May 18, 2004

• from the may 2 santa fe new mexican: Program fund-raises for poetic justice When Rio Rancho High School student poets began to speak out about the U.S. invasion of Iraq in poetry slams, coffeehouses and at the school, they were accused of "obscenity and incitement to violence." An investigation by school authorities led to the suspension of humanities teacher Bill Nevins, adviser to the school's Write Club and founder of its poetry-slam team. The school also disbanded the club and the team. A civil lawsuit against the school is pending. PEN New Mexico, writing program at the College of Santa Fe and the New Mexico chapter of the National Writers Union will present a music and poetry program to raise money for Nevins' defense from 5-7 p.m. Saturday at the Forum at the College of Santa Fe.
• Funny. This story seems to have been completely ignored by the mainstream press here. If it is true, that is certainly cause for concern.
• this item made the June 2003 issue of Radical Teacher. guess that's not too mainstream. heh. Green Left Weekly writer Bill Nevins was suspended from his teaching job at a New Mexico public high school after a student from the Poetry Slam Team/Write Club, which Nevins organizes and sponsors, read an anti-war poem over the in-school, closed circuit TV system. All student members of the poetry team were interrogated by the school administration. Nevins is fighting the suspension with the strong support of the New Mexico teachers' union. To read the offending poem, go to www.greenleft.org.au/.
• Growing speculation now focuses on Nevins' role as a GLW reporter based in the USA. There is suspicion in progressive NM circles that his suspension may be an instance of the USA Patriot Act being secretly invoked. -indymedia.org
• good use of the word 'interrogated', btw. Adds to the suspence.
• suspense. damn my ignorant fingers!
• jesus... i just watched "pump up the volume" last night and i thought the school administrators' nastiness was over the top....
• Just like they wouldn't let Kevin Bacon dance.
• This is the kind of article that you expect to see coming out of China, not the USA. It is however, a very one sided article - perhaps the teacher was trying to push his views too far. Even so, I don't believe the solution to any problem is to allocate politics to the growing list of national obscenities. Political discussion should be encouraged in schools, because we need thinkers ! You can’t have policy without discussion of it, otherwise it becomes irrelevant ! The US is an enormous place however - I wonder if we'll see it break apart?
• details on his court case from alliance for academic freedom.
• be afraid. be very afraid.
• Why does a high school have a "Military Liaison?" That is scary enough all by itself.
• JROTC. It is common in high schools.
• IANAL, but does this mean the case is closed?
• blogRot, It looks like the case is "closed" from the NM state court's perspective, but further down the page under "-- Register of Actions Activity --" it shows "10/06/2003 CLS: REMOVAL TO FED COURT." I'm no lawyer, but it looks like it's been sent up to the Federal Circuit court, and may still be active. If I weren't at work, I'd look up open Federal cases to see what's going on....
• OK, so the school has a military recruiter, where in his job description is enforcing patriotic correctness? This is scary on so many levels...
• And, as if the original article weren't bad enough, there's this from the Village Voice. Democracy is a joke, I tell you.
• from SideDish's link: "It seemed to annoy and disturb others," says Lieutenant Schmid, "and when you have conduct that tends to annoy or disturb others, that's disorderly conduct." fuck. now my very existence is illegal.
• They really should have just thrown the students in the swimming pool to see if they float. That way, see, if they float, then they could tell if they were socialists. *grabs pitchfork and torch and forms an angry mob*
• Sam Hamill and other poets have been speaking out against the war for some time.
• In light of what I know of high school poetry, what we likely have here is a political active liberal and outspoken critic of the administration (not in itself a bad thing, it's a big world and there's room for everyone) and a long history of mutually antagonistic behavior between said teacher and the principal and JROTC dude (also not in itself a bad thing, especially if you are not directly involved and may be amused by the cheap local pettifoggery), which came to a nice, juicy zit-like head when the former used his poetry class and a nice student to tweak his boss and the boss, subsequently, saw this as a nice way to cut his irritating underling off at the knees. In the meantime: the young poetess - who SHOULD be the primary concern of both parties - becomes a pointy stick for each side, much to her discomfort, I would bet. A shameful display. In the meantime, let us not give this ugly incident a greater sense of importance than is its due. There is no Taliban here - there are only the multifarious petty machinations of selfish people more invested in making political points and forcing others to toe their particular line of thought than in their work responsibilities and the social obligations of polite society.
• Fes, you're suggesting the teacher engineered this whole thing? On what do you base your allegation?
