Meeting with Education Department Chair

As many things as I think the OP can improve upon, some of this feels like a stretch. I have never seen a middle or high school require a math teacher to have a "Veteran's Day-themed algebra lesson."

 

Not that it has any bearing on your ability to teach math, but why didn't you just tell them you didn't think the pledge would be an issue and you'll just stand silently from now on. I don't know why it's being made such a big deal about but you'd be way less conspicuous if you just stood with the students. If you just sat there then there are bound to be questions from the students which you could certainly avoid. I've never known people who didn't want to say the pledge to not at least stand. You'll be sticking out like a sore thumb and with all of your other issues that's not what you want. Sometimes it's easier just to blend in with the crowd and nobody will notice you're not saying anything.

 

So, if a teacher with creationist beliefs taught evolutionary creation as satire that would be justified?

 

Excellent point from the opposite end of the spectrum!

 

That would violate the law for one. For two, anyone incompetent enough to buy into creationism over science should be institutionalized.

 

That's almost like asking me to stand and be respectful when the students hail Hitler.

 

Well, you need to go find a place to teach where there are absolutely no Christians.

I'm considering your remarks as a manifestion of your condition, so I choose not to be offended.

 

I've met Christian scientists who believe intelligent design is ********.

 

I don't buy it. Stand and take attendance or stand and look out the window. They won't know you're not standing for the same reason they are. With so many other important issues why are you nit picking? As I said in my other post, when it's your own class you can do what you want. Wouldn't it be easier to get your student teaching over with and not have EXTRA issues?

 

The point is I shouldn't have to. People should be able to know I don't say or support the pledge, and not make up stupid reasons as to why.

 

I respect your resolve and your stand on saluting the flag. But you have to realize that most people do not believe as you do. So you will be swimming up stream so to speak. There is an old saying. Pick and choose the your battles. I would not say a thing. Just do what you feel is right. Then if you are asked about it be honest and say how you feel. As far as I am concerned it is your business but realize this. You teach the children of people with many ideas. They will judge you, complain about you, raise h#ll about you etc. I hope you are up to the task.

 

People can feel free to whine and moan about me all they want, but they can come do it to me at the school where I have freedom to say get the f out of my classroom if they take it too far.

I consider myself very rational and can listen to reason, and I didn't give my professors and the chairperson hell for calling me in about separate issues, but I am very clear with people that they need to cut the bull **** when talking to me.

I realize many people suffer from the concerned parent syndrome, but they have to use logic when talking to me, or I'm no longer listening.

 

Is this oppositional and somewhat defiant attitude something that you have been working on with your therapist? I sense that you pick one thing and then worry and obsess on it, like a dog with a bone. I see students all day who have similar problems, and yes, some may be in the autistic spectrum, but it is exhausting revisiting an issue with someone who is so sure that their's is the ONLY valid viewpoint. I sense you are trying to pick a fight, either with your university or this forum. Neither of us deserves that. Believe what you want. Period. Realize that you need to NOT stick out like a sore thumb to get a job. This is something that only you can resolve in your head. Your anger at your instructors, however, seems misplaced and over blown. Just an ovservation.

FYI - all parents should be concerned, and it is NOT a syndrome.

 

I should have specified that concerned parent syndrome is a joke term that my psychologist made up when I addressed worries about having to deal with tough parents when I begin my career.

 

I'm going to be blunt with you, SF. You are not going to find a job with the current attitudes and ideas you have, and if you do, it will not end well.

You need a serious wake-up call, and to take an in depth assessment of your attitudes and ideas, if there is any chance for you to be successful in this field. That is a fact-it's not opinion, you might not think it fair, but it's a fact.

Good luck.

 

WHAT? What education class taught you that was a perfectly acceptable line of defense?

 

I'm telling you-we're being punked.

 

This is the exact problem I'm talking about with people stating that their viewpoint is that either I participate in the pledge, or I'm insulting the country. That's their viewpoint, and I'm fighting it being the only valid viewpoint people should have.

