oi vey. Do you ever feel like a salmon? I hope you have something left by the time you fight your way up the river.

In a place like that you may just receive as much of an education as you're able to give!

More power to ya

good for you to introduce a little itch into their minds that there might be other ways of thinking

Thank you for providing these fascinating (and disturbing) insights into a world that seems so alien from the one that I live in. Not that it is necessarily any better. Rated.

The primate-ness of it all. Your day sounds scary. Or maybe I mean bleak. Or both. I hope there are some rays of light in there.

The worst part is that they are parroting what they see at home and on Fox News. These are someone else's words coming out of their mouths. Terrifying.

Holy sheepshit. This is a horror story.

Ah yes. I taught high school English in the Atlanta region in the 60s. I guess some things haven't changed much, alas. You do sound like an excellent teacher with excellent answers. What about those that aren't?

Whoa. I'll echo Odette here, they're spewing what they hear at home. Keep trying.

Keep fighting the good fight. There are students in the room who appreciate your efforts even if they never say so or don't realize it now. We need you!

Ahhhhh, the youth of America. Kind of scares the crap out of you, doesn't it? And these sentiments can be found all over, not just in the rural south. It sounds like they need teachers like you to try to bring a modicum of equilibrium into their education.

Thank you for this. Talk about the front lines. The work you do is invaluable. Could I do it? I don't think so.

Well written and I believe every word. This week one of my college students turned in a paper in which he used the adjective Oriental for Asians and claimed Hitler only wanted reason and fairness for the Prussian nation.

He is in the ROTC.

Hmmmm, this helps explain the shape this nation is in.
I can't even begin to fathom how we get out of this mess.
Thanks for the warning.

Argh! things like this just make me want to bash my head against the wall. Bless you for being in the trenches like you are. I sincerely hope you can get past the parental programming and parroting to find the spot where some kid - even just one - begins to think the teeniest bit for themselves.

I am glad you are there, but I wouldn't want to be. I am not in a rural area, but I am in the south, and much of that train of thought abounds around here. The grammar is just a little better.

I will say that in high school, I never heard anyone say Jews deserved the Holocaust or that they killed Jesus. That Darwin stuff, though, resonates.

Okay. You win. I teach college, and I think I've got it bad some days, but not this bad. And yet, I find hope in what you're doing because I bet, I just bet, that you're getting through to at least one of them. It's not everyone in the classroom, but I swear, it's somebody. Somebody is actually going to start thinking his or her way through an issue instead of parroting what they hear.
I have found out a lot about my students because they do creative writing in my classes. We work a lot at letting guards down, getting honest, all that stuff. I assure them of confidentiality. And it works. I find out stuff about their lives at home that brings out my compassion. I may still shriek in disbelief at the garbled syntax and vocabulary of a college junior, but at least I understand that the fact that s/he is in college is a victory.
So, if it helps, every day that you stay at your job is a victory. If the world had its priorities straight, you'd be getting million dollar bonuses, and Wall Street would be holding bake sales.

I went to a rural Southern high school (many, many years ago) and many students were just like this. Some said these things just for the shock value, some because they really meant it. Some of the teachers said the same things. I was a confident and well-raised student, so I argued back, but many others who disagreed did not. I often lost hope (still do).

Believe me when I say that you are getting through! Maybe not to the hard cases, but there are lots of ears in your classroom and what you say makes a huge difference!

My Mr. James was Mr. Smith (the science teacher). He died a few years after I graduated and I never really got to thank him, so thank you Mr. James!

I wish I could shake your hand, and then embrace you fiercely. Dear God, man.

The editors have been taking lots of heat lately, but it should be noted that this is a very worthy EP. Highly rated.

As a high school teacher, I sympathize. My midwestern Catholic school students are more tolerant than that. They are however extremely apathetic.

Example: question in International Affairs class--"If you were President, what approach would you take to conflict in the Middle East?"

They had to answer in groups. Four out of four groups answered something like this:

"We would ignore this part of the world because it is not our country and should not be our problem".

Holy freeholies.

Deep breathes my good man.

Some bits must be sinking in with some of them. Please?

Excellent post! I taught H.S. English and I'm in the process of renewing my certification so I can go back. Surprisingly, your stories make me excited to get back into the classroom. Granted, I'll be teaching in NY where kids are usually not so closed-minded, but I love the thrill of having these apathetic, sometimes ignorant, teenagers for 40-minute intervals and attempting to cultivate some deep thoughts (they're always there, it's just motivating the kids to actually use their brains that's the challenge!)
You sound like a great teacher!

Dorinda, I have an assignment for you. Please explain to me in a couple of sentences (my brain is only running at about 75% efficiency today) why "Oriental" is an incorrect term for some whose ethnic background is in East Asia. Please take account of that fact I am from the UK, where the term "Asian" usually refers to someone whose origins are in the Indian subcontinent.

The Hitler comment is just scary shit!

Excellent if worrying post, teach. I have a couple of friends from HS days who now teach in our old school. One 40-minute period as a senior babysitting a class of younger students, during a flu epidemic that took out half the teachers at once, and I was sure that was a track I wasn't going to follow. The horror stories they tell me on visits home confirm my decision.

"Stop us, we’re not actually pissed off enough to go through with this."

So true of most people who, by all appearances, are spoiling for a fight. I used to be a high school teacher and I know that my intervening in such situations it not only prevents violence but saves face for the parties involved, and saving face is why they got into the conflict in the first place.

Having taught middle school in South Central LA to the morally retarded, it sounds like just another day in the classroom to me. Once in a while I'd say, "A horrible thing happened in my class today. Education happened."

This is hilarious and deserves it's 1" by 1" placement on the cover, though I know it isn't really supposed to be hilarious, is it?

By stepping in between the Will and the Bradley you may have earned a lot of quiet respect from the youngsters watching. To echo other commenters, keep on keeping on, one or two of them may be listening and learning.

utterly fascinating and thoughtful post. i really look forward to readin more of your work. thanks!

Tell your kids we killed him because he didn't go to law school like his mother wanted. It was a party. Things got out of hand.

This is why I think Lincoln made a huge mistake. If he had declared victory, and told them, "go ahead and have your Confederate States, only build it with your own sweat and tears and not those of your slaves," the United States would have been much better off - and Lincoln would likely not have been assasinated.

Instead, we are stuck with their inbred stupidity. Present company excepted.

I don't know how you can make it through days like that without having your head explode.

Please be careful, though, and don't run afoul of your administration or the parents of your students. They could make life hell for you.

Scary...but not that surprising given the general level of illiteracy and dumbness in part of the population these days.

