Posted on 10/16/2020 2:53:38 AM PDT by gattaca
'I was just upset because other kids in the class were ganging up on me, laughing at me, and she was laughing and wouldn't say anything to them'
Some teachers have a lot of learning to do.
Take, for example, a woman who was teaching a seventh-grade class for O'Maley Innovation Middle School in Gloucester, Massachusetts.
Image source: WHDH-TV video screenshot
The subject was the debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden — and 12-year-old Jackson Cody said he became a fast target not only of other students, but also the teacher.
What happened? You see, Jackson supports Trump.
"I just feel like our country wasn't in a great place," he told WBZ-TV. "I just wanted to learn more about Donald Trump because it seemed like he was making our country rise again and become America again."
But supporting Trump isn't always the safest path to take. Then the seventh grader said the fateful moment happened.
"The teacher asked, 'Who supports Donald Trump?'" Jackson recalled to WHDH-TV. "And I was the only one to raise my hand."
He noted to WBZ that "a few kids were going to raise their hands, but then they heard the teacher say to me, 'Oh Mr. Jackson, I thought I liked you.'"
Image source: WHDH-TV video screenshot
It got worse.
"Then she asked why I support a racist and a pedophile," he noted to WHDH.
Jackson added to the station that "she also said, 'I am ashamed of any woman who voted for Donald Trump,' and I told her my mom and one of my grandmothers voted for Donald Trump."
Other kids in the class smelled blood — and apparently his teacher did, too.
"I was just upset because other kids in the class were ganging up on me, laughing at me, and she was laughing and wouldn't say anything to them," Jackson noted to WHDH.
Lawyering up Once Jackson's family found out what went down in his class, they fought back.
They contacted a First Amendment attorney and asked the school for an apology, WBZ said — and got one.
Jackson told WHDH that the teacher later apologized to him in front of the entire class, and he said that helped.
"We tell them to stand up for yourself and don't be afraid to speak your opinion," Jackson's father, Jay Cody told WBZ. "Their opinions are theirs; they're not our opinions. They're very well read children. They like to educate themselves on their own topics. Unfortunately they do disagree with us very often."
What did the school district have to say? Gloucester Public Schools Superintendent Ben Lummis told WHDH he was disappointed after first hearing about the incident.
"We always want our students and staff to feel safe — and that their point of view is understood and respected," he told the station in a statement. "Every day in our schools — we strive for tolerance, understanding, different perspectives and being civil."
More significant perhaps is the news Lummis broke that his staff will undergo training next week on how to address controversial topics with their students, WHDH reported.
And that's obviously good news for Jackson and his family.
"Certain topics — politics, religion, even sports nowadays — can sometimes be discussed and can very much make kids feel uncomfortable," Jay Cody told WHDH. "You would hope teachers could recognize that and take advantage of it the opposite way."
He also told the station that if teachers do discuss controversial topics, they should "stand in the middle and hear from both sides."
In the end, Jackson told WHDH "everyone has the right to their own opinion, and everyone should respect that."
Here is what happened. The teacher is a bully and she organized a group of bullies against the Trump supporter. Now, if we contacted the school and asked what the position of the administration was regarding bullies and bullying, we would be assured that bullying in any form isn’t tolerated. Sure! The teacher needs to be disciplined at least, and perhaps terminated at best.
Parents need to wake up and get up and fight
I agree that a forced apology isn’t enough. The teacher specifically asked who liked Trump. She purposely set up the child for ridicule, along with a chance to indoctrinate her students with her political views. The only good thing to come of it is that she gave the entire classroom a lesson in peer pressure and mob mentality. Hopefully that will stick with some of them.
“his mission as a teacher was always to try and teach his students HOW to think, not WHAT to think.”
Exactly, there is a similar quote from James Carville telling of teaching at Tulane. (That may be one of the few things that i would agree with him.)
““Paedophile?” Really. Where did THAT come from?”
It came from the party of ‘accuse others of what you yourself are doing’.
Abolish government (taxpayer funded) schools. If parents paid directly for it, maybe they would take more of an interest in what does and does not happen there.
Projection. The left always accuses the right of what they themselves do; the pedophile in this case being Gropin' Joe.
“... they should “stand in the middle and hear from both sides.”
Why on earth do grown adults in the ‘teaching profession’ NEED that spelled out for them?
I mean-no one who thinks any differently should EVER even BE in a classroom.
Justifies the idea I have that teachers are some of the most biased people in any ‘profession’...but probably because their college was, TOO
The incident occurred in Gloucester, Massachusetts, not America
I’m remembering that!
The President is a controversial topic now? Can you imagine if they did that with Obama?
When I was a young boy I attended the local catholic grade school. Many of our teachers were nuns. My father was a stanch republican so naturally I fell in line. Only one girl in class and I proclaimed our support for Richard Nixon. While we did not get harassed as described in this article our class was required to recite prayers asking the Lord to assist in electing Kennedy since he would be the first Catholic president. My father was not happy.
Same here. The nuns in my Catholic school in 1960 Massachusetts were orgasmic over JFK. So naturally, I toed the line. My Dad, a rock-ribbed Republican, told my Mom: “That’s what we get for sending her (me) to Catholic school” - LOL.
The ‘tell’ is in the school’s name: O’Maley Innovation Middle School
The damn teacher and whoever hired her should be fired.
The damn teacher and whoever hired her should be fired.
Let kids me kids.
A 12 year old should not be introduced to the nastiness of politics. Just too young.
That goes for his parents and this teacher.
Teach them values first, and then let them decide for themselves later.
This is the problem. Politics should not be discussed in the public schools by the staff. The only time politics should be discussed is in any Government class.
And observed by parents. We have a family friend who recruits students for the Catholic Schools in our diocese. According to her, enrollment is way up, and many parents have yanked their children from public school after observing the incompetency and hostility of the teachers.
The nuns in my Catholic school in 1960 Massachusetts were orgasmic over JFK.
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That was probably the first time for many of them!
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