Modern Skooling

I remember my favorite teacher in high school. He was my 12^th grade civics teacher. He began my life-long interest in economics when he had us read Robert Heilbroner's book, The Worldly Philosophers. 

I include the reference to the modern Amazon version. I must have read some of his earlier works. Looking back on that class, I never realized that the teacher was probably a socialist, as Heilbroner was. This is true education, the teacher letting the student think—not spoon feeding data and opinions. 

I think that such teachers have always been rare, but they are more rare now in our public school system. 

Rowan-Salisbury Schools officials suspended a North Rowan High School teacher Monday while investigating an incident caught on camera where the teacher told a student he could be arrested for speaking ill of President Barack Obama. In a nearly 10-minute YouTube video shot by a student in the classroom, Tanya Dixon-Neely, a social studies teacher, told students criticism of the president could lead to jail time.

“Do you realize that people were arrested for saying things bad about Bush?” she said of former President Bush. “Do you realize you are not supposed to slander the president?”

While I suppose that anyone can lose their temper, it seems obvious to me that the reason the student was ready with the recording device was that the student knew what was going to be said. 

This is very appalling. It is not the way I remember high school. Maybe I was lucky. Or maybe the quality of teachers has gone down. Or both. 

It is not fair to make sweeping generalizations based on one bad apple-but does one bad apple spoil the whole bunch girl? Maybe not.