To all, thank you so much for your responses so far. They’ve been a boon to my spirits in the doldrums of the semester. The impetus behind this blog was a conversation I recently had with a conservative, Beck-disciple acquaintance of mine. In typical “everything government (except the military) is evil” fashion, he accused me and all public school teachers of being nothing more than pawns of the state, indoctrinating children with “state-love” and a sense of loyalty to “big brother”. Having never taught a class in his life, I decided to write this blog in honor of him and those who think that teachers are all lazy simpletons who don’t know their content, are cruel to their students and simply hand out worksheets all day. There are poor teachers, yes, but I will defy you to imply that I am one of them. A few specific comments struck me:

@ Adrian: Thank you. I think that providing a window into the soul of America, whatever it may end up looking like, is vital to those who may only get to experience America in a limited way.

@ odetteroulette: parroting, to an extent, is to be expected from teenagers since many of them haven’t quite found their identities. I accept that. But what I have been seeing is like a bizarre food chain: Angry paranoid talking head  Adults  Children. It’s quite pervasive.

@ Steve: it is the front lines of American culture, and it’s exhausting. I don’t want to make it sound worse than it really is of course, but I come home everyday doused with sweat, smelling like a locker room with my nails torn to shreds (nervous habit). Thanks for your support.

@ Will Someone Feed the Cat: some parents are great – they’re as befuddled and bewildered as us teachers and only want the best for their children. Once, when two students had been in a fight, their mothers showed up and fought one another in the main office.

@ fingerlakeswanderer: Ah college, it seems like a fantasy land to some of us here on the secondary level, but I know you guys have your own unique challenges. Having been a creative writing major in college, I utilize poetry, short stories and anything else I can get my hands on to help my students. Thanks for the camaraderie – sometimes that’s all we teachers have.

@ overworkedtiredandnumb: I love your name. Also, thank you for the support, as a very young man myself and being only in my second year of teaching, it’s sometimes hard to imagine any of my students will ever remember me.

@ Deargdruchtach: I accept.

@ Jimmymac1025: I was shocked when I saw this was an editor’s pick. I’m glad it’s been interesting/entertaining for folks.

@ Umbrellakinesis: when you meet someone new in a small southern town it doesn’t take long for that question to pop up – being an atheist myself, the last thing I want is for my students to tell their parents that I’m some sort of devil. Besides, I just don’t feel it appropriate for me to espouse my feelings about religion. Believe you me, though, among other disturbing things, our district has prayer before every meeting – I just sit there with my eyes open twiddling my thumbs, looking like a weirdo.

@ Karin: my department head is a transplant from New York and she has some fascinating stories about the culture shock she experienced when she moved here. Thanks for your words of encouragement.

@ tomreedtoon: well, tom, I’m not sure what to say to that. I’m not a “dominator” of my students and I feel nothing but genuine concern and worry for them. Harris and Klebold, had they not decided to become dominators themselves and kill, I perhaps would have seen as victims. Instead, they are murderers. Harris and Klebold may have had some ideas that would have helped American education, I don’t know, but seeing as how they their “clarity of vision and decisiveness” led them to cowardice and killing, they will have no positive impact. Nonetheless, thank you for your opinion.


@ Runaway Serfer: as much as I love the south, it is my home for better or worse, I have a Faulkner-like relationship with it. The legacy of slavery, the civil war and segregation still ring loud and clear.

@ Jeanette: I understand your advice – I walk a very, very straight line of complete, absolute neutrality. Thank you so much for your concern.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for staying in the educational system. I left a long time ago.... When parents would walk into the classroom, I knew exactly which child to whom they belonged. Ah, it's genetic, my mind would whisper. Our schools are in sad shape from the South to New York, across the midwest and beyond. We are going in the wrong direction.

Yep, I'm a 9th grade teacher in urban Houston at a predominately Hispanic American (mostly Mexican American immigrants, illegal and not) and this sounds about right. Here we have other issues but the same result--ignorance, hatred, intolerance. Apparently the staff are all racist. I don't know how much longer I'll make it frankly. I think I could continue with the children if the administration was less like the Evil Empire, but combining the pay and that with the mindset? I'm getting tired of migraines.

Yeesh. In a few short years this group will be raising the next generation. My hat's off to you.

Keep up the good work.

With the exception of the technology (cell phones) school hasn’t changed all that much since I attended.

Isn’t it interesting how much you can learn about a tree by simply examining the fruit it bears.

I thought I was in the rural south, but, now I wonder.

This post has been very interesting to me since I'm preparing myself to become a high school English teacher!~

The saddest aspect of this post is, I do not find ignorance in America to be shocking. Ignorance appears to be the norm and I believe the folks in power prefer it this way.

Excellent post. I'm also a high school teacher in the south, and in my experience, this is very true to life! Thank you!

Good for you. Keep it up.

I didn't grow up in the south, but in the west... in a small town, in a giant Catholic church, with conservative republican parents. My own political and religious awakening took years, beginning in high school and extending far beyond college. But it was in high school that I started to question some of what I saw around me. Teachers like you are a huge help.

Part of my personal awakening was realizing that I had a perfectly good mind, I could use it to think for myself, work things out, and not just repeat what someone told me.

As a parent, one of the most subversive and powerful things I tell my children is, "It's OK to change your mind."

It's the foundation of the scientific method, and of rational, logical thought. A new piece of evidence can cause you to reconsider earlier decisions. Heady stuff.

Good luck to you!

The blessing you are to your students will reverberate in untold ways for years to come. I hope you choose to take care of yourself outside the classroom. This is vital.

Simply appalling. I've taught at the university level, where there are occasional fools, bigots and apathetics, but I've never seen anything like this.

The scary thing is that many of them will not grow out of or beyond this. They may learn to couch the ideas in more subtle or acceptable terms, or just keep them hidden, but the subterannean pools of hate and bigotry will still be there. This is the mindset that lLimbaugh, Palin and Beck tap into.

Also, my hat's off to you. I wouldn't last a week there.

This is the most depressing thing I've read all week. That's a compliment.

This may be one of the most frightening posts Ive ever read. You would think these kids are given Glenn Beck Kool-Aid with every meal.

A different point of view. But since it was shitmouthed "successful" middle-aged suburbanite white men who voted Bush into office overwhelmingly twice in a row, I'll put all my hopes in the younger generation. At least they can still be taught. My "grown-up" peers are worthless garbage. The sooner they're in the ground, the better.

@ tomreedtoon: I was bullied extensively as well - I know what it's like. Trust me. I don't think it's so much a question of being realistic that divides you and I - it seems more a simple matter of reaction. I do not pretend that I could change your mind about where we disagree. I sympathize with you and your experiences and again I thank you for your opinions. What you have shared is a sharp reminder to me of my responsiblity to ensure that all my students feel safe and protected - both when it comes to their relationship with their teachers and with their peers.

