1 Parent Complaint Suspends High School's Social Justice Curriculum?

[marmar]

The Stranger / By Anna Minard

1 Parent Complaint Suspends High School's Social Justice Curriculum?
Seattle high school postpones students from speaking openly in class about race and gender.

March 4, 2013 |


The following piece was originally published by Anna Minard on The Stranger's website here.


It’s not every day that we get news tips from concerned high-school students fighting a curriculum change. But I got a call yesterday from Zak Meyer, a senior at The Center School (the public high school in the Armory at the Seattle Center), wanting to know if I’d heard the rumors about the suspension of his school’s race and social justice curriculum.

Full disclosure: I’m a graduate of the school, and I’d taken the class Meyer was talking about. Rumors were, indeed, racing across social networks and among alumni that something weird was going on. I asked him to fill me in.

Seniors had come in to humanities class on Monday, Meyer told me, and when they started a student-led portion of class where they talk about what happened to them over the weekend and then connect it to what they’re learning, the teacher said he had to shift the conversation away from race or gender. That’s tough, because they’re just finishing up a curriculum unit on race and social justice. Students were baffled. The teacher, Jon Greenberg, couldn’t explain the situation until Friday, when he got an all-clear to talk.

It turns out there was a parent complaint to the district about the class, which resulted in Greenberg, the sole senior humanities teacher, receiving a letter from the superintendent of schools. The letter instructed him to stop teaching two specific units of his humanities curriculum while they were investigated by the district: the race and gender units. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/education/1-parent-complaint-suspends-high-schools-social-justice-curriculum

[Scuba]

1. The Superintendent isn't worthy of his/her post.

[sadbear]

2. I said it before in regard to the Superintendent who reversed his teacher in the

Marines/assault weapons t-shirt controversy: most administration cannot be counted on to support their teachers when a parent complains or threatens to sue. Why anyone would go into teaching with these cowardly assholes as their bosses is beyond me.