 

I'm not saying I would do this, but it was a counter to them saying they have the freedom to whine and make up insulting rumors about me.

 

Pardon me, but who in the hell has said you have to say the pledge?????

MANY SOLUTIONS TO THIS PROBLEM HAVE BEEN FLOATED.

You choose not to hear them.

Your professor was NOT telling you to say the pledge. He was telling you to quit being weird so people would like you. Conform. Fit in. Do what you gotta do to get through this, and salvage some sense of accomplishment so that when you do apply for jobs, schools are not automatically eliminating you because you are freaky about things that don't deserve to be freaky about.

Repeat after me: It's a non issue. LET. IT. GO.

 

He wasn't my professor, he was the department chair.

 

That just made her point. You are focusing on the wrong issue at hand here. The issue is not with the pledge, it's the fact that your professors are seeing behaviors that will make potential employers (and if you get a job parents) uncomfortable.

 

Oh to be a fly in the wall of that DEPARTMENT CHAIR'S wall when he was talking about you.

You mean a department chair doesn't teach classes? Surely he is a professor as well.

If we're going to focus on crap and non issues, it's on.

 

I said he wasn't MY professor. Now take that bullet!

 

Okay, so I think I get the point here somewhat.

I'm actually planning on purchasing a portable podium anyway because of my sensory issues making it tough to sit for long periods of time, and mostly because I don't want to have to be sitting every time I do paperwork such as grading tests, so I can simply stay standing and not participate, even though I don't think it should be necessary. The problem wasn't that it is a pain to have to stand up, but that if I prefer to be seated, people shouldn't have a problem with it.

 

There we go. Problems solved. You are now ready to be an educator. All the best!

 

Sometimes it is difficult to take in the comments at that exact moment and it require looking back on the comments in the future.

SF, go take a look at my topic from last fall on the Student Teaching board here. Have a fun time reading about my... trials and tribulations.

Not being recommended for student teaching and having to repeat a field experience might be in your best interest - you will get a second chance to learn more.

Limiting awkward body movements & changing pitch and volume of voice is also an issue I face. With the awkward body movements - with me, they manifest in the hands, so I will gesticulate frequently when teaching, or I will rub my thumb on my palm so I can keep my hands steady.

I'd probably watch a youtube video of that and laugh during it.

Then feel horrible afterwards because it was being taught to students.

Your opinion/belief about the pledge is a private matter, just like religion in a private school. The position of teacher is not a pulpit from which you broadcast your opinions. You are to demonstrate to students appropriate behavior in our society - which is to stand and say the pledge K-12, or when the National Anthem is played, stand in respect.

With the pledge, might I suggest an alternative - stand and mouth the words. I would do that in HS when my allergies were acting up.

If I may share, one of the things that helped me the most in college wasn't any of my classes, but it was the people in my classes. I am not social, never have been. However, most of my classmates learned within a short period of time my technological prowess - I would usually help professors fix tech issues they were experiencing at least once in every class. It led to classmates asking me questions - which led to... forced interaction with my classmates, which made me somewhat uncomfortable, as I am not very good with social interaction.

The semester before I was supposed to do student teaching (I did it the semester after, instead), I had a rather.. inconvenient schedule, as I cannot drive. I had to get to the university by 11 AM (so around 10 AM by train, as it was either arrive at 10:00 AM or 11:20 AM) and then that class let out around 1:30, then I had a night class from 4:30 to 7:15. there was no way for me to get home in between the classes, so i'd stay on campus. A few of my classmates and I would meet every week during that ~3 hour block of time in the library to eat lunch/study/talk. They knew I had difficulty socializing, so I think that's why they invited me to their little group (and they probably liked having access to someone who could fix their computers if they had any issues). They would also actively engage me in their conversations, when they were relevant to me (being that I was one of three guys in the special education program, none of them sharing classes with me, the topics of interest shared between us were somewhat rare)

 

Well, this is exactly what I wanted to say but was trying to be nice...