Coming from a family full of school teachers you explain why I drive a truck. I would love to be a history teacher. I believe I could get those who want to learn a great education.

Runaway Serfer replied to this blog. His reply, not him, is the other reason. I would have trouble with some of what is being taught. Instead of doing a several page reply as to why his statement is not based in history I just posted it as a blog.

Please take a look at the 1st, 13th amendment to the constitution. Most people don't know there were two or that President Lincoln supported slavery.
http://open.salon.com/blog/catnlion/2009/11/07/the_1st_13th_amendment_-_a_reply_to_runaway_serfer

Fighting ignorance, fear, and intolerance is arguably THE challenge of the modern educator. The biggest problem I see in your struggle is the parents and the community. You can't change those, and so your influence will be limited.

However, you can strive to enlighten the kids by upending what they think they "know" with alternative perspectives. Whether or not such effort will yield positive change is anybody's guess. But there's great value in merely trying.

Every day's a new day. You're confronting suffering, breaking down barriers, building trust... one lesson, one hour, one minute at a time. Appreciate your perseverance.

http://badbadbad.net

Wow. Clear evidence that we need more teachers like you. Keep at it, please!

Fear seems to predominate life these days. One commentor noted that sometimes kids say these things for shock value. As I look back to my Jurassic HS experience (and it was a very progressive HS) its true that we would sometimes say these things simply to rebel against the forcing of compassion as a virtue upon us. Teenagers are notoriously insecure and taken with the idea of survival of the fittest - its very easy for them to be selfish instead of selfless because they are so insecure. Sometimes its hard to force people to be compassionate - they have to be led to it gently because they are fearful and looking for any facts or point of views that won't threaten their sense of self or selfishness.

Gotta say, i went to a private catholic high school, and I cannot in any way relate.

We read Nietzsche and Aquinas in Religion class (though the latter is less surprising).

Maybe i just got lucky.

May God bless you, sir, for lighting a few candles in the darkness.

I wonder if the huge appeal of the right-wing radicals to immature men was calculated by the creators of the conservative backlash. Did Marlboro, Browning and Skol hijack politics to create a market segment as unified and lucative as Gap girls?

I hope you can keep up the good work!

Scary stuff, but these views expressed are no more ignorant than those spewed out by stupid high school kids in other parts of the country.

By the way, the correct response to the kid who said that the Holocaust was justified because the Jews killed Jesus is that if the Jews didn't kill Jesus, he wouldn't have died for your sins on the cross, thus dooming all humanity to Hell. Therefore it follows that Christians should thank Jews for that rather than vilify them.

Thanks for the intersting post, amittaizero.

I went to public schools in six different states in the 50’s and 60’s and sent two children to public schools, so I have seen the different sets of problems and attitudes over the years.

The one thing that I kept coming back to though, was your current experience in the South and my experience, 40 years ago, in the equally conservative Oklahoma. They are like night and day. I lived in a city with 30 churches so religion was very important. Yet it was never discussed in the middle school (then called Jr. High) that I went to.

I think it was because nobody had the time. When I attended that school, it was still legal for kids to drop out of school after finishing 8th grade, and many, especially boys, did. They went to work in the oil business or worked their family’s ranches. As a result, the middle schools spent a lot of time cramming as much education as they could into their heads. Classes were pretty rote – lots of memorization, drills and homework. English class was devoted to diagramming sentences, spelling, learning to write letters, short essays and even thank you notes. Reading was a separate class. There were no study halls. Even history class consisted of memorization of dates, events, battles, and the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

I don’t know if we need to return to those days, but what I learned in that English class helped me proficiency out of an entire year of freshman English classes in college. When I attended 8th grade in another state, they were using some of the same textbooks I had used in 7th grade in Oklahoma. Who would have thunk it?

@ DSharp: Quite right, I've always looked at it the same way. I think I was simply too stunned to carry on the conversation. The young man is quite hateful and I think he will always be able to find a way to justify his anti-semitism. I can only hope this irrational hatred will wane.

I have a very good friend who works with gifted students in Alaska. She encounters some of the same attitudes and apathy.

Don't give up! You ARE making a difference!

The absolute, gut-wrenching truth is that this behavior - these truths - happen not only in our grade schools, jr. highs and high schools but also at mass transit stops, aboard city buses and light-rail trains, in grocery store parking lots, at all levels of sporting events, and even in the waiting room of the doctor's office (no lie - I was there for that one.)

We hate each other, hate the very sight of each other. It's not just in the "South", either. It's everywhere. It's in the cities. It's in the suburbs. It's in small towns. It happens in places of worship. So what's going on? Are we all suffering from PTSD? Quite possibly, for we are constantly and unrelentingly bombarded - inundated - with hype and crap and hate from the moment our radio alarms wake us up in the morning to the moment we finally fall asleep at night. We are emotionally and psychologically exhausted by the viral hate on the airwaves - it permeates our lives. We are manipulated by it.

Hate feeds on hate. It also generates advertising dollars. Those who hold the present form of Capitalism dear - the ones who make their living off discord - will never allow this to change, for it would be the end of their fancy cars and private jets and upscale vacations and Armani suits and ego trips.

Sadly, the most vulnerable of all - the kids held in sociological ignorance by their parents and peers - are the most tragic victims. The way out? If I had the answer to that you wouldn't be reading this; there would be no need.

It is strange hearing the parents words coming out of a child's mouth isn't it. Sometimes side by side I can actually see the parents mannerisms coming from their child.
It's too bad more parents don't realize this and just keep rolling shit down hill.
Great well told day in the life! It seems you have been there a while.

It seems I'm the only one who has a difficult time taking this story at face value.. Anecdotes such as this permeate the internet on both sides of the political/ideological spectrum, doing nothing but stroke the preconceived perceptions of the intended audience. I can't, of course, verify the validity of this, nor can any of my fellow readers, but I would sincerely urge everyone to take this article (and articles like it)with a grain of salt. It's been my experience, both on academic and personal levels, that if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved human lives...

@ The Stranger: I appreciate your skepticism. Anecdotes, of course, can never be fully verified and most certainly should be taken for what they are. My purpose in writing this blog was not to encourage any preconceived notions about the region in which I live, though I certainly think this may be an unintended result. Being a southerner myself I am, for better or worse, a part of the community which I describe. This blog is entirely true, though I cannot see how it would sound "too good" to be so. My intent was fueled by little more than a desire to share an experience from the world of teaching - it is a profession that I feel is fraught with misunderstandings and misconceptions. Any further results of this blog (ideological or otherwise) belong to the audience. I, of course, have my own interpretation of my experience and it does affect some of my style and tone, but the audience is quite capable of making its own inferences. My only hope is that this blog encourages thought and discussion on the topic of education and the future of this country - take from it only what you will. Again, as a skeptic myself, I appreciate your cautionary comment.