• I'm not suggesting that it was engineered, per se, so much as speculating that it seems likely (to me, knowing what I know of personal animosities within organizations) that the rightish principal and the leftish teacher have had issues in the past, and that this close-circuit poetry thing, which would otherwise have not been an issue, got spun up into something else. There's no problem having a student read her poem; there's also no problem with her teacher and principal having poltical beliefs on either side of the question. But the wildly out of proportion reaction to the event on both sides leads me to think that this has very little to do with the poem/poet, and far more to do with the personal and politcal animosities of the teacher and the principal/JROTC guy. The teacher chose a student to read based on the politics of the content, and the principal based his reaction on a perceived opportunity (imo) to get rid of (or at least, publicly chastise) a teacher whom he probably dislikes. I've always been of the mind that politics should remain outside the curricula, especially at the high school level. Far more valuable would be for both teacher and principal to try to install within the students an ability to think critically about any subject. These two seem unable, however, to keep their personal politics out of it, to the detriment of their students, and to the obvious detriment of one student in particular.
• To clarify: I have no particular evidence for this opinion. I've just seen this sort of thing happen numerous times before (to lesser extents), and so my gut tells me if it looks like a bird with a bill and I hear a lot of quacking, it's probably a duck.
• Fes, I find it hard to see how you'd teach children to think critically without specific examples, and even harder to see why children would be convinced of the value of critical thinking if your only examples were irrelevant to anything contemporary.
• Perhaps. But using contemporary examples is a far different thing than bringing one's own political views into the classroom, or allowing one of my teacher's politics to irk me to the point that I would violate one of my students free speech rights.
• Actually, I think logic, as opposed to critical thinking, isn't what's tought nowadays. (Yes, geezer comment, but bear me out.) I've seen so many people who don't really understand cause and effect, even, and see them making the wrong decisions over and over, that it makes me really sad. No apparent abiltity to think, "If I do x, what is the likely outcome? What is the range of possibilities?" Well, maybe I'm just familiar with a particularly lame segment of the population.
• No apparent abiltity to think, "If I do x, what is the likely outcome? What is the range of possibilities?" Well, crap! Is that all I have to do? Also, you may not know it from my ooking, I'm liking this discussion, thanks for it, keep it up.
• I agree with Fes, this sounds like two opposing partisan knuckleheads getting into a pissing match, escalating the odds, and being unable to back down. BTW, is the actual poem that is at issue available anywhere, so we can judge it for ourselves?
• Revolution X Bush said no child would be left behind And yet kids from inner-city schools Work on Central Avenue Jingling cans that read Please sir, may I have some more? They hand out diplomas like toilet paper And lower school standards Because Underpaid, unrespected teachers Are afraid of losing their jobs Funded by the standardized tests That shows our competency When I'm in detox. This is the Land of the Free ... Where the statute of limitations for rape is only five damn years! And immigrants can't run for President. Where Muslims are hunted because Some suicidal men decided they didn't like Our arrogant bid for modern imperialism. This is the Land of the Free ... You drive by a car whose Bumper screams God bless America! Well, you can scratch out the B And make it Godless Because God left this country a long time ago. The founding fathers made this nation On a dream and now Freedom of Speech Lets Nazis burn crosses, but Calls police to Gay pride parades. We somehow Can afford war with Iraq But we can't afford to pay the teachers Who educate the young who hold the guns Against the "Axis of Evil" Land of the Free ... This is the land If you're politically assertive They call you a traitor and Damn you to ostracism. Say good-bye to Johnny Walker Lindh And his family. Bye Bye American Pie. So maybe My ideas about this nation Don't resolve around perfection But at least I know Education is more important Than money. Land of the Free . . . If this was utopia We'd have to see each other naked Before we got married But instead, we see each other naked all the time Because the government has my social security number And the name of my dog! And then we make babies, But don't worry, they won't be left behind And they grow up saying God bless America! But they don't know who Bush is Because they never learned the Presidents. And they will ride the ship Amistad To our dreamland shores Bearing the same shackles as us. I'm here to say that Generation X Is pissed and we are taking over, Ripping down the American illusion of perfection We are the future generation I have my qualifications I know it looks like Angel Soft paper, But don't worry It's a diploma Do I look qualified? You can take our toilet paper, But you can't take our Revolution. From here, via MeFi (which appears to be slowly catching up with us...) /jokesnark Not bad - it's pretty naive and blunt, but I'd say it shows some promise. Good turns of phrase here and there, heartfelt without being lumpen. Oh, and probably not an actual act of treachery. Only in my opinion, of course....
