months to produce a hip-hop CD, one with so much profanity it requires a parental advisory label slapped on the front.And they couldn't be more proud.
The music and lyrics were created by 12 of the district's court school kids - students who broke the law and now, on probation and under a judge's order, attend class in rundown portables on the west side of the city.
The students aren't the easiest to teach, sometimes because they simply don't show up. And even when they do, they aren't the easiest to reach.
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This CD idea is insane.
These kids would be better off relocated to some camp in the forest, given shovels, and told to start digging to plant trees. Granted, a revival of the CCC is not my first policy choice, but inculcating values in these kids would go a lot easier if they actually were given an opportunity to do real, hard work.
Your servant,
Lord Karth
If a teacher did let students read poetry with such lyrics, I would certainly be raising objections with the principal and school board, although not demanding she be fired.
Lisa,
I don't think my friend "let" her students read poems with lyrics like that. I suspect that she simply asked the students to read what they brought in, and hadn't collected and vetted them first. Would a more experienced teacher have done that? Probably yes -- and a more experienced teacher probably would have covered her own a** by going to the principal and saying, "Look at what what these students have brought in as something supposedly appropriate for class," so that 1) the teacher will have gone on record as having notified the principal, and 2) the principal could (one hopes) contact the parents and say, "look what you child brought into class for this assignment", and 3) the teacher could thus pre-empt complaints from the student that he or she had been "censored".
But I have been teaching a lot longer than my friend has, and I don't think it would have occurred to me that any of my students would think that lyrics containing the word "c***sucker" were appropriate to bring to class. I guess I'm just fortunate to be teaching at the college level, where student are more grown up and these things aren't as much of an issue.
By the way, Lisa, while you were busy raising objections with the principal and school board., I hope you would also raise objections with the parents of the students involved -- because it is the fault of the *parents* who didn't raise their children with enough of a sense of decorum to know that you don't bring lyrics with words like "c***sucker" into class. Because it isn't the teacher's fault if students come to school thinking that that is appropriate -- it is their *parents'* fault for not raising them properly.
Agree with most here. This is a waste of taxpayers money and instructional time. As a product of the California school system of the 70's and 80's, I am still making up for deficiencies in classical education and Western Civilization that were dropped form the curriculum. Annoying.
Seneca? Stoicism? Marcus Aurelius? Socrates and Plato?
Ah...nope.
At least I got to read "A Separate Peace". Time and time again.
btw...the content submission error thing is getting real annoying.
Sorry, "No Name" at 4:01 p.m. was me.
Hmm. I never read "A Separate Peace" until I chose to read it last year. It was never assigned in any class I took. Neither was "Catcher in the Rye" for that matter, which I first read just a couple of years ago.
The people responsible here are professional educators. If anyone thinks they're pulling down the Big Bucks as public school teachers, that person needs a reality check.
The children involved here are hard-core criminals or near criminals. The teachers are trying to work with these young people.
Is this strategy of theirs effective? I have no idea. I am not a teacher, having opted instead to support my family. But I certainly wouldn't want a bunch of non-professionals casually condemning the work I did in my own profession to attempt to deal with nearly impossible problems, just as I don't think myself qualified to critique the performance of a heart surgeon in tricky open-heart surgery. Maybe he doesn't know what he's doing, but FOR SURE I don't know what he's doing.
Nearly impossible problems occur in every profession. They certainly occur often enough in teaching. We are obligated, I think, to cut these teachers some slack.
Unless we're ready to go in and work with these kids, and edge the heart specialist aside and do quadruple-bypass surgery too. I'm not saying the specialists are always right, but their chances are a lot higher than mine, or yours.
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