I teach in a community college and have to say, I don't think I'd have the stamina to work within a high school environment. At the same time, this adds another dimension to what we see among entering students--- a large percentage of whom come in to college "underprepared" with the basics of reading, writing, critical thinking, historical perspective (not to mention math... yes, the math). The story continues....if the students even make it this far.

Unfortunately, despite his pretty speeches on the subject and his horrific harrassment last year for his Muslim middle name, Obama is doing and perpetuating these ideas and policies. Which I point out both on my blog here on Open Salon and on another one of my feeder sites, soon to be consolidated on my website that I'm building...so be warned in advance it's still under construction, but you can can access one of my feeder sites at http://margueritearnold.wordpress.com or my open salon site here of the same name to see some of my writing.

There's already alot of info I believe you can use however on my website under construction, which is why I'm writing to you at all.
You can find that at http://myblog-thatgoeswithoutspeaking.com. Be warned in advance, it's still under construction, so it's not polished yet..but there is alot of information under the tabs on the site that I think you can probably use.

But Obama's policies, like Bush's before him, and unfortunately too many of our leaders before, are not only responsible for that horrific act in Fort Hood, and the rising acts of violence all over this country and in the theatres of wars we are fighting by soldiers, but even within politics itself, which is terrifying to me as the child of a German Jew and Holocaust survivor; most of my family died in Buchenwald thanks to the horrifically anti semitic immigration policies of former thug, mafioso and drug runner Joe Kennedy, who bought himself into respectibility and the head of the State Department during the 1930's, denied all entrance to Jews as political refugees while doing business with Hitler until Pearl Harbor, and even censored the news of the Concentration camps until they were liberated. And made those Jews lucky enough to get here (if they were men) like my father, who spoke fluent German and French, fight on the front lines of the German and French borders, to gain American citizenship (at that point he had been an unhomed person for almost ten years and living in England, but came here because he saw the writing on the wall that England was going to get bombed to pieces) despite the HORRIFIC risks he faced, not only as cannon fodder but what he faced if he was caught by the enemy. As it was, he was horrifically wounded. I lost him when I was 11.

So you can imagine my horror not to mention absolute fear about what is going on in THIS COUNTRY under Obama, a man I voted for and believed would change the horrific things that happened under Bush when I attended a town hall meeting in New York city this August. Not to mention what has happened already this year, and what they are literally doing to people who are Democrats with DC experience and chops, but who happen to disagree with both the policies of the White House and those in Congress.

Including beating up, literally dissenters. Like me. In a town hall meeting on healthcare I attended this August. As a woman with an obvious disability. Actually two now, the second caused by the appalling actions of my ex employer, a Wall Street bank before they illegally fired me from a six figure job, literally three weeks before I would have started a long delayed MBA program at Columbia University that the bank would have picked up the tab for (to the tune of about $125K). Since the second disability is visible, I have not had a job in over three years (the twenty percent of the country that has a disability mostly lives in poverty and has a NINETY PERCENT UNEMPLOYMENT RATE, never included in official Labor Department statistics of the unemployed, by the way, although many are perfectly capable of working with what is called adaptive technology). You can read about that, and my plan to put all Americans back to work under the tab on my website called Work Fair. Also being ignored by everyone these days because naturally women and gimps know nothing about anything except maybe breeding because we are biologically inferior, according to say, Mr. Summers, the President's chief economics advisor, who was even FIRED from the Presidency of Harvard for such views, but Obama overlooked that and hired him anyway.

Says alot about the President I'm sorry to say. Especially because he's being widely criticized for creating a "boy's club" at the White House, what a change,....but I digress..but isn't it wonderful that the first woman in history just won a NOBEL FOR ECONOMICS, which she certainly deserved. Unlike some other people I could name. Like say, the resident of the Oval Office.

And my second disability is called dystonia, a condition that is also neurological (my first is a condition caused by TBI, or traumatic brain injury, a condition also shared by many of our troops and called now the "signature wound of the wars we are fighting" but also what killed both Natasha Richardson and Princess Di. And long overlooked in this country, because we are on the verge of neuroscience. In my case I got it from a childhood accident conk on the head, but it's never interfered with a stellar academic or professional career, and I never even knew I had it, although I always knew that "something" was wrong. I discovered it by accident when I had to document my disability when I was going through the last year of hell before my former employer illegally fired me and I had been misdiagnosed with ADHD, which is very common in such cases. And luckily my attorney, who of course, due to my luck is now dying of a far worse disease, advised me to get an MRI, because in case law under disability law, judges treat physical injuries differently than "mental" ones, rather horrifically, but nevertheless I discovered that I have something called...get this...an arachnoid cyst (nothing to do with giant spiders). It's basically a giant sac of fluid in the front of my brain that does things like affect my ability to process multiple layers of sound at once, balance and short term memory...so for example I can't distinguish lyrics in music, can't do administrative jobs, have ADHD like symptoms and you should see me at a copying machine. It's like a comedy show. Or maybe like Lucille Ball in one of her fall down gag routines. Except it's not funny because when you are forced to say take notes and be a secretary, a job I was never hired to do (and I'm right handed) it causes additional brain damage and thus of course caused the second disability. And my employer refused to accommodate. Which is illegal. But Wall Street banks have even less respect for labor law than securities law, if that's possible, and ran roughshod all over my rights. They couldn't have possibly cared less. And did what they did with impunity.

And of course as soon as my former employer found out that I had a disability they pushed me into every administrative job they could find. So does the government for gimps, because naturally, we are garbage and not fit for anything except to be stuck in closets and given the worst of anything. If not deserve to live in poverty and not work at all. Not to mention not get proper medical care. Did you catch the debate in Congress over healthcare deform earlier this year where they were even CONSIDERING excempting neurological coverage from the bill, which on average runs thirty grand a year in COPAYS? As it is the bill is still disgusting, but that's the attitude our society has towards people with disabilities. Especially when our national leaders get bought off by the pharma companies and the medical device manufacturers. And one of the many reasons I'm so mad at Obama for giving up the goverment's right to negotiate mass discounts for medicine. Which we as taxpayers pay for the R&D for in the first place. Not to mention, if we can get bulk discounts for tanks, don't you think we should be able to get them for medicine? Especially for those who are the population in most need of it for most of their lives and have been forced, thanks to discrimination that is akin to what blacks and women faced OVER A HUNDRED YEARS AGO, literally, in that we are considered by the Judiciary, per case law under the 1991 Civil Rights Act (ironically) to have LESS contractual value than the able bodied for no reason except prejudice. Isn't that great?

And so far THIS administration has DONE NOTHING to address the issue. Which is more than appalling.