• Fes: My apologies. After reading the poem (if that really is the poem in question) I have no doubt that the teacher wrote it, or co-wrote it, or at the very least heavily influenced its writing. All that crap about underpaid, underappreciated teachers....these aren't exactly the issues that keep high-school kids up at night.
• No apologies necessary! It was a perfectly legitimate question. And I agree with you about teachers (my wife's one) - most are underpaid, and almost all are underappreciated. In any event, there's nothing in that poem (though I might disagree with the sentiment at points) that warrants the reaction from administration it received, teacher-written or not. Although I have my doubts that a high school student would refer to her generation as "Generation X." I'm 36 and last I checked *I* was Generation X. And the Don McLean quote gives one pause...
• All that crap about underpaid, underappreciated teachers... What, all two lines of it? If you really believe there can't possibly be a single fifteen or sixteen year old in the American school system who cares in the slightest about their teachers, then perhaps things are slightly worse that previously suspected... :-) To me, reads exactly like a lot of none-more-earnest sixth-form poetry. Oh, and the American Pie reference - maybe more Madonna than Don McLean?
• It's like a fucking lefty wank list. If that wasn't written by the thirty-something "Generation X" teacher, then it was written from a list compiled by same.
• Actually, as someone finishing highschool in Ontario when the Tories slashed and burned their way through - hgh school students know everything about underfunding education. They are on the front lines. Sure they hear all about it from their teachers - they also get the opposite side from the government. But we all knew the teachers had a story closer to the truth, because we saw what the government was doing to our schools. There are reasons students rally for teachers, and not for budget cutting governments, and it's not because they're brainwashed or being used - it's because they would like the same opprotunities thier parent's generation - the politicians' generation - had. This is just the sort of thing that highschool and university students were saying in Toronto in 1995, without instigation from our teachers (my school was very apolitical). You may call it a "lefty wank list" - but it's just a view on the world from a high school student who sees their future being morgaged for reasons they don't agree with. She also makes good points that much of the claim that America is the land of the free is (and getting more) based on myth, apple pie and self-delusion. I like the apple pie - the States needs to lose the rest.
• In my experience, teenagers are frequently compulsive list-making, left-leaning masturbators... (what jb said. except not about Ontario.)
• Stockholm syndrome.
• goetter, you owe me a new keyboard. and a new cup of tea.
• Oh, and the American Pie reference - maybe more Madonna than Don McLean? Forgot about that! But even so, Google says that Madonna's version was released in March of 2000, which seems like it would be well off the radar screen to a high school student today. I'm not really "in touch" with today's "hep" teen, but I would guess that Madonna is considered "that old bag my parents listen to," and her covering a song originally done by someone her grandparents would have listened to (again, blueskying here, but still) probably doesn't make it on her ipod, let alone in her poems.
• Of course students sympathise with their teachers. They spend 7 hours a day believing everything that comes out of their mouths. And don't think teachers don't take advantage of that to full effect. I'm not anti-teacher. In my young days I had more good ones than bad ones. And my kids have been lucky enough to have nothing but top quality teachers so far. But I have seen first-hand the politicization of the classroom. And jb, the situation in Ontario had nothing to do with slashing education, and everything to do with making teachers accountable and efficient. Of course the teachers unions had a shit-fit about it and rallied the kids like pawns off to protest after protest, and told the parents that their kids' future was in jeopardy. I have two kids in the Ontario public system and I can tell you the quality of education is better than ever. Keep one thing in mind...the teachers' unions are not concerned with education quality or students' welfare at all. Their one and only mandate is to get their membership as much money as possible for as little work as possible, just like any other union. Anyone who makes $60K+ a year with 10 weeks off every summer, plus two at Christmas and another in March, doesn't qualify as underpaid in my books.
