Posted on 03/05/2010 6:52:07 AM PST by TornadoAlley3
YAKIMA, Wash.- Manuel Alvarez eats breakfast and gets ready for school. He's eager but nervous. He was expelled Monday from Barge Lincoln Elementary for making a gun with his hands. His mom says it's a hand gesture that could have easily been corrected.
"He didn't know did they talk to him about it what actions were taken to tell him this isn't allowed," Lorena Hurtado, Manuel's mother.
Manuel has a clean record never in trouble before his mother says a warning would have worked or even a parent-teacher meeting. Instead, His mom says, Manuel's afraid.
"I got a call from the School saying he's not raising his hand or speaking up. He's scared after we talked about not doing any gestures, he probably doesn't want to to do it because that could be a gesture. It might get him pulled out for two days," said Hurtado.
Manuel's mom doesn't see anything wrong with her son putting his hands like this and shooting down at the ground. She doesn't think it poses an immediate threat to the school or Manuel's classmates. We took the issue to School District employees and asked them about their policy.
"When students are at school they should be concerned about learning….safety shouldn't be a concern at school, we have a zero tolerance policy," said Dr. John Irion, from the Yakima School District.
Hurtado understands the policy, but in this case doesn't think the punishment fits the crime, especially when the student in question is in kindergarten.
"A five-year-old shouldn't be held to the same policy as a 12th grader...he is in kindergarten," said Hurtado.
Lorena Hurtado is appealing the expulsion and wants to try to clear her son's record. She says she doesn't want her five-year-old to be labeled as a troublemaker.
I’d be willing to bet you misuse that one too. Hope you aren’t teaching logic, or English.
To quote Ronald Reagan: THERE YOU GO AGAIN! You have spent 99% of an argument (to which I'm going to have to scroll down and review for the original question) in small sly personal jabs. What IS it with you? It certainly is ad hominem in this instance because you impugned my integrity within the scope of the argument and continue to do so! Now this is getting to be boring to me. I have an idea: Why don't we both move onto other threads and keep a friendly distance from each other on those other threads? I'm certain we have bored the folks here enough. By the way, notice most if not all the replies to my answer have been positive and upbeat. You're the sole voice of negativity here. Is that because I had the temerity to question you on your assertion of the original purpose for public education and then was able to back it up? I told you already that there are many truths to that. You're not wrong, but neither am I. Btw, just in a riposte to my answer to you, what do YOU do for a living?
I did not intend to offend you, though I’m not surprised you were offended. I was only expressing my true view—I just have no use for educators, and haven’t since I realized that Shaw was right—”Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” Its a generality, of course, and there are rare exceptions, but they are just that, exceptions.
I also think government education is wrong in every way. It extorts money from citizens and uses it to pay people to teach other people’s children what they don’t want them taught. Those children are essentially abducted from their families and imprisoned several hours every day, at least five days a week. I regard the entire enterprise as criminal, and all participants in it as complicit in that crime.
If one never says what someone else might be offended by, there would be no freedom of speech. I wish nothing I said ever offended anyone, but I know that is an unrealistic expectation.
Sorry to hear about your wife’s cancer. I also do not like to see anyone suffer, and wish her a complete recovery. There is such great hope with that cancer today.
So I wish you and your wife at least another 22 years, and more, of the happiness you deserve.
I’m retired from a long career in technology, computers, IT, telephony, technical writing and management. I’m a life-long student of literature, philosophy, sciences, and history. I regard sociology and psychology pseudo-sciences primarily meant as a means of manipulating men and societies—and so they are. (Do you know the origin of these things? Do you know who Comte was and what he believed? He “invented” sociology, and what we now call “Secular Humanism.” Do you know where psychology came from?)
http://usabig.com/iindv/articles_stand/revo_west/revolution8_1.php
http://usabig.com/iindv/articles_stand/pee/fifth.php
Hank
In that regard you are 100% correct! I make certain that I tell my psych classes that the stated purpose of psychology is to (quote from the TEXT): "Predict and control human behavior!
In sociology, it's socialism/communism/GLOBALISM all the way. I made my students count the number of times the word Global was used in the 4th chapter and all it's various derivatives (global, globalization, globalized economy you get the drift?) over the entire 25 page chapter. It totaled out to 125 incidences! That's five times a page! What is the basic tenet of education? Repeat and remember. If you say it often enough it becomes internalized and ... true. I hate my text book and make no bones about it. Another example from the text this time on so called "gun violence." The text gives a generalized number of the folks killed each year by handguns. I'm also careful to delineate the fact that the figures given don't reflect the true nature of the incidents. The text doesn't say how many were bad guys killing bad guys or GOOD guys killing bad guys or even the number of suicides or accidents! The clear connotation that will be communicated is that guns are simply evil. That in itself is evil. I have fought the liberal agenda (for more on this see my FR home page) in the public schools for 20+ years and each year it grows worse and worse. Again, take a look at my FR home page and you might agree that I'm one of those exceptions. If not, well I take no exception to that. lol That's just Psych & Soc.
You should see the lies and perversions of the truth in my American Gov't and Economics texts. The entire chapter on the Federal reserve is just one huge LIE. In Government that part of the Bill of Rights especially those dealing with the 2nd and 10th Amendments, also huge lies. I don't disagree with you in that, but I teach because like the pebble thrown in the venerable still pond, there is no telling how far the ripple effect will spread.