So far the federal EEOC has taken over TWO YEARS just to investigate my case. But these days, I get called "retard" to my face. Because dystonia, the second disability that developed because of my ex employers' refusal to accommodate and then illegal termination, and which I had no access to healthcare to at all (who can afford Cobra at $800 a month?) and my pharma bill, now that my 401K has been eviscerated, so I can qualify for Medicaid (good public policy right, when social security is set to go broke, right as I am supposed to retire), costs the government SIX GRAND A MONTH, for two very rare NEUROLOGICAL conditions, the second of which makes the first, worse, causes uncontrolled muscle cramps, along my entire left side, is highly painful and also creates a speaking disability, which of course, makes people think I'm retarded. And of course the President thinks is hilarious and makes jokes about on national TV. I can guarantee you he wouldn't think it was so goddamned funny if he had to experience it every day. Or had been driven to the brink of homelessness and financial and professional ruin because of it. Or had people think that they can run all over your rights, civil and constitutional because of it. Or had his contractual rights reduced because of it.

But I digress.

Nevertheless, I have over eleven years of DC experience, starting changing state policy at the age of 19, national legislation in DC in Congress at the age of 23, and had more experience than the meeting organizer at that town hall meeting who was white, male, younger and had never worked outside state politics. Yet when I pointed out that he WAS LYING about what was really going on in DC on healthcare deform....and what we've got is a disgusting bill (and I am very familiar with Congressional procedure, know many of the players if not personally than one or two people removed) he had me literally beaten up, as in roughly and physically dragged out of the meeting to shut me up (by my left side, which is the side affected by the dystonia and extremely painful to begin with) as the entire audience rose to it's feet in alarm, and my head slammed against the wall, right against the place where the brain damage caused by the TBI is (which caused me to black out for weeks thereafter and I couldn't even get proper medical care for, because most doctors aren't even trained in recognizing TBI or even treating it) and certainly don't give proper care for Medicaid patients, like give them access to MRIs, since naturally gimps are human garbage (which is what Hitler thought about the disabilities community too by the way, conducting horrific scientific experiments on all those Germans with disabilities even if they weren't Jewish, before exterminating them too), called the police and called me "a disturbance." While some other asshole (male) in the crowd called me retard. A common occurence these days.

Luckily and bizarrely, because the NYPD are not exactly progressive about such things, they didn't see it that way, especially because I had the luck of a witness who came forward and is willing to testify. So I have an NYPD police report OF CRIMINAL ASSAULT AND BATTERY. PLUS A WITNESS willing to testify. Professional by the way. With impeccable credentials.

Yet the FEDERAL JUSTICE DEPARTMENT IN DC, NANCY PELOSI'S OFFICE (who is titular head of the DLCC which oversees Organizing for America) AND the White House's General Counsel's office, where I have personal contacts (I went to Undergrad with Cassandra Butts who is one of the Deputy Assistant Attorneys responsible for ethics and policy at the White House and who then went on to Harvard with Obama, not to mention ANY OTHER MEMBER OF THE WHITE HOUSE LEGAL TEAM) has refused to return my calls on the matter. Which is ILLEGAL.

Not to mention other appalling acts of my civil rights being violated and the IGs refusing to investigate them at THREE cabinet level posts and agencies. Not to mention the White House also refusing to follow up. Which is ALSO HIGHLY ILLEGAL.

And all documented on paper and in notes by the way.

And that's not even counting what's been going on in New York State and New York City. Which is even more appalling.

On top of this, I've been threatened in person by goons who showed up at my doorstep from the FEDERAL DEPARTMENT OF LABOR for complaining to the IGs office, and in writing from the head of the alt energy division at Mayor Bloomberg's EDC. for catching them and calling them out in rampant bid rigging and environmental no no's last year. Not to mention breaking a little law called FOIL, for UNCLASSIFIED INFORMATION, which is the local version of a law called FOIA, or Freedom of Information Act, which Obama is actively undermining himself.

YET SO FAR NOBODY WILL INVESTIGATE THESE THINGS.

This is the country we are living in folks. Perpetuated this time BY DEMOCRATS.

I voted for Obama because I hoped he was the agent of change.

But he's the same shit, different day. New boss same as the old boss, I'm sorry to say.

And if you think I'm some kind of lunatic, right wing nut job, or nut job of any kind, please check out my self hosted website currently in construction, so excuse the fact it's not beautifully polished yet, for confirmation of my background and some of what I've done to date, and I've fought for social justice all my life,. Address again at:

http://myblog-thatgoeswithoutspeaking.com

As a teacher, by the way, you also might find some interesting material on the site. Including some original history about the Holocaust, including some of my dad's original documents, which really belong in a museum, and I might donate them someday if I don't use them to leave this country first, which I am seriously considering at this point because I'm so disgusted and literally afraid for my life (in fact one of my surviving relatives was interviewed by Spielburg in his documentary about the Holocaust after surviving being tortured as a child during Kristalnacht) and my family story, and some of the first chapters of a book I'm writing about Melville, (as in the guy who wrote Moby Dick) which also includes some of my family history too. It's very different and goes where no book has gone before about interpreting Melville and his work, not to mention a social commentary about this country. You might find it interesting, given what you wrote. Melville as you probably know was very critical about this country's treatment of minorities, Indians and our own foreign policy at the time. Not to mention the British.

And as for you ma'am. You have more courage as a teacher than I will ever have. That's why I could never do it.

I might be able to go to battle, metaphorically speaking, with national politicians, but kids with that attitude, I can't handle. More power to you. You have my absolute and fundamental respect. We need more teachers like you.

That's one of the reasons I just handed you the figurative weapon I just did with my website. It contains proof by the way, that you can show to your students of what happens when a dictator comes to power and massacres six million people of a different religion. Including things like my dad's unhomed status documents, his war papers, and the papers issued by the war department. OF THIS COUNTRY showing that he would only get his citizenship if he went to war. Not to mention an awful letter written by his company commander after my dad was literally blown up in a jeep after driving over a buried landmine and nearly lost his leg, that literally said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "gee so sorry about the accident, don't trouble yourself about the loss of equipment, we got a new jeep, don't worry about it, we're too busy to come see you in the hospital, bye."

That's how we have always treated our vets. Not to mention the fact that this country has always has had a problem with religious tolerance. Even Joe Kennedy's son, for those of you old enough to remember ironically enough, got crap for running as the first CATHOLIC President. That would be JFK, if Megan McCain happens to be reading this, since I know she wasn't born yet. You know, the guy who was shot in Dallas? And older brother of the U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, who just died of a brain tumor? Just to clarify things, since I can't believe how ignorant SHE is, and she went to an Ivy League and has no excuse for being so ignorant. Even though she actually uses it on national TV. And I can't get a job? Jesus. What is wrong with this country. Who is the real retard here.

