Saturday, August 26, 2006

Stupid Teacher, or Stupid Law?

One of my loyal readers--and old army buddies from the Fort Carson days--sent me this link. I'll summarize:

State law prohibits the permanent display of foreign flags in schools.
Teacher displays foreign flags in his classroom.
Teacher doesn't remove foreign flags.
Teacher is placed on paid administrative leave for his refusal.

Teacher is a geography teacher and uses the flags as part of his curriculum. There's no indication that he's making any anti-American or other political statement.

"Under state law, foreign flags can only be in the classroom because it's tied to the curriculum. And the principal looked at the curriculum, talked to the teacher, and found that there was really no curriculum coming up in the next few weeks that supported those flags being in the classroom," said Jeffco Public Schools spokeswoman Lynn Setzer...

"It's much along the lines of a science teacher who puts up a map of the solar system. They may not spend every day and every lesson talking about Mars, but they want the students to see that and to see the patterns of the planets and the order, and the students will observe that and absorb that learning visually," Hamlin said.


So I ask: stupid teacher, or stupid law?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

As my dad says, "There's always more to the story." Which countries? How many? Displayed how?

Stupid law (or stupid enforcement) if it was a large number of flags from countries on various continents. At the same time, stupid teacher for refusing a request from the principal, however wrong that request was.