• Anyone who makes $60K+ a year with 10 weeks off every summer, plus two at Christmas and another in March, doesn't qualify as underpaid in my books. I can't speak for Ontario, but in Illinois, that 60K is predicated on at LEAST 15 years of a experience and a master's in Education + some pre-doctorate work (I know, because that's exactly the place my wife is in, although the salary is about $10K lower). That puts a teacher at the top/farthest corner of the pay chart - which is nice, BUT it precludes you from every moving away. Schools hiring teachers don't look for experienced, highly educated teachers, because they cost more. Any school can get two first-year bachelor's teachers for the price of my wife, which in this era of huge class sizes and voted-down bond issues is exactly what they do. They *have* to. And regarding summar vacation: there are a lot of teachers that basically hit the beach, I'll grant you that. BUT they are not the good ones. Many take the summer to do continuing education - series' of college level classwork punctuated with various workshops, etc. And during the year, teachers put in a LOT of overtime off the books - lesson planning (which are required to be turned in to administration at least a week in advance), paper grading (2 hours a night, usually, plus some time on the weekend), report card making (grade summaries and commentary for 90 kids every 11 weeks, not to mention midterm notes home), and *endless* hours fiddling with all those decorations in the classroom. And then, there are the various supplies that teachers buy out of their own pockets each year - classroom supplies and whatnot, plus a stash of every day students' supplies, for the amazingly large number of kids who, for whatever reason, can't or don't bring their own. We buy that. In a similar vein, my wife keeps a little fridge (that we bought) stocked with sandwiches, apples and oranges, and juice (that we buy) for the dozen or so kids who forget/don't have their lunch every day. You're not wrong, rocket88 - there are teachers that don't do any of this stuff, and there are more of them. But not all teachers are like that - there are a lot of teachers that are definitely underpaid, and underappreciated. But as my wife says: to see that one kid learn something, I mean REALLY get it, is worth every penny.
• Not to mention the second-hand computers I've bought (or swiped) and revamped for her kids, or boxes of three-ring binders I filched from my office dumpster and brought to the school. My wife and her colleagues fell upon those binders like hyenas on a sick antelope, I kid you not. They STILL ask me if I have cleared any binders lately, anytime I run into them.
• upon review, didn't mean to get off on el ranto there. Sorry about that.
• Fes, your wife is definitely one of the good ones, and like I said, my kids have been lucky enough to have had great teachers so far. My problem lies with teachers unions using parents' concern for their kids as a bargaining tool. And bringing out the tired old "won't someone think of the children?!?!" lines when their demands aren't met. (This may be a uniquely Canadian thing?) For what it's worth, I too put in extra unpaid hours on evenings and weekends in my job, and on occasion, neglect to expense every work-related purchase to my employer. The difference is, I don't whine about being underpaid, or join a union to demand more. Anybody, teacher or not, that considers themselves underpaid and unappreciated should be looking for a new job.
• My problem lies with teachers unions using parents' concern for their kids as a bargaining tool.... Anybody, teacher or not, that considers themselves underpaid and unappreciated should be looking for a new job. two excellent points. I've advised my wife on many occasions that she'd do far better in another line of work. Problem is, she loves the little boogers.
• Rocket88 - Whatever you think of teacher's unions, I was a student at the time, and frankly, they were on our side. Funny how most students agreed with the teachers while their parents (who were not in the schools everyday) fell for the government propaganda - and as for any suggestion that students think what they are told, these are teenagers we are talking about. They always think the opposite to what they are told to think - it's like a rule of being a teenager, otherwise they take away your teenage cred. The Tory government didn't give a damn about anything but getting out its tax breaks, no matter who they stepped on (mostly children, the sick and poor). And making teachers "accountable and efficient"? - claptrap. It was about making the education system bleed - manufacturing a crisis, just like the Education minister admitted. You don't make education work by screwing with the funding. And standardised tests are just about the best way to make sure no one learns anything. As for "accountable" - that's doubletalk for parents who don't want to take the responsibility for their own children's learning. You are the only person on the planet who is really accountable for your children. If you think the teacher isn't doing a good job, get into that classroom and find out what is going on. Education got better - for whom? All I know is that we had a decade of uncertain funding, school closures, no extra curricular activities, kids rammed through major curricular changes with no preparation, universities given a double cohort with no extra funding and stuck housing first years in hotels better know for their prostitutes than study halls. All for what? Do you think anyone is actually learning anything more? I heard that the universities were having to lower their standards, because the students coming in on the new system just weren't prepared. At one point they had proposed cutting history and geography requirements from one year each (already pathetic compared to the rest of the world) to just one course of either. As for teachers: they are not all paid $60,000 - and they are hired for 10 months. It's part of their contract - if we went to full year school, they would be working 12 months. Would they be paid 1/6 more? I doubt it. They already work longer than professors (also on the public purse - you don't hear much from their unions because they already make $$$), both on a yearly and on a daily basis, while being being paid much less. But moreover, it's not just how long you work - it's a different kind of work than most of us do. Imagine that you were giving a presentation every day, from 9 to 12, and from 1-3. Teachers don't surf from work - they can't. They are at the front of the classroom, explaining, talking, and having to manage 20-30 (sometimes up to 40) little and not so little people. They have to be alert, constantly updating their skills and changing their lessons. Just as Fes points out, the job isn't easy - but do we really want to be convincing teachers they could do better in another line of work? If that's our goal, then we might end up with only those who can't do anything else being responsible for our children's education. If we want talented and motivated educators, we have to make them feel as though society actually appreciates the fact that they labour for society. I've never met a teacher for whom it was just a job - I don't imagine that many like that would last. For some it was the subject they were enamoured of, and wanted to share; for others it was just the teaching itself. But if you really want to see teaching go downhill, tell teachers they are just workers, as not very respected ones at that. Not like politicians - now they really work for their salaries.