My dad suffered from his war wounds, including I suspect PTSD, and TBI, not to mention the ongoing pain from his leg, that was literally bolted back onto his body (in 1940's fashion surgery) all his life. With very tragic consequences. For alot of people. I lost him when I was 11.

I also have the distinction, as you will read on the site of having more people on that website put up a couple of years ago by the Committee on Holocaust Insurance claims victims, of having more family members on that list than anyone in either the offices in Switzerland OR New York had ever talked to. Since I was able to track my paternal family tree in Germany back all the way to the 1600s with the help of Manfred Lahnstein, former finance minister of Germany, since my father's eldest sister married Peter Drucker, the so called Father of Management, and that's how we got in touch. You can also read about THAT on the website. It's a fascinating story.

So you have some more ammunition to use with your students, again figuratively, to shoot down some of the crap that you face every day. It's the least I can do to help out a very brave woman who is doing VERY important and often much unappreciated work.

It may not be much, but I thought I might try to give you some help in the wars that YOU fight so bravely every day.

Good luck to you. And thanks for your patriotic duty to this country. Which in my opinion is far more important than fighting any "traditional" war on any front we are currently waging. Or ever have.

You are on the front lines of a different kind of battle. And one that is far more important to win.

YOU and every teacher like you, are the ones that deserve the real medals of honor. Not to mention recognition for bravery under fire. And for that I salute you. You are a truly brave woman. Who probably doesn't get the respect (or get paid) what you deserve.

Good luck. I hope you keep at it, however hard and challenging it is. We need more great teachers like you.

I really don't like your use of "primate-ness" regarding black children...

You can't help where you live, I guess. At least you seem to be less of a participant in it than Faulkner was, who - though a brilliant writer whom I admire very much - was nevertheless willing to dip a toe or two into the swamp.

I know, I know. Read Emma Peel's most recent. Good luck to you and keep trying to open minds, please.

You're definitely not being paid enough. This must feel so draining at the end of the day. The Holocaust justification just gives me the chills. Makes me want to take that kid to Poland and show him Auschwitz.

But I hope and believe that other commenters here are right; there are students you're reaching in there. I dearly hope so.

Utterly fascinating, pure anthropology. A slice of life few of us ever get to see. It's nothing at all like my high school - but that was some years ago. Thanks for sharing!!!

Rated.

Thank you, this cracked me up. Last year one of my ninth graders told me, "I love Obama. He's Mexican, like me."

@ LittleRat: The "primate" comment has nothing to do with race, for me it is a simple expression of animalistic nature. I use it regardless of race. These students happened to be black, yes, but that is not why I used the term. It seemed appropriate given the behavior I saw displayed. Homo sapiens belong to the order of Primates. I understand your point, but please understand that what offended you was not what I intended.

Don't let yourself drown: not because you "might one day touch just one student," but because your reasons for being where are you are in the first place are your own.

My hope for you is that the Lesson you take away from this time is not one of despair, but of deeper insight. To echo skeletnwmn, the strongest salmon survive the swim upstream.

Rated.

An interesting dilemma. I am sure there is a desire to educate your students, that much is obvious.
Would it be worthwhile to show what you have written on this matter to your students? If it will undermine your position amongst your students and colleagues, then perhaps an edited or fictional version would suffice?
The idea being is to get them to talk -verbally- at length about what they believe in and why they believe in it amongst themselves. At first, it will be the same old spiel, but eventually, after much talking -aloud- you may hear the sound of these students drawing their own conclusions.
It may involve steering the conversation a little but not much else. Just talk. To them, to you, to each other.
Keep it up

I have been a high school teacher on the Navajo Nation for over ten years and I regret to say that the same kind of thoughtless expression (cheap talk purveyed as free speech) is common here. I do not believe that adolescents are any kind of a microcosm or even as stupid and shallow as they seem. It's easy to mislead yourself if all you hear is the 140-character squawks you have quoted. Those are indeed real, but a long way from the whole that is reality. If you take the time to listen to these young folks at leisurely length, they will surprise you with the complexity and richness of what they think. Just before a holiday in the slack time (if you have administrators who allow any time for conversation and reflection) is a good time to try. It might be difficult, but try to stop force-fitting them into the mold of New York Times Obamanations and politically-correct collegians: that, like trying to teach a hog to dance, is a waste of time and an irritation to the student. High school students are so unused to civility that it is a powerful hook for real discussion. You don't model civility by coming on like some junior-grade Noam Chomsky who spits on their heritage, which seems to be one you have rejected, from the Olympian heights of your teaching credential and degree. Maimonides himself commented that he had learned more from his students than from his professors and colleagues. Try to be as good a teacher as he was and you may get a great deal more out of the work than the lousy pay and effusive evaluations of your "superiors." Also, your students may discover more in you than the intellectual stuffed shirt they have observed until now.

I went to a public school in Arkansas and in four years saw maybe 5 things close to this. These are all so extreme. Well-written, but simply not true.

This is the kind of stuff that people who are far from these situations will believe. It is completely not true. Most students at rural southern schools are relatively ignorant, but this sounds like a made for TV movie rather than a day in the life of a high school student.

Just wanted to clarify this to everyone.

@ Pushkin’s Brother: I understand that from my brief blog you have me entirely figured out – or at least a caricature of me. That’s quite all right, honestly, what else have you to go on? I have given no other information. Your ire directed towards me is based merely on misunderstanding, not due to a fault on your part since you know nothing of me aside from a few anecdotes, though I don’t appreciate your unfair and completely inaccurate portrait of me. So I will address what you’ve said and I hope that it clears up any misconceptions you may have about me.

I do appreciate the complexity and richness of their thoughts – it’s there, indeed, I know and I see it. I interact with it and I reflect it. In many ways it is a part of me.

If I have been trying to fit them into some sort of 90s-esque politically correct mold or Obama-ize them, I will most certainly try to stop, but I don’t think that anything I’ve said indicates such behavior on my part. Regardless of my own opinions I do not pretend to be able to “mold” my students into something I’m more comfortable with. To be blunt, that would make me quite a jackass, as I’m sure you would agree.

“…coming on like some junior-grade Noam Chomsky who spits on their heritage, which seems to be one you have rejected, from the Olympian heights of your teaching credential and degree.” Well, how do I answer such grand and unfounded assumptions about my personal character and the manner in which I deliver lessons? I have never spit on anyone’s heritage – much less my student’s – much of their heritage is my own. Even if it were not, I would respect it. Also, I have no teaching credential beyond a temporary license, but thank you for assuming that I have one in full. My degree is in English, Creative Writing, just for extra information, though possibly unnecessary. I do not teach from Olympus – just the opposite, I am down there with my students, eye to eye, back to back, physically crammed into the same space with them every day. You are horrendously mistaken on one point, however, when you say that I can learn more from my students than my colleagues. My students are my colleagues; they know this because I’ve told them as much. I’m not the “TEACHER” with them as “students”; we are all fighting the same exact battle. We breathe the same air, use the same facilities and drink out of the same water fountain – we live together, for better or worse.

