Leaders need to strongly advocate and maintain their values.
So my principal wants to create to a committee to “address the problem of plagiarism in our school.” It's a “controversial issue” he told us.
Whatever happened to simply saying: we will deal harshly with students who cheat?
We will give them zeros. We will take away privileges. We will not allow kids to go to the prom. To walk at graduation.
I thought to myself, “I'd like to create a committee to address the problem of students bringing guns into our school.” You know, because you need a committee to address issues that are absolutely against everything we stand for.
We should have committees to deal with the problems of students selling drugs in the faculty bathroom.
A committee to address the selling of freshmen to international prostitution rings.
A committee to address the burning of books on the school track.
Of course, we don't have to create a committee to address the problem of students paying a stripper come to the school.
A midget stripper. In a cop uniform. Stripping in our cafeteria. Approved by our main office. Today.
Seriously. I checked. It was approved.
The good news is, I guess, that this man, whose professional choices I respect, did not strip down too much. I wasn't there. But I heard that he fired off a lap dance or two, so there's that.
A lunch monitor told me that there were a “few hundred kids” gathered for the event.
So, we don't need a committee because we've already decided how to handle the problem of midget strippers in our cafeteria.
But we need a committee to deal with plagiarism.
As an educator I only have one thing to say about this....please tell me you're kidding!
ReplyDeleteLove your writing dude, always gets me psyched.
ReplyDeleteThis is ridiculous. When did this become an acceptable event at a a high school, let alone any educational institution? Who actually thought it was okay? Did anyone else question it?
ReplyDeleteOther than my own issues with the situation, this is a great piece to read. Your tone is a nice mix of pedestriam on the side of sarcastic while offering direct clarity in your opinion. It's the kind of Op-Ed that makes me a) smirk and b) think.
Oh my fucking g*d (gotta remain politically correct). I just spent a half hour responding to your post and Google fucks up me signing in and my response is totally gone.
ReplyDelete*sigh*
I had a stupid straw man argument for each of the offenses you listed with explanation for each. Bottom line (gosh the first post was awesome) I agree with your stance on everything in this post and you make a wonderful ethical juxtaposition. Oh and I threw in an old school quote of yours... the whole, "ya gotta know the rules before you can break them," and how at the time you were referring to grammar but how I apply it to most facets of my life.