No-Win Scenario

[SRP76]

Now this was just fucked up and stupid: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100525/...ool_klan_robes By DIONNE WALKER, Associated Press Writer Dionne Walker, Associated Press Writer – Mon May 24, 8:01 pm ET ATLANTA – A North Georgia teacher is on administrative leave and could lose her job after she allowed four students to don mock Ku Klux Klan outfits for a final project in a high school class Thursday, administrators said. The sight of people in Klan-like outfits upset some black students at the school and led at least one parent to complain. Catherine Ariemma, who teaches the advanced placement course combining U.S. history with film education, could face punishment ranging from suspension to termination, Lumpkin County School Superintendent Dewey Moye said Monday. Ariemma has spent nearly six years teaching in the rural county about 75 miles north of Atlanta. She told The Associated Press Monday that students were covering an important and sensitive topic — but one that she might handle differently in the future. "It was poor judgment on my part in allowing them to film at school," Ariemma said. "... That was a hard lesson learned." The incident happened at Lumpkin County High School. Ariemma said her students spend the year viewing films and later create their own films to watch in class. She said the students brainstorm and pick topics to cover. This particular class decided to trace the history of racism in America. She said the class has 15 students of multiple races, but no blacks. A group of five students took on the subject, which included covering the history of the notorious white supremacist group which had large chapters in Stone Mountain, Ga. and Tuscaloosa, Ala. One student filmed and did not wear sheets, she said. "The kids brought the sheets in, they had SpongeBob party hats underneath to make it shaped like a cone," Ariemma said. "They cut out the eyes so they could see." Ariemma said she led the students through a cafeteria to another location where they shot the scene. Later, she said another teacher approached her. "That's when I heard there were a couple of students who were upset," she said. Ariemma said she wasn't able to find those students to explain the project to them. Monday, student Cody Rider told Atlanta's WSB-TV that his cousin was among those who saw the group in white sheets and was frightened. "I got mad and stood up and I tried to go handle it," he told the TV station. Moye said a black parent went to the school to complain that evening. Ariemma has no history of missteps at the school, Moye said, but administrators of the roughly 90 percent white school system are taking the incident seriously. "This stuff happened in history. Do you ignore it? No," he said. "But you certainly don't walk the hallway in the garb." Ariemma says administrators will review the film and decide if it will be shown in the classroom. She said the students who wore the sheets were shaken when they realized that other students were upset. Now, just what in fuck is a teacher to do? She lets them do their thing. "Oh, fire her!" Bleating from "offended people". She stops them. "Oh, fire her!" Bleating from "freedom of speech" sheep. That's just bullshit. When you've got a stacked deck like this, she should get one free swipe with a baseball bat at every single person involved, from the students to the administration, as compensation.

[AcesandEights]

This teacher chose very, very poorly. No sympathy.

[bassman]

Saw this on the news last night. Basically the teacher fucked up. But did she fuck up enough to lose her job? I don't think so. They were doing a project speaking out against racism. So of course the Klan will be mentioned/portrayed. Should the students have been walking around the school in the outfits? No....probably not a good idea. But the teacher didn't do anything seriously wrong, imo. She made a poor decision, but I think her heart was in the right place. And as much as I hate to say it - the kids that are speaking out against it are probably just looking for attention. Not meaning to be racist here, but if you can't take something as silly as someone wearing bed sheets for a play...you're just looking for attention.

[SRP76]

Not meaning to be racist here I'll be racist, then, if anyone wants to call it that: I want one person to come in here and say she would NOT have been suspended/otherwise disciplined if she had "forced" her students to take off their costumes, and do it with a straight face. You know fucking well that some "parent" (and I use that term loosely) would have pitched a bitch about "schools and teachers being Nazis" by not letting them do as they please. Don't even act like you haven't seen at least a dozen stories about that shit just in the past year alone. As I said at the top, this woman was put into a no-win situation. And I guarantee that if anyone here was stuck like that, they'd be highly pissed off about it.