I’m sorry to say that you did insult me by calling me an “intellectual stuffed shirt”. That’s disappointing because you have many valid points up until that point. I fear that I cannot actually change your impression of me. Yes, I admit fault because my blog does not cast a positive light on the day in question. It was not my intention to be negative; it was merely to shed light on the difficulties of teaching.

In the end I can have no ill will towards you for your chastising comment as it was delivered out of an obvious passion for your profession. You care about children, that much is obvious, and I would love to teach in the same classroom as you and I hope that you would feel the same way about me. Thank you for your opinions and I hope that you do not think any further ill of me as a teacher – I cannot abide it easily.

@ Will Collin: Of course it doesn't happen every day. The high school where I teach has on average something like 2-3 fights a week - that's not much in the grand scheme of things (I don't count what happened in my classroom as a fight, for clarification). I'm sure there are schools where the frequency is far worse. "Extreme" is also a relative term depending on where you are. A school in Arkansas is not necessarily like a school in South Carolina - even a school 25 miles away is not necessarily anything like the school where I teach. Being from the south you should know this, communities are their own worlds - completely different from one another in many ways.

"This is the kind of stuff that people who are far from these situations will believe. It is completely not true." It was not my intention to force people to believe what I had written and you are granted your skepticism. As far as being "completely not true", that's quite a bold statement if you have no actual experience of teaching where I teach - I'm an atheist, but I don't run around saying that Christianity is "completely not true" because I don't have any way to back that up.

I enjoyed every bit of this. The work never stops, does it.

There were more fights in my grade school than in my high school, but the thing that I find alarming is the relative ease of use today of GUNS.

My "brave" teachers would not have been stepping between a pimp and a drug dealer if guns were as common back then, or if the pimps and drug dealers were still attending school. But by then, the "bad kids," had graduated to a broader platform (adult crime?), and the violence was much less impulsive., much more business-like

And BTW, Denver is not "in the mountains," it is a big city.

... and, aren't humans "primates?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primate

Way to stereotype southerners. With these comments perhaps it's not the southerners that are prejudiced?

Oh...I miss it so much. I taught high school for 14 years, and then moved....am teaching multi-level E.S.L. for now....I know, of what you speak. Can't wait to get back at my "real calling", though E.S. L has it's own stories.

Keep on goin'!

I wish I could be sure that my kids teachers were as aware of the students thoughts and views as you seem to be. Regardless of your personal views, you seem like a good person to be a teacher. I hope this means you are a good teacher.

@ SOXFAN17881 - thanks for your comment. I work my a** off to try to remember that a classroom is neither a pulpit nor a soapbox. There are too many teachers who are preaching or ranting to their students everyday and I hope that if I ever begin to do that I will either immediately correct myself or quit. My students, no matter what their views or prejudices are, deserve a safe place to express themselves. I will be damned if I'm ever responsible for making my students feel oppressed or uncomfortable expressing their views in my classroom.

I'm a social studies teacher and one pet peeve is the teachers who preach-teach. They should read--or watch--The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Sparks.

Kudos for channeling Sagan and for your good work with the kids, seriously.

Through 6 decades now my experiences in the US South have differed drastically from any others, and I have traveled the world repeatedly.

In relaying these actual life experiences on OS I have enjoyed being rebuked by all sorts of apologists for the stunning ignorance and hate of the place.

Your post as a snapshot of 2009 says more than all my ranting about water fountains as a kid ... for better perspective on the South I urge study of deToqueville. Learn from history folks, dont repeat it. rated.

AUWE

@ Kristie McEwan: I actually watched “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” for the first time a few weeks ago – it made me want to vomit. I’ve rarely been as horrendously offended and disgusted at the same time as when I watched this film. Her behavior was despicable – it relit the fire under my a** to make sure that I don’t indoctrinate my students to my particular worldview. I turned to my wife and said, “If I ever end up like that, shoot me.”

@ Oahusurfer: Sagan is one of my heroes; I wish I had just one iota of his amazing compassion, clarity of thought and passion. He was a credit to humanity. I have studied deToqueville to an extent and his writing is brilliant and he certainly seemed to have our number. Thanks so much for your comment.

Man, I can relate. I never liked high school, but it makes me want to go back all over again.

Thanks for writing it! I enjoyed reading it!
Todd de Veyra

Terrific piece. I used to teach poetry in the schools across the state of Arkansas. I'm hearing you loud and clear.

Uphill battle all the way. I've seen pub. schools, subbing in the desert southwest. It's no worse or better there, I suppose. Teachers face a wall of stupidity and prejudice. I suppose it's to be expected to some degree, but a refusal to LEARN sounds like the one "unforgivable sin against the holy spirit," if you ask me---and I know you didn't. You got guts to go back there and face that environment on a regular basis.

Scary.

My first two years as a teacher were in a North Philadelphia middle school, and many of the moments you described could have been lifted directly from my classroom.

While I have seen less apparent ignorance and misinformation since moving back to California, it is sadly alive and well in all 50 states.

Despite this, I found your post encouraging. I am constantly trying to cajole my (now elementary) students into dialogue with one another. I, too, work hard to keep my own beliefs to myself, and instead encourage broad learning and discussion.

There are of course, the successes that make everything else worth it; a thoughtful and respectful debate on gay marriage in a class of 5th graders, an excited student sharing a new idea they just read, the storied "aha" moment. The other 90% of the time, however, can sometimes feel frustrating, like you're facing Mt.Everest with only a rusty pick. Your post reminds me that I'm not climbing alone, that there are teachers on every level, in every city, that strive to see the same values reflected in their class that I hope to see in mine.

This post particularly disgusts me because of the total opposite it is from the school i attend. I attend a very diverse public high school in MA. The teachers all come across as very open minded and most very liberal. My biology teacher clearly fully believed in evolution and it was taught as the most logical possibility. Reading this post makes me very fortunate that i attend a school that has practically very ethnicity and religion represented and teachers are very accepting. Many students are openly gay and not being religious is considered fairly normal. Of course its not perfect and not everyone is accepting and understanding, but saying any of the things your students said would create a firestorm of backlash. My point is not all of America is as close-minded as your students.

i moved to one of the worst school districts in the south- after spending k-9th grade in an excellent public school in NJ. what a freak show. they were still whipping kids with hickory switches (ever heard of that?) and the kids would have to go outside and get their own switch. i couldn't believe i was still in the united states. i even had a "reading partner" in the 9th grade who i was supposed to read our textbook assignments to. he was this big black football player- and instead of reading we would give each other maincures in class. fun days!

