The head of this video reads: “Christie Takes on NJEA”.
I am sure there are many skeptics who will not believe that Marxist and Leftwing propaganda are fed into the American classrooms , k-12, pretty much throughout the country. As with our newspapers, nearly all of which are college morphed Marxist or Liberal, the vast majority of adult Americans accept what is printed is what must be.
Please click on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNM11xtg954
Adding to proof here in this video, how is it that Union propaganda politically attacking the Governor, is passed on to students presumably by their classroom teachers. Why is this propagandizing permitted? Thirty years ago when I taught at one of the Minneapolis public high school, our Minneapolis Federation of Teachers would never have done that, nor would I have allowed such political pamphlets distributed in my classroom had they tried.
The school administration, on the other hand, primarily at the Central office rather than at the school principal’s office often would manipulate classrooms for contemporary Liberal politics……one of the reasons for which I was fired, even though I was a tenured teacher.
The charge was that I was insubordinate. They claimed I had not filled out a form properly……. There was a dramatic public hearing, at which the “system” made itself look foolish and embarrassed for the obvious cooked-up charge. To save face for the Administration, the School Board had to fire me, but rehired me without “tenure”.
The “system” eventually fired me permanently in February of the next school year, the day my third child came home from the maturnity ward. I would not be allowed a public hearing this time.
A hearing, required by Union contract, however would be kept private within the “system”. The School Adminstration would allow me to bring along an attorney to make my case. at this “secret” Soviet-style event. They expected the Union’s lawyer to represent me. I didn’t like the idea of having the Union’s attorney represent me. He was a lawyer for the Union, not for a teacher.
One of my students, a 9th grader, Joey Lykken, a wonderful student without a corpuscle of shallowness in his body was sitting in that final hour of class which I ever taught in the school district. I had been taken by surprise.
To illustrate the skills of the “system” when its Authorities deal with their teachers, I’d like to describe my last moments there as a teacher.
My last class of the day had already begun and reached about the half way mark. I do not remember the topic of the lively but very orderly discussion. Discipline was never an issue in my professional teaching in those days.
One of the school principal’s secretaries entered the room…..and came to my chair (the students and I were seated in a circle) and handed me a note. She lingered as I read the note. It was obviously from the school’s head principal.
“As of 3:00 PM today, your tenure at this high school is terminated. By the end of this day you must confiscate all of your belongings from this school. From tomorrow on you will be assigned to the Central Administration Offices until further notice. Please arrive at room ___ by 8:00 AM.” (I was paid salary by contract through to the end of the school year.)
I was stunned, but I shouldn’t have been. Rumors that I would be fired had spread throughout the school even before the school year had begun in September. I had expected it, that is true, but I thought they would at least have some skill, such as firing me during Christmas vacation in December. It was a shock to me that February afternoon.
The secretary had waited to see if I had read the note and when satisfied that I had, she turned toward the door. I called out, “Just a moment, please. I think my class should hear what your note has to say…..so please stay…”
She yelled at me, “Oh, you aren’t supposed to read that to the class!”…..but, I went ahead and read to the class the contents of the note.
They were a very good bunch of kids in that room, a class which was called, “Modern Problems”. They all knew I was some kind of hot potato from September on. We had covered many taboo subjects in this class of mixed colors. We had included in this mix some issues of criminal activity at the school itself. I was lucky that this was the most mature of the classes I taught at that school, for it included several excellent civilized young people who could speak up and express themselves well in this school classroom.
Once civility in the classroom is established, all sorts of good things can and usually do happen.
I admit tears came to my eyes as I read the principal’s directive to the class. Yet, I read it slowly, clearly and distinctly. I knew that my career in public school teaching had come to an end.
The students were shocked. Joey came to me and asked, “Does this really mean you aren’t going to be my teacher tomorrow?”
That evening Joey’s mother, Harriet Lykken, called me at my home. “Joey has been very upset this evening. He told me you had been fired…..that you will not be teaching at Central anymore.”
Unbeknownst to me, Harriet was a leader in the “Citizens for Better Education” group, a hard working citizen support group for the beleaguered Minneapolis school district, which had worked closely with “the system” to work out kinks in the forced busing programs throughout the district. I believe she even was its president.
Well now, imagine one of the brightest, most articulate, clear and fair minded professional women one could ever meet, no matter what level, and that would be Harriet Lykken.
She admitted to me that she had already called several school officials, but couldn’t get any explanations except they claimed I did not meet district’s teaching standards. She asked me if there was anything I was being fired for beyond that……was there something (untoward) that I had done.
“There is nothing and never has been anything”.
Then she asked if I would mind if she conducted an investigation to discover the reasons for which I had been fired, “For Joey tells me you are his best teacher ever”.
I begged that she would do so……and she did. Several weeks later she called me confessing she had inquired about me everywhere possible and asked friends to do the same. I came out clean and “exceptional” she said. She also had looked at the court record of the case in which the reviewing judge had from the evidence brought out in my “trial” after the first firing, had ajudicated me as an outstanding teacher.
Would I come over for dinner and meet her family? Maybe we could discuss more about what you think happened, she said.
It turned out her husband was David Lykken a noted researcher in the study of identical twins. The Lykkens were the best kind of liberals. They had been at home when it was raided by the Minneapolis police looking for some kind of seditious propaganda on their premises only a month or two before I had met Harriet.
The Lykkens, including their young son, were the nicest, fairest, most level-headed and poised and classiest people I had ever met.
I informed my Federation of Teachers’ Union I did not want to have any attorney to represent me my secret hearing. Instead I decided to ask Harriet Lykken if she would make a statement on my behalf. After all, she had done more research into my background that any attorney would ever have done. She agreed to do so.
School Authorities: the Superintendent, Assistant Superintendent, Attorney, and other Superintendents balked……which really then, for the first time, made Harriet their enemy. Previously, she had simply been a concerned citizen. Such people are so vital in the workings of civilized society. I fear they don’t exist anymore, for they are all employed somewhere. The free world is not as free without citizens like Harriet Lykken.
My “trial two”, the secret one, was delayed. The system’s attorney demanded I either appear alone or with an attorney. My union, God Bless it, insisted I should be allowed any person I choose to accompany me. It would not yield on the matter. The ‘system’-Union agreement allowed me to be represented at the ‘secret’ hearing. It had always been assumed representation meant a lawyer, but it hadn’t been so stated on paper.
It was one of the proudest day of my life, a teacher sitting in that audience of 15 highly paid School System Authorities and their attorneys……..being represented by Harriet Lykken, who clearly understood the pox which overwhelmed school systems…….an inability to respect truth, an inabilitiy to respect knowledge, an inability to develop students to be better citizens and human beings at the end of their public school education that they were at the beginning.”
I do believe the American public schools have been in decline on all fronts since these events of nearly 40 years ago.
School authorities were far more interested in getting “good press”. They lied regularly.
I don’t think much has changed for teachers in the past 40 years, except that their role in ‘the system’ is considerably weaker. Take another look at the video of Governor Christie battle with the NJEA and remember it has an annual income of $130,000,000 to help run the state “the Union way”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNM11xtg954
Filed under: American Culture, Education