It sounds like the pledge issue is something the OP feels he has control over so he is opposed to standing for and reciting it. It's something he can say "NO" to and nobody should be able to take away that right. It seems there's not much in his life he has control over so this one little issue (that can be resolved quite easily as many people have suggested) is being blown out of proportion. This thread is making me

 

My job isn't to preach my opinions about the pledge, but I do feel I have a duty to inform the students that it is within their constitutional rights to refuse to stand and say it. How many kids do you think know that saying it is optional? Don't you think they should know even if they refuse to say it? That way, if they still choose to say it, they will be doing it with pride, and not because they feel their teachers and their parents said to do it so they are doing it.

 

Wow.

I won't sugarcoat things: you absolutely should not teach. And I reach that conclusion not all even considering your stance toward the pledge. Please, please take your meeting as a huge flag indicating you are unlikely going to be happy or successful as a regular educator. I have read a great deal about you but I can't recall of your difficulties, but your personality issues as they are currently are going to cause you significant trouble as a teacher and a number of other careers.

Even though I'm being straightforward, I don't at all intend to be mean. I think you're tough enough to take the brutal honesty.

 

I have been at a school where all teachers were supposed to have a lesson that somehow fit in Veterans Day even if it was simply used in a word problem. I see it done more in schools where there are already a lot of cross curricular units in place and more at private schools, but such things definitely exist.

We are apparently now legally required to have a Veterans Day assembly of some sort. It's new this year but all teachers and students will be expected to attend in my district. Our principal is also encouraging staff members to help plan the assembly. It's not a requirement to help plan it but I know he'll look favorably on those who do.

 

We all had to teach a Constitution Day lesson. I teach English, so it wasn't much of a stretch. There are other times when we are required to teach lessons unrelated to our curriculum because of state laws requiring drug ed, etc.

 

Veterans Day I wouldn't mind, because we don't all have to stand and say some fascist scripted pledge for it.

 

Calling the pledge of allegiance "some scripted fascist pledge" is not going to win you any points in the job market. You need to work on your phrasing. You can still tell the truth without being abrasive and immediately putting people on the defensive.

If you think a pledge makes us fascist, I must implore you and beg you to actually go study history. A pledge does not a fascist make.

 

If anyone could convince me that the pledge is not what I think it is, and that it is important, I welcome them.

However, you'll have to use logic and not something emotionally sappy. Send me a private message though to not get off topic.

 

This is such a non issue. I have my reasons for disagreeing with saying the pledge, so I just quietly stand. It is respectful to the others in the room. I am from a military family, and I tangibly support troops, and my dad will soon be buried with full honors at Arlington, but the pledge is another issue and I, frankly, find it creepy. I teach in a high military % school, and NOBODY CARES. Really.

I would evaluate the need to be defensive and confrontational. It's pretty rare that either is ever called for.

 

You absolutely DO NOT have that duty or right. That duty or right is solely determined by the parents. You can bet I would be the first parent in the Principal's office first thing the next morning if you had the gall to tell that to my child!

 

And you would be wrong... Telling the students that they are allowed to refuse to say the pledge if they wish is absolutely something they should know. I would call you an abusive parent if you were to want to withhold that information from your kids.

 

Oh, dear Mother of God. Abusive parent?

 

Mentally abusive, yes.

Do you honestly really believe that a parent is not abusive if they want their kids misled and lied to thinking they have to be involved in and recite something when the supreme court says otherwise?

I also think anyone who feels that nobody else has a right to have any influence on the lives of their children is also abusive. We are teachers, we have a right to play a role in shaping the opinions and beliefs of the kids we teach. We don't teach them what to think, but how to think, and teaching them not to believe everything they are told, even when it comes from their parents is exactly how they should be thinking.