It is, to me, of the utmost importance that I tell you this: Thank you.

As I began reading this, I can tell you that I was nothing short of horrified by what I was reading. The fact that such mentalities are as widespread as they are is absolutely abominable. It's one thing to employ conservative politics. That'll be whatever that'll be, but this article betrays an outlook absolutely stained by conservative bias.

When I moved to the states, I was exposed to a three different school districts in three different states, but the one that left by far the strongest impression on me was Texas. There I met a student who told me, absolutely straight-faced that if they tried to teach evolution in biology class that she would simply flat out refuse to attend. It boggled the mind that someone could be so closed-minded to empirically verifiable claims. It's not blasphemy. It's just observation. Yet there it was.

The people were generally friendly, though there was a bit of a racist taint; the only broadly visible minority was people of Mexican descent (though I suppose that might be expected for a small Texan town). Racial slurs were tossed about now and then. Nothing I witnessed, however, even remotely compares to what you just described. I actually fear for the future when I think of this as being a generally accepted sentiment. I wish I had the wherewithal to be a teacher, underpaid and under-appreciated. I'm thankful, again, for the slim minority like you who expose their students to an alternative viewpoint.

Thanksgiving dinner with the boyfriend's family, we all went around the table saying what we're thankful for. "God," says the precocious 5-year-old and all the adults "awwww," just like she wanted them to.

Just a word of encouragement. I grew up in one of those families and environments. You will not see the results of your teaching, but some are storing that information. While my father still spouts that hate, later in their thirties, his children renounced it all by becoming a liberal, a buddist, and a very liberal christian. You words are going to take root in some. All those little seeds start rattling rattling around in their brains.

My daughter's senior AP American History class had the "commie corner" for her and the two or three others that had the courage to defend the right to choose, evolution, and any of those other liberal commie ideas. She loved the arguments, and always felt like she got the best of them. And this was at a high school with a reasonably well-educated, fairly liberal parent population. Now she is at one of those commie colleges - small, liberal arts (wha?) curriculum, planning to do all kinds of good stuff with her life. Keep that commie corner open for those few of your students who might want to give things a second thought...

My daughter's senior AP American History class had the "commie corner" for her and the two or three others that had the courage to defend the right to choose, evolution, and any of those other liberal commie ideas. She loved the arguments, and always felt like she got the best of them. And this was at a high school with a reasonably well-educated, fairly liberal parent population. Now she is at one of those commie colleges - small, liberal arts (wha?) curriculum, planning to do all kinds of good stuff with her life. Keep that commie corner open for those few of your students who might want to give things a second thought...

Sorry for double comment...OS seems to be having trouble with comments these days...

When I was in HS, there was just as much ignorance and closed-mindedness, except it was liberal. My fellow students knew the TRUTH so the facts didn't matter. They made them up on the fly. Sure, they protested nuclear power, supported Chavez (not Hugo; the migrant farmworker organizer), the Sandinistas.

But they had no interest in the issues of the day (race and busing). Chavez and the migrant farmworkers were safely across the continent, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and the Nukes? That was pretty safe. The racial tension caused by busing in neighboring Boston was too difficult a topic.

And they had no interest in learning the facts. If you produced facts that didn't support their views (like solar energy could provide 100% of the energy needs in cold, cloudy New England), you'd obviously been brainwashed by the establishment.

Easier to take than the idea that millions of 20th century Jews should die for one mythical first century act, but no more reasoned.

Next time you hear that one, you should be prepared with some well-known act of American injustice (a massacre of Indians, numbers of slaves killed) and ask how many whites should die as atonement and how should they be chosen. Don't let them kill 100 death row prisoners to atone for thousands of slaves who didn't survive the middle passage.

Oh, shoot, your class is full of black kids. Try Idi Amin.

@ Malusinka: It’s willful ignorance that’s troublesome and you’re quite right, it is indifferent to political ideology.

Our final unit for the year will be contemporary literature. We will be reading plays & poems about the holocaust.

Hey, man, you know I adore you. A couple things: Have you ever used Art Spiegelman's Maus books when covering the Holocaust? My students loved them so much that many went out and bought both to keep. Perhaps you could get a class set, at least of Maus II. Also, I just read about something i'm going to try with my AP English students next year--teaching philosophy via children's books. Check out www.teachingchildrenphilosophy.org. I'm going to go through these books and various areas of philosophy and pick out several to use in class at the beginning of the year. I need to do something to get them thinking that there is not just one answer to something, to talk about what they think, to listen to what other people say, to perhaps change their minds, and, to paraphrase Aristotle, to entertain a thought without accepting it. And also to back up what they say with appropriate evidence. I teach eleventh grade, but this is what even the smarty kids need to do: learn to think and respect ideas. Hugs to you every day.

I saw that you are in only your second year of teaching. Get outta town. What maturity you have. I've told you before it would be great teaching across the hall from you. I'm amending that to it would be great to share a room with you!

"High school is closer to the core of the American experience than anything else I can think of."
-Kurt Vonnegut

If you want to write fiction, you will need to work on creating more believable dialogue.

@ chef juan: I never said anything about trying to write fiction...oh, wait, you're trying to be cute and pithy. I'm very impressed by your concise dismissal of what I've written - it requires either omnipotence or a readiness to immediately dismiss anything that doesn't jive with your views. I'd bet on the latter, though, if it's the former, I apologize.

I'll be even pithier: your anecdote is fake. You are attempting to put words into the mouths of children that will fit your agenda and you are doing it in such a ham-fisted manner that your fictional account of a day at school is wholly unbelievable. I certainly hope that you weren't referring to the 85% of the student body that is African-American when describing their "primate-like rage ". Comparing African-Americans to monkeys is not to be tolerated, even if it comes from a liberal hack.

@ chef juan: Humans are members of the primate family. I thought that I’d address that first – moving on.

My anecdote is fake? That’s not fair. Whenever I come across something I find unbelievable, I do not, from my Olympian position, immediately declare it fake. Seeing that you are highly upset, I have no choice but to take your words for what they are, driven by some highly emotional impulse, the source of which I cannot guess.

Calling me a hack is very mean but, then again, you seem to be very angry. I cannot, of course, convince you that my blog is non-fiction and, if you think that I am a liar with a secret agenda, then that is your cup of tea, but I would appreciate a less emotional approach when you attack my credibility.

I cannot refrain, however, from maintaining that what I have written is entirely true, only the names and sequence of events have been changed. I fear that what I’ve written will only fall deafly onto your monitor but I can’t well be silent when a stranger calls me a liar.

I'll be closing this blog to any further comments but I appreciate everyone's input, both critical and supportive. It's obviously only a matter of time before I start seeing comments advertising Ed Hardy clothes and Nike shoes.