• And lastly - just because you like working extra unpaid hours doesn't mean the rest of the planet wants to - or can afford to - or in fact, that it's a good idea for our society. People have children they have to take care of and lives outside of work. Europe has the right idea - the whole point of modernisation was more leisure, not more labour, and yet we in North America are working more than medieval peasants. (They worked long hours - but had lots of holidays, in case you are wondering. In the early modern period, statutes were made to set the working day at 7am - 8pm in the summer, but with a long lunch and maybe a nap, and from about 8am to 5pm in the winter. Of course, commutes were shorter too. With her commute, my mum works 12 hours everyday, summer or winter, while also trying to care for her 5 year old grandaughter. I'm not saying labouring in medieval or early modern Europe was easy (I know, i study this stuff), but I often wonder if it was really much worse than many working poor face today. It was definitely easier for medieval peasants who owned or rented their own land than it was for early modern or nineteenth century labourers - people often don't realise that social conditions don't get steadily better over time.) Our families are failing, we have no functioning civil society, and obesity from lack of excercise is one of our greatest heath concerns. People claim all sorts of causes for these - but I see a basic root cause: too much work. We don't need to work this much - Maybe we could eliminate unemployment if we did more job sharing and all worked shorter hours. But then that wouldn't be very profitable. /endrant Sorry - what was this thread about again? Oh, loss of civil liberties in American highschools. Bad.
• their parents [...] fell for the government propaganda Au contraire. You fell for the teacher unionistas' propaganda -- unsurprisingly, given your subsequent piled-higher-and-deeper educational bent. about [...] loss of civil liberties in American highschools I thought it was about the ability of teachers to bend young minds, highlighted by a particularly pointy-headed A.N.S.W.E.R. versus J.R.O.T.C. showdown.
• Well, jb, you say teachers were right and government was evil...I say teachers were out for their own interests and government was actually improving the system. Different viewpoints make the world go 'round, I guess. Anyway, to clarify a few misconceptions...I wasn't saying teachers should quit...just that they should quit whining and stop calling themselves "professionals" if their union tactics are no different than teamsters (no disrespect meant toward teamsters). And I wasn't suggesting that people start working overtime for free, just that they stop whining about so-called "unpaid" work when it is just part of the job they signed on for. In short...individual teachers: good....teachers in organized groups: bad. And I am quite familiar with the realities of the teaching profession. I dated one for a while last year and, although she was a very good teacher, she wasn't very good at keeping the secret that teachers (in Ontario, at least) actually have it pretty good as far as money paid per days worked. And yeah...i totally agree with you that we all work too much (as a society). But that's too much of a derail even for me ;-)
• Considering that I am fairly socially isolated in my department because I am not a member of the local wanna-be grad union, and the extreme rhetoric used by many unions has bothered me for years because it is too antagonistic, I doubt that it was simply that I fell "for the teacher unionistas' propaganda". Actually, as I said, my school was remarkably unpolitical. The teachers there did not participate in the work to rule actions of the unions (which I did not agree with, though I understand why the teachers felt frustrated enough to do it). There was no politics in my school from the teachers - it was the students who worried about their own education. Of course teacher unions are out for their own interests - all people are, and they have just as much right to protect themselves as doctors (whose own union tramples over the government without a word said against them). But it is also in teachers' interests to have a healthy and well-funded education system - the better the system works, the easier their own jobs. That particular government used teachers, along with welfare recipiants and the poor in general, as scapegoats to ram through cuts so they could deliver tax cuts. You can't improve education by cutting funds. They have left Ontario in a deficit that will now be blamed on the Liberals. But just tell me: what concrete improvements have been made in Ontario? I saw only chaos from the changes and hurting from the lack of funding - and most of all, from the uncertainty of it all. Now change does bring its own pain, even when it's change for the better. I'm not there now, so if you can explain how it's better, I'll believe you. But I haven't heard anything from those still there (my cousins in highschool, my neice in kindergarden) that suggests anything is better in education after all the hurting.
• The other side of the story on the alleged poetry censorship incident. Includes a statement by the author of the poem in question.