Posted on 01/28/2005 9:04:17 AM PST by OrangeDaisy
WSMV-TV, Nashville, Tennessee, E-mail: lbrinton@wsmv.com
January 24, 2005
The cream always come to the top. Now let's think back a bit, about two years ago.
Ann Zimmerman was a widely-praised Metro School teacher with a lot of experience.
Along came Metro Schools Director Pedro Garcia, who required students to be taught from a remedial reading program called "Language!"
Zimmerman believed the program was a step-back for her students and that "Language!" contained too many errors and too much jargon. She put her foot down and said no way was she going to use the controversial program for her students.
Zimmerman was placed on leave by Garcia as he laid the groundwork for firing her. Metro School Board members turned down Garcia's demand but agreed to suspend Zimmerman for her so-called disobedience.
Zimmerman refused the suspension and never returned to the Metro School system for a single day.
Now listen to this:
Ann Zimmerman has now been hired at Cumberland University to assist students with developmental reading and other areas.
And here is some better news.
She's won a national award in being selected as the 2005 recipient of the "IN DEFENSE OF GOOD TEACHING AWARD" by the College of Education Department of Language, Reading and Culture at the University Arizona.
The award is given to a professional educator who has stood up for students, even when the consequences were not desirable.
Zimmerman was given an all-expense paid trip in March to Tucson, Arizona, where she will be a speaker at an annual conference on literature and literacy for children and adolescents.
She was nominated for the award by Victoria Risko, a reading specialist at Vanderbilt University who has never met Zimmerman.
The national award should given her some comfort for all the humiliation she experienced from Garcia and the school board. Good things happen to a person who stands up for what they believe, despite the consequences.
Congratulations to her and Cumberland University and condolences to her former Metro students.
On later inquiry it was found that metro school director and the teacher[s] in question are themselves illiterate...
She should be careful or she'll end up like Bill Cosby. There's little tolerance in this country for anyone who thinks education should include some sort of academic standards.
We really need to fire every teacher who is not like her. It is my understanding that the reason our schools are so bad is boneheaded programs like the one she refused to teach. If every teacher refused these programs, maybe teachers could teach.
What a sick, deranged public school system we have. Fire good teachers who refuse to teach their students trash...
What more proof does anyone need that the entire public education system needs to be dismantled?
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Blanket requirements established by inept school administrators is the reason that governments schools are so totally lacking in any educational value.
The teacher shouldn't have been fired - the idiot administrator should have.
At least the story has a happy ending for students.
Where are Editors these days...*sigh*
how about: .. she said [THAT THERE WAS] no way [THAT] she would...
Well this is a transcript of a TV newscast, and sometimes, in the south especially, we don't talk as properly as we write. :-)
Bump
Cumberland University is a very conservative small college in Lebanon, TN. It is best known for suffering the worst defeat of a college footbal team ever: 216-0 back in 1919 or so.
Here is the web page of the Metro Nashville Public Schools Board, which prints weekly letters from the Director Petro Garcia (same person who fired Ann Zimmerman).
http://www.mnps.org/Director/Weekly_letters.html
Note that Mr. Garcia's name is mis-spelled on the Title Bar of the web page.
So much for the literacy of the School Board and their employees.
Ms. Zimmerman's students could spell Garcia correctly, I'll wager.
Besides, since it all began with Roman soldiers haggling with British whores, the notion of 'proper' English is pretty moot.
Brevity is the soul of wit. Saves column-inches too.
Should have gone for curtain #2.
What more proof does anyone need that the entire public education system needs to be dismantled?
For one, there's still many good teachers still out there. Should there be some changes? Certainly. The biggest one that I see is that we should all get on the same page and work together, not to promote our respective political agendas, but to really help the kids and make positive differences in their lives. The ed-libs (whether they be teachers who complain or others who complain about the system) should not be allowed to dominate education. It's time for the education conservative to act.
Please add me to your Ping List about Public School corruption...
The ENTIRE Public School system needs to be dismantled, and DEFUNDED by the State and Federal Government. Then give vouchers to every person in the country to CHOOSE their own private schools.
But then again, "choice" only means butchering babies, the United Nations Socialists on the left would NEVER want any choice over their indoctrination and brainwashing centers.
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