Two examples of that:
A few years ago, I had a kid I taught that was in a really rough crowd. Gang kid, into drugs and guns and I could tell he was going to die ugly and soon if he managed to graduate. He did well in my class, possibly the only class in which he got decent grades. But graduate he did. He dropped from sight and I didn't see or hear from him again for a couple of years. Then one day he walks into my classroom and he's wearing the uniform and insignia of a Navy SEAL. Coulda knocked me over with a feather! Imagine how I felt when he told me that I was the only reason. Something I'd said somewhere in those classes had caught and fired his imagination. Enough to give him something to hold him together, get him off the streets and into the military. You ever had some kid say that about what you did for a living? That's why educators are important. And it's true as well that many many more teachers will discourage their kids to get them AWAY from the military, but if they encourage them into other valid fields of endeavour like the Law or medicine or a good trade, then that's all good too. So, I think you're dead wrong.
Example number two: My very best friend is a retied Lieutenant Colonel of Army Special Forces. Late in his career, he was deep in the bowels of the Pentagon strategizing special operations policy and dictates with a bunch of other senior officers and they were discussing geopolitical issues when my friend suddenly piped up with the name of OUR high school history teacher and he said: Look Here's what Mister _________ had to say about THAT.... and US military policy was fomented on the idle comments from a high school teacher from many years before! So you see, that stone tossed into that deep pond can have huge effects. I'm not saying these officers went blindly with that comment but I'm sure it was a factor, especially if the others had similar knowledge. I was an active duty army officer for just four years 1980-84 and in the reserves another 10 years. In all that time, I trained a lot of troops in the skills of an infantryman. A lot of those guys went on to engage in some hot combat and later wrote me as to how that training we engaged in, saved their lives when it was all on the line. I'm proud of that. I'm proud of the stories my inner city students have come back and related to me. Like it or not, teaching is the only profession in the world that ... creates other professions. Including yours.
“Like it or not, teaching is the only profession in the world that ... creates other professions. Including yours.”
Nope. I’m an autodidact. [Wrote five paragraphs about my accomplishments but decided not to bore you with my biography.]
A little hubris there too, I think. Some teachers might help some individuals learn things that are useful in whatever profession they choose to enter, but teachers don’t produce those professions, the inventors and discoverers of new products, processes, and methods of producing goods and performing services create professions, which they could not possibly have learned from teachers, because those things didn’t exist until the creators created them. They in turn provide teachers with that new knowledge to teach.
I’m glad you are proud of your accomplishments. Everyone should be sure they are doing what is right for them and not let anyone denigrate their choices.
I appreciate very much your comments about psychology, sociology, and the text books that are being used and would like to have more first-hand information about those if you ever care to extend it. Do your write? (I know you have to write in your profession, I mean for publication.)
Hank
If you can read, thank a TEACHER. If you can read in English, thank a soldier.
“If you can read, thank a TEACHER. If you can read in English, thank a soldier.”
I was reading long before I went to school. Never was part of any reading class in school. (They tried it once, but I had read the whole book while the first kid was trying to sound out the first sentence.)
Never mind!
Have a nice day!
Hank
You still thank a teacher - but in your case, your teacher and mother are the same
Sometime I cannot believe how people can be so presumptuous.
You do not know that I had a mother, or who taught me anything.
If you are going to call anyone that anybody has ever learned anything from a teacher, like the chemistry books I got from the library and the chemist in the leather factory chem labs I spent many afternoons talking to (fifth and sixth grades) teachers, than everyone is a teacher.
If that’s the game, then I guess we could put it this way. That class of teachers who get paid with money confiscated from other people by the government, are essentially crooks, who generally prevent real education provided by real, non-government non-union teachers.
Hank
You’ve made my point 100%. We are all teachers, or at least we can be.
So yes, if you learned to read (and it appears you did) you should thank the teacher that taught you, be it your mom, your dad, your grandparent, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
They (or he or she) were you first teacher and it looks like they did a good job.
Or did you just want to start a flame war and I missed your point entirely?
You know perfectly well that bumper stickers that read, “If you can read this, thank a teacher,” refer to “professional, government paid, union,” teachers, not someone’s mother.
Perhaps you really do think everyone is a teacher, but you know when there are discussion about “education” and “teacher’s salaries,” nobody else is thinking, “just anybody.” They mean “professional paid educators.”
“We are all teachers,” is an intentional obfuscation of that fact. Why would you do that?”
I think what has you unhappy with me is that I know government paid education, in any form at all, is one of the worst, perhaps the very worst, thing that ever happened in this country, and that anyone who participates in it, is part of the problem. That problem is never going to go away, if everyone is afraid to name it, because they might offend someone, especially if that someone’s income comes from government education budgets (read other people’s taxes).
I’m not afraid to say it. It must be said, but there is no intention to offend. The truth is sometimes offensive, but must never be evaded on that account.
If you, or anyone else, is offended by this, you and they might ask yourselves, why. Unless someone has a vested interest in government education, there would be no reason to be offended. They should, and most likely would, be delighted someone has the courage to point out, the government education “emperor” has no clothes; there is nothing decent or right about it.
Hank
I find it odd that you assume you know what I’m thinking and feeling and whether or not I’m angry, unhappy or annoyed. I’m actually none of those - the only real emotion is a bit of amusement at your carrying on over a small side remark.
So, in answer to my last question - I guess you do just want to flame someone.
Meh, carry on then. Continue to amuse me. It lightens my day up considerably.
“It lightens my day up considerably.”
That’s the ticket. Good for you.
Hank
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