I know his back story and it is inspiring, rising from poverty to the top of his field helping so many children along the way. I also know some of the crazy things he has said and believes.
http://www.salon.com/2015/09/30/the_7_most_impressively_stupid_things_ben_carson_has_said_part
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2015/10/26/3715969/ben-carson-ridiculousness-continues/
http://www.mediaite.com/online/sht-ben-carson-says-the-complete-collection/
and I could have went on and on.
It seems our District ELA department in all its infinite wisdom has decided this is the man for our middle school kids to learn about.
Here are just a couple of the passages that our kids will be taught.
I get it too we are in the bible belt and a lot of people think these are the type of lessons that our kids should be learning but are our schools the proper place for them to be taught? Earlier this school year there was a book called the Librarian of Basra which had a Muslim character protecting books during the opening of the Iraq war and a fair amount of people lost their minds and that story barely mentioned religion at all. Here we have Carson practically ramming religion down people's throats.
Is this really the best we could come up with? Or is this the oh so brilliant idea of a district Ben Carson fan wanting to push his ideas on our kids.
I submit if you want your kid to learn about Ben Carson, then it should be done on your time not in our schools. there are far more appropriate people and subjects we can use.
Finally before someone accuse me of being anti-religion, I will say I practice religion in school all the time. I often pray that this kid or that won't show up and I will be able to teach. I often pray that the district will realize it is giving me an insane amount of work to do in not nearly enough time to do it, I pray that i will get a curriculum that works for my children and I pray that the state will start supporting our schools rather than continuing to routinely kneecap them.
We can do better than this. We should be doing better than this.
http://www.salon.com/2015/09/30/the_7_most_impressively_stupid_things_ben_carson_has_said_part
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2015/10/26/3715969/ben-carson-ridiculousness-continues/
http://www.mediaite.com/online/sht-ben-carson-says-the-complete-collection/
and I could have went on and on.
It seems our District ELA department in all its infinite wisdom has decided this is the man for our middle school kids to learn about.
Here are just a couple of the passages that our kids will be taught.
I get it too we are in the bible belt and a lot of people think these are the type of lessons that our kids should be learning but are our schools the proper place for them to be taught? Earlier this school year there was a book called the Librarian of Basra which had a Muslim character protecting books during the opening of the Iraq war and a fair amount of people lost their minds and that story barely mentioned religion at all. Here we have Carson practically ramming religion down people's throats.
Is this really the best we could come up with? Or is this the oh so brilliant idea of a district Ben Carson fan wanting to push his ideas on our kids.
I submit if you want your kid to learn about Ben Carson, then it should be done on your time not in our schools. there are far more appropriate people and subjects we can use.
Finally before someone accuse me of being anti-religion, I will say I practice religion in school all the time. I often pray that this kid or that won't show up and I will be able to teach. I often pray that the district will realize it is giving me an insane amount of work to do in not nearly enough time to do it, I pray that i will get a curriculum that works for my children and I pray that the state will start supporting our schools rather than continuing to routinely kneecap them.
We can do better than this. We should be doing better than this.
It seems as if the content would make it hard to have an in depth discussion without discussing religion. How can you analyze interactions between individuals, events, and ideas in those passages without reflecting and inserting one's own beliefs. A teacher would have a hard time navigating questions and discussions concerning specific topics. This would stifle the conversation and not allow for a true critical discussion or awareness of the material. This would be a great book for higher education, where students and professors are free to speak. We want to expose our children to great literature and there is a lot out there, but this is not one of them.
ReplyDelete