Posted on 11/05/2005 7:29:43 AM PST by Fiji Hill
CARSON CITY: "HE SAID/SHE SAID"
School administrators in Carson City, Nevada, had a very...bad...day yesterday, thanks to y'all.
By the time school administrators went home, over 6,500 online petitions in support of history teacher Joe Enge had been sent to the school superintendent, the Carson High principal and the 7 members of the school board. Alas, the volume of emailed petitions overwhelmed the district, and by lunchtime the petitions were being "bounced" by the school district's system.
Then came the phone calls. At first, administration personnel tried fielding the flood of calls it was receiving, but by mid-afternoon most of you received recorded messages and/or were told the school board number had been "disconnected."
To say we got their attention would be an understatement. Indeed, I received a phone call from Superintendent Mary Pierczynski right after lunch.
As is to be expected, Dr. Pierczynski expressed a different version of what the brouhaha is all about. There are, after all, two sides to every story. This means what we have here a classic he said/she said situation. But whenever I tried to pin Dr. Pierczynski down on the details of the dispute, she resorted to, "That's a personnel matter and I can't discuss it." A bit too convenient for my taste.
So I suggested an open, public forum where Mr. Enge would tell his side of the story and Dr. Pierczynski could tell her side - followed up by some Q&A and "cross-examination" - and let the citizens and taxpayers decide for themselves. I even offered to host and mediate the discussion and agreed that any questions of a "personnel" manner would NOT be part of the debate. The topics for discussion would be curriculum and methodology...period.
To say I received a cold response to my proposal would be an understatement.
On the other hand, I pitched the same offer to Mr. Enge. Obviously, if his claims are factually inaccurate, he would suffer a very public embarrassment. Nevertheless, Mr. Enge's response to the forum proposal was, "Any place, any time."
Doesn't sound to me like a guy who's afraid of being exposed for exaggeration or obfuscation. On the other hand, Dr. Pierczynski DOES sound like she's running scared by hiding behind the convenient "official grievance procedure" dodge. I hope she reconsiders and agrees to debate these issues publicly in an attempt to resolve this conflict. After all, it's for the children, right?
Let me wrap this up with a few closing comments.
First, some folks have written me saying I'm being "duped" by Joe Enge. That he's a mediocre teacher and nothing but a trouble-maker. And the truth is...hey, maybe so. I don't know the guy personally. Have only met him once or twice. Anything's possible.
But I'll say this about him: He's backed up everything he's told me so far...and hasn't backed down when challenged. And if he truly is a "flake," then the school district shouldn't be afraid to confront, defend and counter the accusations he's made. So far, they've declined to do so. At least publicly in the light of day.
Second, one of the bones of contention in this matter is the content of the American history course in 11th-grade. The district seems to be spending more time on the pre-Civil War "refresher" this year than in years past; no doubt due, at least in part, to the complaints Mr. Enge has raised publicly in this regard. If true, that would tend to substantiate Mr. Enge's original complaint from three years ago. In any event, if students THIS year are getting a healthier dose of pre-Civil War history, whether due to Mr. Enge's actions or not...vundebar.
Third, an even bigger issue at play here isn't the content so much, as the methodology of instruction. I alluded to this a bit yesterday, and some aren't quite sure exactly what we're talking about. Let me try to explain it in, admittedly, simplistic terms.
If the subject is the Battle of Lexington, the traditional "teacher-centered" method of teaching is for the teacher to provide facts and figures regarding this dust-up; the student takes notes and learns the details.
The student-centered "discovery learning" method would include something like turning the school desks on their sides and having kids throw balled-up paper at each another from behind their "bunkers" to "feel" what it was like to be in a Revolutionary War-era fight. They then sit around in a circle and share with each other how they "felt" while in combat.
Good grief.
If, indeed, the high school principal is trying to force Joe Enge to embrace this kind of touchy-feely teaching methodology over traditional instruction, that is and should be of serious concern to parents and citizens. School administrators should be able to answer whether or not they are trying to force teachers into this fashionable but highly questionable method of teaching without violating the confidentiality of a "personnel matter." This isn't a personnel matter, if true. It's a public policy matter. And citizens have a right to know about it.
