Florida teacher resigns after school district removes his 'age inappropriate' images of MLK and Harriet Tubman

[Lezunto]

Local news reporters are not always accurate and sometimes they will get things wrong. From the news stories I've read, this teacher did not object to the two people who were supposed to help him get his classroom ready for the school year.

He did question why the photos were being removed. But he did not physically try to prevent them from being removed. Despite his 15 years of prior teaching elsewhere, he is a new teacher in Florida and probably didn't want to antagonize anyone in the school or the district before he even saw a student.

One news story said a woman either was holding or pointed to a photo of Barack Obama and allegedly said: "You don't need to put this one up either."

On another discussion group dealing with Black Culture Race and the Economy, which is dominated by pro-Trump Blacks, it was claimed I was basically making a mountain out of a molehill or couldn't read. So, I countered that because it was Florida, this was likely an example of Ron DeSantis' war on Black History disguised as anti-wokeness.

Then I posted the following link to illustrate how pervasive this attitude is in the U.S.

Teacher Anti-CRT Bills Coast To Coast: A State By State Guide

A state by state guide to the national trend in teacher gag laws.

www.forbes.com

But some in this discussion group don't seem to care for links, preferring to remain inside their pro-Trump bubbles of delusion. Many are obsessed with wealth, believe 45 can never do wrong, and care not a twit about those being ground into fine human powder by the greedy.

I guess this battle will go on for a couple of weeks more on here. I'm just hoping the teacher lands on his feet in a place where his talent and dedication are welcomed.

 

[Lezunto]

One could go crazy following stuff like this.

The following seems to be an older story.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/la-elementary-school-sued-over-000331556.html

 

[Captante]

One could go crazy following stuff like this.

The following seems to be an older story.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/la-elementary-school-sued-over-000331556.html

More true then you may realize.... I do suggest remaining aware by following news to a degree BUT I also STRONGLY suggest that you make it a point to limit your media intake for the sake of your mental health and well-being.

Too much of this crap can be seriously depressing.

 

[Lezunto]

Oh, I do ignore most of it. I just happen to remember that particular incident. It just appears in a row of news stories.

I'm more concerned about Dems in general.

 

[Captante]

Oh, I do ignore most of it. I just happen to remember that particular incident. It just appears in a row of news stories.

I'm more concerned about Dems in general.

My smartphone became the crux of issue for me preceding and immediately following January 6th.... I had to go cold turkey!



It got to the point where I was getting to be like one of those sick/addicted kids/young adults you see walking around eyes glued to the phone-screen and all I could think about was my next angry rant/post.

Roughly mid-feb 2021 I had had enough and I deleted or locked most of the accounts I had on other political forums plus at the same time I cut out 90% of my news media intake.

It took a couple weeks but this eventually did wonders for my peace of mind!

 

[mindless1]

Only in the mind of people like you displaying a picture of MLK is damaging to kids

If you can't make an argument then you just fabricate fiction. It's not damaging to kids, nor did I ever imply it was.

What it is doing, is replacing the required teaching aids that need to be on that board right in front of them. Maybe that is damaging by reducing their educational development.

What if your math teacher decided, "I'll just put up posters of my heros instead of using the center (blackboard) to do equations"? It cheats the children out of what they were in the class to learn which was bare essentials. The blackboard is there for a reason and it's not hanging posters of people.

Remember, these are young autistic children, not able to be taught in regular classrooms, or at least benefit from alternative teaching methods which includes that board which was misappropriated for another purpose.

You're trying to twist the event to suit your hate agenda, while none of that changes the need for the center board to be used for core studies, not posters. That precedes any other possible argument.

How about the windshield of your car? If you'd like to put up posters of things on it while driving around, if police tell you to remove the posters then are they up to no good, or is it rather that you ignored the core purpose of your windshield?

 

[mindless1]

Living down to that name again.

Sometimes I wonder why you bother to get out of bed in the morning, or do you sleep under a bridge like other trolls?

 

[brycejones]

If you can't make an argument then you just fabricate fiction. It's not damaging to kids, nor did I ever imply it was.

What it is doing, is replacing the required teaching aids that need to be on that board right in front of them. Maybe that is damaging by reducing their educational development.

What if your math teacher decided, "I'll just put up posters of my heros instead of using the center (blackboard) to do equations"? It cheats the children out of what they were in the class to learn which was bare essentials. The blackboard is there for a reason and it's not hanging posters of people.

Remember, these are young autistic children, not able to be taught in regular classrooms, or at least benefit from alternative teaching methods which includes that board which was misappropriated for another purpose.

You're trying to twist the event to suit your hate agenda, while none of that changes the need for the center board to be used for core studies, not posters. That precedes any other possible argument.

How about the windshield of your car? If you'd like to put up posters of things on it while driving around, if police tell you to remove the posters then are they up to no good, or is it rather that you ignored the core purpose of your windshield?

