Teacher Suspended for Teaching Unapproved Book to Students

A perfect example of what happens when politics gets in the way of education. It seems that schools are less willing to let their students learn about real life and instead fill their heads with redundant lessons (I don’t know how many times I was taught the state capitals) and meaningless information that most will never use in their lifetime. But if you want to teach them something that will help them become better human beings? Forget about it.

Common Dreams

An Indiana teacher who used a much lauded bestseller, The Freedom Writers Diary, to try to inspire under-performing high-school students has been suspended from her job without pay for 18 months.

Teachers’ union officials say that a single board member objected to swearing in the book. The school board member allegedly persuaded the other six officials to ban Heermann from teaching the book. It remains available in school libraries.

Heermann and the union say there was no explicit ban on the book when she handed it out to pupils on November 15. But later that day she received an email from the board advising her not to teach the book.

After being threatened with dismissal, Heermann was eventually suspended. The union is deciding whether to take the case to court.

The school board denies book banning and accuses Heermann of insubordination. Barbara Thompson, the school board president, wrote in an email yesterday: “She knew she had defied her supervisors’ direction in her work and that her defiance was ‘insubordination’ and ‘neglect of duty’.”

~ by Anya on July 3, 2008.