Posted on 11/07/2006 12:15:26 AM PST by Antioch
Nine year-old Tyler Stoken, a student in the Aberdeen Public School District, didn't know how to answer an essay question on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning test. As punishment for leaving the question blank his principal suspended him for five days.
Tyler paraphrases the question saying, "You look out one day at school and see your principal flying by a window. In several paragraphs write what happens next." He's asked, "So why didn't you answer that question?" He says, "I couldn't think of what to write the essay without making fun of the principal."
He refused to answer the question even after his mother was called to the school. Tyler's mother Amy Wolfe says, "And he said he didn't know the answer. He just didn't know what to write. And they were telling me to make him answer the question."
He still didn't, so Tyler was given a 5-day suspension. In the letter that went home to mother, the principal writes, "The fact that Tyler chose to simply refuse to work on the WASL after many reasonable requests is none other than blatant defiance and insubordination." Shortly after receiving the suspension letter they received a phone call from Superintendent Marty Kay apologizing for the suspension.
"Because I think a mistake was made and over reacting to Tyler's refusal to complete the test," said Aberdeen school superintendent Marty Kay. ... The superintendent wants Tyler immediately re-instated at school. But Tyler’s mother says the damage has been done. Mom tells son, "Well, nobody will scream at you again. I promise you that." Tyler doesn't want to go to that school any more and you can't blame him. He was manipulated and then punished because he couldn't answer a test question.
WASL opponents also believe the principal and teachers broke the law by interfering with the WASL test. It had better have been a violation of the testing rules. If a teacher and principal browbeating a test taker into answering a question in any particular manner is not against the rules then the test is worse than useless.
I agree. He didn't answer the question, give him a zero for that section of the test . What's the big deal ? Why would you force the kid to answer ?
You are right. I live in a conservative town. The public school in our cluster is wonderful however. There is a ton of parental support and pride. The thing that I think makes the difference is that almost all of the teachers live in the district and send their own children to the school. The fact that the teachers are our neighbors they are not annonymous. We as parents know the teachers and the teachers know us, on a first name basis.
The principal is yet another example of how the turd rises to the top of the bowl in the toilet that is public education.
Here's how I answer that question:
First I sigh inwardly as I know that liberal tolerance and "diversity" has come home to roost. I just saw my principle blown to bits as his corpse flew past my window. I can only assume that an adherent to the religion of peace just succeeded again into turning human beings into pieces.
Now I will cower in my classroom and await first responders and hope and pray that I don't have to use my social studies textbook as a bullet shield. If only they had armed my teacher, I might have a chance. As it stands now, I believe that I hear sporadic gunfire as a Muslim is going room to room executing the occasional student that cries or looks at him wrong. I know now what those children in Beslan Russia felt and now I understand why my father was so dismayed that Democrats took both houses of congress.
That is what happens next when the principle flies past my window.
Obviously this child doesn't know the correct answer to such questions.
The principal blew by the window, blown off his feet by winds caused by global warming. Luckily, there was a multicultural group of students made up of each ethnic group, faith and orientation holding an anti-Bush rally outside, and the principal was able to grab onto their kite strings. After pulling the principal down to goddess Earth, they all celebrated with a non-touching hug and agreed to make sure their parents vote today for change. Rainbows and unicorns ensued. Barney and the Wiggles. The End.
YOU are missing a whole bunch. You don't teach people respect. You EARN respect. You earn it by doing the right things, and then, when you do something silly, everyone will forgive you out of repsect for your native qualities. But you don't get any respect if you have none. And you certainly don't get respect if you make an ass (British sense = donkey) of yourself.
___
"That's cause Daddy just threw him off the roof......"
He did answer. He said that answering the question would require showing disrespect. That is actually a brillian answer and this kid has a lot of promise. He can lift his head up from the task immediately before him and see a bigger world with other rules than the immediate one that applies. It is a necessary life skill, and those who don't see it and respond in this brutal "answer the question" fashion, are the one's stuck in a rut of routine.
From a person with 4 teachers in immediate family:
Teachers in government schools are:
25% committed and skilled
25% malevolent or incompetent
50% incompetent or unmotivated
School administrators are 75% malevolent or incompetent.
Home school or Christian school.
I wouldn't have been able to write anything without making fun of the test.
I wish that once, just once, I told my English teacher what I really felt. "This book sucked. The main character is a jerk. And I'm not going to write a paper saying how great the author is." But I always told the teacher what she wanted to hear.
It's one of the reasons why we're homeschooling.
My daughter just read "The Yearling." Remember that one?
My daughter: "That was a weird story. When they weren't doing their chores they liked to sit around naked and sing!"
Me: "Oh yeah! I think I remember that! That was weird."
Daughter: "Yeah, really weird."
The truth will set you free.
And a ACLU member, an active NAMBLA member etc...
We are talking about a boy, I think it would go something like this:
I rushed to the window, I saw with my own two eyes as he crashed straight into the big oak tree. He was decapitated, his eyeballs were hanging out of his head. His head rolled over by the tire swing that we play on. A branch went right through his heart and blood was everywhere, just pouring down onto the grass. It was really gross. Then they cancelled school and I got to go home and play X-box, so it wasn't so bad.
There, instead of suspending him they'd have him in counseling.
What's wrong with simply marking the question wrong?
Screw the principle, screw the teacher. Mark it wrong and get on with life. Don't make a mountain out of a molehill.
What if he has said... "I quickly leveled the barrel, exhaled, and lead the principle by six inches...."
Does anyone here have a child or grandchild around his age? One of the most popular series of books, by Dav Pilkey, is "Captain Underpants."
I read a very positive review of these books about three or four years ago, but wasn't sure if I wanted to buy them for my grandchild, who is now ten. I was at first hesitant because I thought we were raising a very proper child who didn't say poop or mention wedgies and boogers. He found these books so funny that he looked forward to reading each one. (My daughter and I loved to read them with him, too!) And that, say librarians, is the secret to getting a kid to read....something they find enjoyable. He would actually belly laugh while we read. And he continues to be a kind, proper, gentle child with a great sense of humor, who is one of two boys in the gifted and talented program in his class of 16 children.
These books are in school libraries and book stores. In each book, two mischievous boys write a comic-book. In each one, they turn the school principal into a guy with a cape who wears underpants and flies outside the school.
When I read this thread, I immediately thought of "Captain Underpants!"
http://www.pilkey.com/books.php
Here is another example of how uptight some of our educators are now-a days......
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-lidres1026,0,928031.story?coll=ny-jets-print
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