Quoting just for the batshit.

 

[woolfe9998]

It isn't batshit though. Unless the quotes from school officials and the teacher himself in that DC article are not accurate, the incident did not unfold as the teacher initially claimed. The posters were removed because they took the place of things like the alphabet, when the students were at a low reading level, and also because the text contained on the posters was beyond said reading level. The posters were left with the teacher who was free to put them up on the walls of his classroom. He did not object to this when it happened, suggesting that the idea to object came to him later, making it a calculated decision.

The fact that he ran for mayor of a small Alabama town as a republican and took the position that drug dealers should be executed suggests he is a far right conservative. I'm not too sure I'd take his word here over public school officials. What political oritentation would you suppose teachers and administrators of a public school typically have, let alone those in a nearly all black school? For all we know, this teacher was pushing a narrative that it's the liberals who are the real racists. Maybe that's why he e-mailed DeSantis.

 

[Captante]

If the school had replaced the MLK etc pics with a bunch of old white dudes and forbidden the teacher hanging them anywhere the "racism" spin on this story would have a lot more life to it.

As usual the devil is in the details and the circumstances DO matter.

Admittedly since I wasn't physically there in the classroom when this occurred I don't actually know what happened anymore then anyone else here but this certainly sounds like a case of the media taking the ball and running with it to whip up a "big story".

 

[HomerJS]

If you can't make an argument then you just fabricate fiction. It's not damaging to kids, nor did I ever imply it was.

What it is doing, is replacing the required teaching aids that need to be on that board right in front of them. Maybe that is damaging by reducing their educational development.

What if your math teacher decided, "I'll just put up posters of my heros instead of using the center (blackboard) to do equations"? It cheats the children out of what they were in the class to learn which was bare essentials. The blackboard is there for a reason and it's not hanging posters of people.

Remember, these are young autistic children, not able to be taught in regular classrooms, or at least benefit from alternative teaching methods which includes that board which was misappropriated for another purpose.

You're trying to twist the event to suit your hate agenda, while none of that changes the need for the center board to be used for core studies, not posters. That precedes any other possible argument.

How about the windshield of your car? If you'd like to put up posters of things on it while driving around, if police tell you to remove the posters then are they up to no good, or is it rather that you ignored the core purpose of your windshield?

Sure, it's all about curriculum and the specific placement pf the pictures, that's why the district also...

She reportedly told James that the images were not "age appropriate." He says she also removed a picture of former President Barack Obama from his desk.

Florida Teacher Quits After Staff Member Removed Photos Of Black Leaders (msn.com)

Also

James chose the board’s theme because the majority of the students and the residents in the neighborhoods that surround O.J. Semmes are Black, and he wanted to motivate his students with inspirational leaders they could easily look up to and see themselves.
James, 61, of Daphne, Alabama, sent his letter to the governor Monday night. He officially resigned from his position as an exceptional student education teacher at O.J. Semmes Elementary School on Tuesday morning.
Superintendent Smith said teachers are permitted to decorate their classrooms with educational materials and he was unaware of any policies that would prohibit a teacher from displaying pictures of inspirational American heroes on their walls.

Florida Teacher Resigns after His Black Heroes Pictures Are Taken Down (yahoo.com)

So now the Superintendent is saying they are unaware of any rule that would allow a teacher from decorating their classroom. The teacher wanted examples of black heroes because his class was predominately black. I guess that isn't allowed in the new Florida.

I guess a picture of President Obama on a teacher's desk is now an age inappropriate crime in Florida

 

[woolfe9998]

Yes, the problem with the media's initial stories was that they were entirely based on the teacher's version of events. That is why I did not weigh in on this thread, because I always want to hear both sides of the story first.

Too often this comes up in cases involving schools where something controversial occurs. The school often cannot respond and the complainant, usually a student, determines the entire media narrative. Fortunately, in this case, it did not involve a specific student, so the school was able to respond.

I personally think it's better for the country when stories like this not turn out the way the initial racially charged narrative suggested. These anti-CRT laws are depressing enough, as is the wider culture war within which all of this is happening. I'd rather discover that at least in this one case, things are not as bad as we suspected, then have the opportunity to score political points.

 

[Lezunto]

I pay little attention to things like these unless they become recurring news stories.

Generally, unless they are celebrities, entertainers or sports stars, Black people are despised, disrespected and dismissed everyday.

For most of them, it's part of living in this country. Not only is this trashing done by Whites, it's also from people who weren't even born here such as Dinesh D'Souza. There are exceptions, of course.

Why I would be obsessed with such anti-Black crap when I can see it every couple of days? Many Whites have the luxury of being nonplussed about racism. Black people do not.

And I get tired of talking about it.

I was simply responding to a post about the Florida teacher and dug for more information. But to some people, this must have been akin to stealing the Magna Carta.