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Strollerderby
Is it fair to punish kids in school for something they did outside of school but displayed on Facebook?
Sometimes I think I’m turning into a prude in my old age. Then I read stories like this one.
Eleven varsity athletes from a suburb of Boston were recently suspended from participating in team sports after photos of them in possession of alcohol or tobacco were seen on Facebook. One athlete will be forced to miss 60 percent of his or her next athletic season.
A “concerned parent” was the one responsible for ratting out the kids in Melrose, Massachusetts, transferring the offending photos to a thumb drive and showing school administrators the proof.
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Mosque visit raises questions about prayer in school
A field trip taken by students at a public middle school in Wellesley, Mass., to the Islamic Society of Boston Community Center has touched off a heated controversy after a mother who was chaperoning the trip released video footage of some of the six-graders participating in midday prayers at the center’s mosque. (The footage was released via the group Americans for Peace and Tolerance, which, according to the Boston Globe, has been critical of the Islamic center and mosque, New England’s largest, in the past.)
Several organizations have decried the trip for blurring the line between church and state, prompting Wellesley’s school superintendent, Bella Wong, to apologize to parents, saying, “It was not the intent for students to be able to participate in any of the religious practices. The fact that any students were allowed to do so in this case was an error.”
The center insists that the students were not coerced into participating in the prayers, but rather did so of their own volition. And several of the students’ parents have voiced support for the trip as a worthy educational experience. The students had visited the mosque as part of a social studies course, “Enduring Beliefs in the World Today,’’ in which they study not just Islam, but also Judaism, Hinduism and Christianity; they had already visited a synagogue, went to a gospel-music performance and met with representatives of the Hindu faith.
Setting aside the obvious issues about the Islamaphobia currently raging through our nation, the controversy does raise interesting questions about whether children should learn about religion in public school and how to do so while maintaining the separation between church and state. Continue reading »
According to a 2-1 decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, God is not religious. At least, not when teachers instruct children that ours is a nation “under God” on a daily basis. All across the state of California, schoolchildren line up every morning to profess their allegiance to the flag and the country “for which it stands”. In 1954, however, the official pledge was changed to include the phrase “under God.” A belief in God was a “characteristic and definitive factor in the American way of life,” claimed Reverend George Docherty in a sermon that spurred President Eisenhower to action to have the pledge modified.
Is it a fashion statement? An invitation to debate? Or just one of those things kids (and by kids, I mean anyone under 30) do to differentiate themselves from those who came before? Friedrich Nietzsche first wrote that “God is Dead” more than 125 years ago and I’m sure it stirred up some controversy back then. Fast forward to modern day Washington State and the sentiment is once again causing a stir — this time over a high school yearbook photo.
A week after a teacher was suspended for posting a vague complaint about an unidentified student on her Facebook page, a student from another school is given a pass for posting a specific complaint about a teacher on hers.
Katie Evans is no longer enrolled at Pembrook Pines Charter High School in Florida, but in 2007 she was a senior there and unhappy with one of her teachers. She set up a Facebook page to vent about “the worst teacher I’ve ever met.” If she expected sympathy from her fellow students, she didn’t get it. Instead, she was attacked by students who actually liked the teacher. Evans responded by taking the page down a few days later.
But Evans’ classmates weren’t the only ones who had a problem with her Facebook complaining. After school principal Peter Bayer got wind of it, he did more than disagree — he took advantage of his position of power and punished the honors student. Despite the fact that the page had long been removed, Bayer pulled Evans from her Advanced Placement classes and suspended her for three days. Continue reading »
Two teen girls took sexually suggestive photos and posted them on Myspace. No surprise there. So why did the school suspend them from sports and force them to make an official apology to the school’s athletic board? Continue reading »
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