of intelligent design...at work

11/7/05
in my continuing quest to keep myself in trouble, i have tackled the subjects of intelligent design and decriminalization of marijuana as my current way of torturing all administrators and worrywarts who are around me.

i am thinking that a job of making coffee and sandwiches at Wawa would be preferable to have to constantly play the politically correct game of keeping everyone in the public school system happy. geez, i am tired of it, and i just wonder sometimes what the point is of trying to get kids thinking and interested and analyzing stuff. why bother promoting thought provoking discourse, when the adults around seemingly don't really want children to learn to do any of these things? ok, that sounds pretty harsh, but look around you! everybody wants to argue with somebody about what is RIGHT AND WHAT IS WRONG! my truth is better than your truth, because i have a license to the REAL truth and your truth is a lie...and in the school system the subtle message is we want you to learn, but only certain subjects and in a politically correct, vanilla way that no one will object to. so when you remove controversy, the very stuff that stimulates thought, you have a generation of uninterested automatons who are adept at regurgitating facts on a short term basis. long term, they run out of gas because they can't really think. they may pass the Standards of Learning Test, but they can't really think.

So what are the origins of my dissertation? well, despite the fact that i put in an announcement for the subject of the after school discussion club 10 days ago, this morning i found a note tacked to my door saying to see the principal. since i had been out of the way to make him aware of what we discussing this week (discussing the denver decision to decriminalize marijuana), i didn't suspect that this could be a problem. long story short: i cancelled the meeting because i need more time to "prep." translation: we can't have this discussion for fear that some parent might misinterpret what i am doing with the club. sigh. from the principal's standpoint, he is "protecting me" from getting in trouble. i also committed the grevious sin of not asking for his permission to use this topic, i just told him what we were doing and INVITED HIM TO COME TO THE MEETING. my theory was that if i have to get every topic approved for an after school, voluntary discussion club, then kids just won't come. it will be boring and they will quickly see, as i am, that real freedom of speech doesn't exist for the most part in the public school system. and here is the rub with me. on one hand the major complaint is that kids don't think and their analysis skills are diminished, the result, in my opinion, from doing the memorize-for-the-Standards of Learning Test-thing. teachers can no longer stray" off topic" for fear that they won't get all of the material covered in time for the SOL. it is all about the SOL pass numbers and percentage rates. so we teach to the test, kids memorize only what they have to know, and then don't do well because they can't analyze. what they have LEARNED seems to be secondary to having those great pass numbers. supposedly, the numbers DO reflect what students learn. i doubt it. considering the numbers of kids who go to college and never finish, i would argue that they aren't successful in college because it isn't memorization anymore. they have to actually look at things and think them over, and a lot of them just don't know how.

the after school discussion club was an extension of my english class discussions. it provides kids an opportunity to get together with other students and have a civil discourse over current events or meaningful topics. the only rule is that no one is "right" and that we just discuss and exchange ideas and information. but that isn't how this club or even class discussions are being viewed. these forums are viewed as potential areas of "bad press," the key word being POTENTIAL. so on the outside chance that one fanatical parents objects, the whole concept is diluted or destroyed. we have a watered down version of any and everything that stimulates thought.

i know that the administrators are trying to do their jobs. but when are we going to stop working in a vacuum of fear? instead of doing something possibly thought provoking and interesting, we are reduced to doing the same old same old redundant and boring stuff...which isn't stimulating the kids to think outside of the box or even think at all. we got a whole generation of self oriented, vapid kids who appear not to care about much of anything. how do you make them care? in my opinion, you bring them information and exhort them to take it in and to seek it out. there is an interesting world out there, one that may not be what their parents want for them or what their parents want them to see or learn. nonetheless, KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. given partial knowledge, we will continue to be close minded, bigoted, negative and defensive. as a result, we will continue to force our individual versions of the truth upon our bretheren. civil discourse will become an oxymoron, if it already hasn't become one.

so, to screw myself over further, i gave my english classes two essays, a column from the seattle times (ellen goodman) and the other from the new york times. both deal with the raging debate over intelligent design (coming soon to a school system near you). i have been careful to give them the facts and definitions, to discuss the essays as pieces of nonfiction, and to ask them their opinions. i have also tried to simply the argument in such as way that they will have some semblance of understanding of what the whole controversy is about. i have been lucky, i suppose, that some child hasn't gone home and complained or shown the essays to a parent. should that happen, whatever good i might have wrought for 119 students will be dispelled by the l who doesn't like it.

so what are my choices? i could stop carrying out what i believe is my "mission" in the classroom, which is to interest kids in becoming lifelong learners. i do this by discussing life and literature and they are tied together. the other choice is to give in and just become an automaton and work out in the darkness of possible "danger" from the occasional upset parent.
i have faced these choices before, and stood my ground. however, now i am starting to feel that i not only need to stand my ground, but to vocally stand up for what i believe, despite the fact i could get in hot water. i am doing absolutely nothing that is punishable by firing. i am just being different and not doing what everyone else does. i have never been a freaking lemming, and i don't want to go over the cliff as one now. if i am going over the cliff, i am going to be like butch cassidy and sundance; i've obviously got to go over, but I DECIDE WHEN AND HOW I AM GOING. i am damned if i will let the pinkerton agents of the school system continue to hound and chase me into submission. if they want to pursue me, so be it. but at least the pursuit won't be easy...