Wow. Just wow. Clark County (Nevada) School District gets an 'F' in Civics, Political Science and American History.
It
NEVER occurred to me that my son would not be watching the first
African American President get sworn in at school yesterday. Had
I known, I would have kept him at home and just taken the damn
unexcused absence. When he got home from school yesterday I asked what
he thought about the President's speech. He explained he hadn't seen it
- that his 1st and 3rd period teachers only had the TV on for a few
minutes - the main thing he was concerned about was Senator's Kennedy's
collapse during the luncheon - that was the only thing he knew about
it. The swearing in and speech would have occurred during his 2nd
period class, which was computer science. Yesterday was his first day
in that class (they have gym the other half of the school year) and
what were they doing instead of watching a truly great moment in
American History? Writing down vocabulary words, sharing 'getting to
know you' stories and playing GAMES ON THE COMPUTER! I really really
thought that it must just be that the computer teacher was an idiot
with no awareness, but once I called the school and spoke to the
principal, it really hit home just how much they didn't care. The
principal said there were no guidelines from the District and that she
had left it up to the discretion of the individual teachers. I was
flabbergasted when she told me that she hadn't watched it either - she
was at another school observing teachers (who clearly didn't watch the
damn thing either!). She was really sorry, but didn't know what to say.
So
I emailed his 2nd period teacher. My son is not the best at A) paying
attention or B) relaying a coherent account of events that occur at
school. So, I thought, rashly giving this teacher the benefit of the
doubt, perhaps she had told them at the beginning of class they if they
wanted, they could watch CSPAN or something on the computer and he just
wasn't paying attention. But no. I got a truly terse and disheartening
response from his teacher, complete with bad grammar:
"Dear
Ms. xxxxx , I would have love to see the president speech as well.
However, I have a job to do and I was also evaluated by the assistant
principal yesterday for the entire class period. If you have any
problems concerning this matter, you may contact the principal. Have a
great day.
Ms xxxxx "
Apparently,
'doing her job' doesn't include finding a way to integrate the
Inauguration with computer science and technology. Hell, I know dick
about computers and I came up with a lesson plan that could have
combined the two in about thirty seconds. Apparently, everyone was so
busy doing their jobs yesterday, they forgot to do their goddamn jobs.
But
was my sense of outrage shared by the School District? Nope. Everyone I
talked to yesterday and today let me know in no uncertain terms that it
wasn't a big deal and I was wasting everyone's time. Apparently, having
educators and administrators that are so short sighted and apathetic
that they can't comprehend the importance of watching American History
WHILE IT FUCKING HAPPENS ain't no big deal. What really burned me up
was all the charming stories that played on the local news last night -
of teachers in the Valley that made an event out of the Inauguration,
doing exercises and teaching lessons leading up to it - one teacher
made the kids take notes on the speech because they were going to get
quizzed on it. Clearly, SOME of them got it.
Clearly, I am out
of touch with the goals of the modern American education system. This
truly must be 'teaching to the test' run rampant, when a teacher is so
concerned with an evaluation that she couldn't find a way to integrate
something so important into her lessons plans (which again, include
PLAYING FUCKING COMPUTER GAMES).
I wrote a letter to the
District's Superintendent with copies of his teacher's sad little email
and copied my son's principal on everything. I'm certain they have
little to fear from my wrath - clearly I am pissing up a rope today
with all my righteous indignation (I will have to take pleasure in the
fact that I included the following vocabulary words in my letters:
lament, woeful, disheartening, apathy and short-sighted. I, at least,
know how to spell and have a passing acquaintance with grammar, even if
I do enjoy the art of the run-on sentence.) Sigh.