Third, while again admitting it is entirely possible that Joe Enge has pulled the proverbial wool over my eyes, an email from a purported teaching colleague at Carson High leads me to believe there are, indeed, a LOT of problems at that school. In near-hysterical, defensive and . In a nutshell, the man called me a liar in a note filled with elementary spelling, grammar, capitalization and punctuation mistakes. Indeed, the man insisted that teachers DO do a "revue" of the Revolutionary period.
Good lord.
Of course, this statement could be true if, say, teachers dress up in 1776-era costumes and re-enact Paul Revere's midnight ride - but somehow I don't think this is what the guy had in mind. In any event, such an error-filled note from a HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER is embarrassing - although I have no doubt this particular "don't rock the boat" teacher gets great "reviews" of his classroom performance.
OK, I'm going to stick with this issue and try to get to the bottom of it - but I recognize it may not be of as much interest to those of you in other parts of the country. So what I'm going to do is start a "blog" just on this matter titled "The Enge Files" and make regular updates as this develops. In the future, I'll just give you notice that a new entry has been made on the blog along with a synopsis of what it's about. If you're interested, you can then go online to "read all about it." If not...just ignore it.
In any event, thanks again for all your emails and phone calls on Thursday! You made one heck of a difference.
Chuck Muth
President
Citizen Outreach
I'm sure that a number of Freepers came out in support of Joe Enge.
Your link goes to worldprofit.com
Blog? Link? Website? Link?
This was the link I think Fiji Hill intended.
http://www.citizenoutreach.com/
It was the link used in yesterdays article.
thanks
sounds like an interesting story
i want to follow it
You are most welcome. :-)
Do a find in forum on Fiji Hill's posts and you will see yesterdays thread which tells the original story.
Do a find in forum on Fiji Hill's postsHow do you do that?
Nevermind. I see how to do it. Thanks again.
A great job being done here by Chuck Muth.
A thorough NO grounding in US history is essential for citizens of a constitutional republic such as ours, whose welfare DOLE depends on an UNinformed citizenry.
This blogger wonders if this leftist lynching of a traditional history teacher is of national interest. Of course it is.
History is perhaps the single weakest link in our public schools. That was true even back in the 1950s, when they ceased teaching history and began teaching Social Studies.
But it has gotten far worse in recent years. Basic history of the west is totally ignored. American history is reduced to courses in how we enslaved the blacks and screwed the Indians. Anything positive about our western traditions is totally omitted. Mention of Judaism and Christianity, the Ten Commandments, or even the Cardinal Virtues of Aristotle is forbidden on pain of death by the ACLU.
I don't know what the solution is, but throwing a little daylight on the problem is certainly a good first step.
Oh my, discovery method originally centered on using primary sources instead of homogenized textbooks in the history classroom. Unfortunately, most teachers were not well-enough trained to use the wonderful resources that came out of collaborative efforts between University and high school teachers. According to the National History Day, 80% of those teaching history have neither a major nor a minor in history. So this history teacher came to be considered overqualified and made a second career in sales.
Sad but true......
For that very reason, the best history courses I had were ancient history and medieval history. For ancient, we had learned Latin and read original sources. It was mostly about Greece and Rome, which were admired for their respective virtues. For medieval, we read long extracts from Boethius, Augustine, Gregory the Great, Aquinas, etc., etc., plus various annals and chronicles.
In contrast, when I took American history, the plague had already hit. We had the world's dullest textbook, written by a Marxist who thought the only important thing was to trace when tarriffs went up and when they went down. All of American history was reduced to a political argument over whether tarriffs should be high or low. I disremember the author.
Interestingly, at many schools in my area, it's the history teachers who are also the sports team coaches.
Yep, and that's why many students hate history. The coaches can't teach it well.
I don't suppose someone would care to summarize what is going on.
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