Paula Healey, the elementary school teacher who accompanied the second graders, released a statement yesterday through Boyle's office entitled "Facts About Our Visit to New York City on Dec. 16, 2004," to explain her point of view.
"The Fairfield Public Schools did not sponsor this trip to New York City. I took a personal day from teaching to join some of my former students," Healey's statement read.
Healey is currently a teacher at Burr Elementary School in Fairfield. She accompanied her former first grade students, now second graders, from nearby Mill Hill Elementary, where she taught last year.
"The children and their families were well aware that this day together would be taking place outside of the school day, and that if they chose to join us, they would be considered absent from school. In no way was this considered a school field trip," Healey said.
Healey said that no school transportation was used, and the visit to JP Morgan Chase was not intended to be viewed as a "protest."
The initial student outing was discussed in the following old news articles:
I agree, it's BS - as much as the teachers taking a 'personal day' and encouraging all their students to attend this religious event last year (anyone remember that one?) was BS.
Tough issue - where do you draw the line in education. Should students learn about the value of protecting the environment? Absolutely. Should they learn *all* viewpoints on that issue? Most definitely. Is this feasible to squeeze into a first grade classroom? Probably not.
Did RAN exploit the children? Hard to say. If the children had parental consent for the actions then isn't it really the *parents* exploiting the children and not directly RAN? The real question I'd have to ask is whether the parents were fully aware of what was going on here. If the parents supported it then I guess it's not too horrible a thing - after all, it's a parent's right to brainwash their kid in whatever legal way they want.
For the record, I disagree with RAN and most "environmentalist" positions.
Ah, yes...Relbeek chimes in with "But...but...but...Republicans do it too!" and fails to provide a link. How predictable. Next he'll try the snappy one-liner or maybe make a comment about the Vast Right-Wing Konspiracy in the media blowing this out of proportion.
Does anyone have a useful or interesting comment?
For the record, if I catch a Republican doing shit like this I'd kick their ass twice as hard as I'd kick this idiot teacher. Grown-ups should know better than to try this shit.
First of all, how likely is it that some teacher could POSSIBLY take a personal day and sneak off with an entire class full of kids, presumably after having gotten permission slips under some pretense, and schlep them off to Downtown NYC without the school administration noticing and endorsing the trip? Zero.
What is the chance that teacher would still be employed if she HAD managed to blindside her school superintendant with this? Less than zero.
The argument that this is a trip that has nothing to do with the school is therefore an obvious lie.
Given the press release from RAN last December, the teacher is either an incredibly-gullible patsy for them, or she's telling a bold faced lie when she asserts that the trip was not a political protest. And if she was a patsy, you'd hope that someone we're trusting to teach our children would be able to realize the fact that she's been used like a towel in a brothel after more than a month to think about it. But she doesn't sound pissed at RAN in today's press comment.
No, the 'official' story just does not add up. Either she's so deluded that she really believes teaching kids how to make activist posters and 'deliver' them to the target of those protests (in a staged media event) is more important to the kids' futures than reading and penmanship, or she's actively working to turn her classroom into the Hitler Youth. Either way she's unfit for the job.
Ah, yes...Relbeek chimes in with "But...but...but...Republicans do it too!" and fails to provide a link. How predictable. Next he'll try the snappy one-liner or maybe make a comment about the Vast Right-Wing Konspiracy in the media blowing this out of proportion.
Just when you were being less of a jerk, Eid... sheesh. That's really sad.
That other event had nothing to do with Republicans, just as this has nothing to do with Democrats. The earlier event, however, was discussed here some time ago and I was hoping someone would remember it better than I do.
I called that bullshit, and I call this bullshit. And as far as I know, the two major political parties had nothing to do with either event.
I hate to say it, but the vast majority of teachers are unfit for the job. I know that at least in my local district, one of the first questions asked during an interview is "what sports can you coach?" Considering the weight placed on coaching ability in hirability, often good teachers get passed up for teachers who know how to play football.
No exageration. My district, and I'd be willing to bet every district near me, places greater priority on sports than education. If this kind of absurdity occurs in public schools, rest assured many other forms of absurdity drell within as well.
"I find it elevating and exhilarating to discover that we live in a universe which permits the evolution of molecular machines as intricate and subtle as we."
-Carl Sagan
I recall the story Relbeek is talking about. It was posted here, and discussed, but I think it was before last spring, and I haven't been able to locate it on the boards. Furthermore, I can't locate reference to it on Google or on CNN itself. Not sure if it's poorly remembered keywords, or if it's just dropped off the face of anything searchable.
As I recall it, the article was about a teacher who "strongly encouraged" attendance at a 2 or 3 day christian jamboree, which involved being absent from school for the duration of the trip. If memory serves, though, that article alluded to support of the event, in that students who chose not to attend were required to be in school, but students who attended were excused with parental consent. The teacher attending had to take a personal day, I think, but in retrospect, that doesn't make much sense, so take my recallection of the article with a grain of salt. I'm pretty sure the school printed and sent out the permission slips for the event, and I'm pretty sure that the story got media attention because students and parents complained, due to the event being promoted in/by the school, and there was a question of whether it was mandatory or not/would cause "stigma" towards those who did not attend.
For the record, Eidolon, I don't see the implications you did in Relbeek's post this time around. It might be because I recall the article he was talking about, and that one didn't seem politically charged to me at the time, with exception to the fact that it surrounded a debate about religion in schools. /shrug.
As for this particular article, I'd need to know more before passing judgement. Regardless, the situation appears to have been handled very poorly. I don't think I've met a kid yet in gradeschool that didn't have some sort of science unit about the rainforests, and did up posters or art projects involving saving the rainforests, so that part doesn't phase me. The trip itself bothers me, for multiple reasons, but if this was something that they "won" as a result of a contest from the prior year, I could see poor judgements being made by the school system in an effort to give the now-second graders their prize.
Just a glance at the info available, someone used those kids to promote an agenda. That their parents actually let them go without question gives me the heebie jeebies, and that's speaking as someone with a healthy respect for the balance of both nature and technology.
I don't have a problem with ecology units in school. In fact, I think an understanding of such things is very important for a modern citizen. And they should make repeated passes at it as the students' mathematical ability, scientific background, and reading ability improve.
But a bunch of first graders making posters to protest the lending policies of a specific investment bank seems just a tad suspicious. They don't even get Macroeconomics classes until 3rd grade, do they? I didn't realize the Teletubbies did shows on compound interest and P&L spreadsheets.
True, Eid, and I'll agree wholeheartedly that RAN never should have offered such a trip, and the school/teacher/whomever was responsible never should have accepted. Whomever allowed this trip should be slapped down. The line of thought, and how the trip was originally presented to the administrators, causing the the decision to allow the trip at all should determine how hard, though.
I've had far to many "Holy shit, that SO didn't go the way I expected it to when I signed up" moments to jump on the -OMGZERS! Child pr0t3st adv0katz- boat.
Parents should also be READING permission slips an notices rather than just signing everything that comes under their noses from school. It's kind of our job, and all.