On the one hand, teachers should be applauded when they assign meaningful writing assignments, such as writing letters to elected officials or military members. On the other hand, when teachers don't bother to teach children what the proper time and place is for positive vs. negative communication, the results can be ugly:
Pfc. Rob Jacobs of New Jersey said he was initially ecstatic to get a package of letters from sixth-graders at JHS 51 in Park Slope last month at his base 10 miles from the North Korea border. That changed when he opened the envelope and found missives strewn with politically charged rhetoric, vicious accusations and demoralizing predictions that only a handful of soldiers would leave the Iraq war alive.
"It's hard enough for soldiers to deal with being away from their families, they don't need to be getting letters like this," Jacobs, 20, said in a phone interview from his base at Camp Casey...
Most of the 21 letters Jacobs provided to The Post mentioned some support for the armed forces, if not the Iraq war, and thanked him for his service. But nine of the students made clear their distaste for the president or the war. The letters were written as a social-studies assignment.
The JHS 51 teacher, Alex Kunhardt, did not return phone calls, but the school principal, Xavier Costello, responded with a statement: "While we would never censor anything that our children write, we sincerely apologize for forwarding letters that were in any way inappropriate to Pfc. Jacobs."
Ah, I see. Educating children to be polite to letters to servicemen, and to avoid rash charges of murder and mayhem in unsolicited written communication, would be "censorship." Got it.
Wizbang is equally unimpressed, and notes that the teacher is obviously guilty of failing to teach geography as well:
Jacobs was stationed in South Korea, far away from Iraq. Even though Jacobs was not in Iraq, why did the teacher allow these letters to be sent? Aren't teachers supposed to be the responsible adults in the classroom, is it too much to ask that the use a little common sense?
Update: Commenter LC ima mommy has the following:
The soldier in the article is my little brother, and my family appreciates you taking the time to write in support of him. There will be a follow up in the Post tomorrow, and my dad will be on Hannity and Colmes to discuss the issue...
The followup is here (thanks, KimJ!):
The city Department of Education, red-faced over Brooklyn sixth-graders who slammed a GI with demoralizing anti-Iraq-war letters as part of a school assignment, will send the 20-year-old private a letter of apology today. Deputy Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina, who has a nephew serving in Iraq, plans to personally contact Pfc. Rob Jacobs and his family, said department spokeswoman Michele McManus Higgins...
The GI got the ranting missives last month from pint-sized pen pals at JHS 51 in Park Slope. Filled with political diatribes, the letters — excerpts of which were printed in yesterday's Post — predicted GIs would die by the tens of thousands, accused soldiers of killing Iraqi civilians and bashed President Bush.
Teacher Alex Kunhardt had his students write Jacobs as part of a social-studies assignment. He declined to comment yesterday on whether he read the rants before passing them along, but said he planned to contact Jacobs soon to explain the situation.
In an accompanying letter to Jacobs, Kunhardt had written that the students "come from a variety of backgrounds and political beliefs, but unanimously support the bravery and sacrifice of American soldiers around the world."
"Support" was not the word that came to Jacobs' mind when he read the letters.
The understatement of the year, given the dire predictions and statements in the letters. If one were feeling charitable, one could assume that the teacher didn't read the letters (I suppose that would have been "censorship"), and conclude that the teacher in question is guilty only of failing to teach the students to be kind.
Others are not feeling so charitable today:
What a freaking joke. Are we supposed to believe that no teacher even read these letters before sending them out? They knew damned well what was in there and chose to send the package anyway. The children may have even been coached to write this garbage. It’s disgusting, and it’s more than a little frightening for the future to think that children’s opinions are being shaped by the kind of anti-American nutjobs who can read a letter predicting death and defeat for our troops and see nothing wrong.
Even though I'm in a charitable mood, I find it hard to believe that sixth-graders naturally came by the rants about killing innocent people and only 100 soldiers surviving the war.
Wizbang has a follow-up in which a blogger from the planet Bizarro thinks that all of us outraged by this story are just "Republican attack hamsters" who are picking on poor defenseless sixth-graders. But then he goes on to say:
The kid has an excuse for being stupid---he or she is eleven years old.
It seems to have escaped this blogger's notice that everyone else linking to this story is criticizing the teacher, not the kids, for allowing this to happen, and this "enlightened" blogger is the only one I've seen who calls the kids "stupid." Who, exactly, is picking on the kids, again?
Update #2: One of LGF's commenters notes that the middle school in question, JHS 51 in Park Slope, is a feeder school for the Acorn High School for Social Justice:
The ACORN High School for Social Justice created by a resolution of the Board of Education on June 24, 1999 opened its doors to students for the first time in September of 1999. The school offers an opportunity for students to engage in a comprehensive academic program and to participate in citywide campaigns dealing with issues of social injustice which affect the Bushwick Community and the larger Brooklyn community. ACORN High School for Social Justice's mixture of academic and community involvement helps the students to become lifelong learners.
Fascinatingly, Acorn students show a higher number-per-thousand of the students involved in police department incidents than students at similar schools or city schools, at least for the "non-criminal" incidents. Guess the school does a good job of preparing students to be arrested at protests.
Posted by kswygert at February 21, 2005 01:08 PM