quite appalling

[winterbadger]

Anti-war poetry is apparently sedition as well.

Bill Nevins, a New Mexico high school teacher and personal friend, was fired last year and classes in poetry and the poetry club at Rio Rancho High School were permanently terminated. It had nothing to do with obscenity, but it had everything to do with extremist politics.

The "Slam Team" was a group of teenage poets who asked Nevins to serve as faculty adviser to their club. The teens, mostly shy youngsters, were taught to read their poetry aloud and before audiences. Rio Rancho High School gave the Slam Team access to the school's closed-circuit television once a week and the poets thrived.

In March 2003, a teenage girl named Courtney presented one of her poems before an audience at Barnes & Noble bookstore in Albuquerque, then read the poem live on the school's closed-circuit television channel.

A school military liaison and the high school principal accused the girl of being "un-American" because she criticized the war in Iraq and the Bush administration's failure to give substance to its "No child left behind" education policy.

The girl's mother, also a teacher, was ordered by the principal to destroy the child's poetry. The mother refused and may lose her job.

Bill Nevins was suspended for not censoring the poetry of his students. Remember, there is no obscenity to be found in any of the poetry. He was later fired by the principal.

After firing Nevins and terminating the teaching and reading of poetry in the school, the principal and the military liaison read a poem of their own as they raised the flag outside the school. When the principal had the flag at full staff, he applauded the action he'd taken in concert with the military liaison.

Notice that apparently Iran is now an official "enemy nation"

Writers and editors who have spent years translating essays, films, poems, scientific articles and books by Iranian, North Korean and Sudanese authors have been warned not to do so by the U.S. Treasury Department under penalty of fine and imprisonment. Publishers and film producers are not allowed to edit works authored by writers in those nations. The Bush administration contends doing so has the effect of trading with the enemy, despite a 1988 law that exempts published materials from sanction under trade rules.

Robert Bovenschulte, president of the [publications division] American Chemical Society, is challenging the rule interpretation by violating it to edit into English several scientific papers from Iran.

[Edit] In fact, the Treasury Department has since clarified that editing and translating falls into the category of dealing with "informational materials" which are specifically exempt from these sanctions.

The importation from any country and the exportation to any country of information and informational materials as defined in Sec. 560.315, whether commercial or otherwise, regardless of format or medium of transmission, are exempt from the prohibitions and regulations of this part. (Code of Federal Regulations 31, Chapter V, Part 560, Section 210)

informational materials are "Publications, films, posters, phonograph records, photographs, microfilms, microfiche, tapes, compact disks, CD ROMs, artworks, and news wire feeds." (Code of Federal Regulations 31, Chapter V, Part 560, Section315)

Comments

On Zero Tolerance and tenure

[robbysmom.livejournal.com]

Looking into "0 tolerance" m'self:

1. Rio Rancho student zonked for not reciting pledge

http://kobtv.com/index.cfm?viewer=storyviewer&id=10794&cat=HOME
and
http://www.krqe.com/expanded1.asp?RECORD_KEY%5BBigLocal%5D=ID&ID%5BBigLocal%5D=5219

2. application of rules about "weapons" :

http://www.aclu-nm.org/news-press-2001-05-01.htm

"ACLU contends that the school never notified [. . . ] that a penknife could be considered a weapon. 'The only information that families receive is the student handbook and that contains no definition of 'weapon,' [. . .] "The penknife at issue is just over one inch long [. . .] mother's employer had distributed the key ring, with a miniature flashlight and penknife attached, as a promotional item." [. . . ]"

"At the suspension hearing Principal Tripp and Vice Principal Belmore testified that the [0 tol.] policy prohibits school authorities from exercising any discretion. "

TODAY, the school's website states:

"The [. . .] disciplinary matrix is designed to serve as a guide when administrators are determining consequences. Nothing [. . .] should prevent an administrator from using his or her own discretion."

and defines a weapon as:

"any firearm, knife, explosive, or other object, even if manufactured for a nonviolent purpose that has a potential violent use. Additionally defined as a "weapon" is any "look-a-like" object that resembles an object that has a potentially violent use, if, under the surrounding circumstances the purpose of keeping or carrying the object is for use, or threat of use, as a weapon."

http://www.rrps.net/RRMID/RRMH/Rules%20and%20Policies/rulesindex.htm

3. School has a) a dress code
http://www.rrps.net/PDF/SchoolWear/Policy%20Mid-high%20School%202003-04.pdf
b) won a quality award
http://www.rrps.net/Achievement/Instruction/SPReports/RRMH/rrmhprofile.htm
and is "the state's newest and sixth largest school district," in the "first Charter District" and has "undergone rigorous scrutiny by trained examiners [. . .], as well as an accreditation team from the New Mexico Public Education Department (PED) and the North Central Association (NCA). . ."
http://www.rrps.net/Achievement/District/history.html).

Rio Rancho is a growing, upscale community (see http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/news04/042904_news_riohomes.shtml).

Folks of MANY political stripes may regard what the district does, overall, as "correct."

Clearly, the adminsitrators have gone over the line in applying rules that anyway try to dictate, not just guide, students' behavior. Many schools have a fascistic streak in their "0 tol" polcies, BECAUSE it's easier than "fixing" public schools.

Still, there's no necessary connection between THIS apparently otherwise laudatory achievment AND Nevin's case. (but rember HOuston schools, too!).

To me, Nevins got contract "not renewed" because he was politically uncompromising ABOUT TEACHING. Officially, they got him on paperwork, so they say.
http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/news03/091103_news_nevins.shtml

I think the distrcit wanted a teacher more like pablum. THIS is Nevins:

http://www.unm.edu/~abqteach/world_lit/02-06-07.htm.

"This summer’s ATI seminar in world literature confirmed my belief that to meet worthy educational goals like those of the RRHS Humanities Academy, secondary students must address the concept of world literature, as defined by no less a seminal giant of Western thought than Goethe and as further refined in the recent works of respected cultural scholars. Indeed, as Margaret Spencer suggests in “In the Canon’s Mouth,” true literacy in our present world resides in the experience of “the networking of ideas and cultures; that is the multicultural reality into which new readers must come”(344). "

Re: On Zero Tolerance and tenure

[winterbadger]

Clearly, the adminsitrators have gone over the line in applying rules that anyway try to dictate, not just guide, students' behavior. Many schools have a fascistic streak in their "0 tol" polcies, BECAUSE it's easier than "fixing" public schools.

When I was working at NASSP (as well as before and after) I saw many, MANY appalling applications of zero-tolerance policies. They've had a tremendously chilling effect on living history groups or individuals volunteering to give educational programs in schools or in places near or associated with schools, because many horrifying stories (some bogus, some completely accurate) are in circulation in the community about LH people being arrested, fined, or otherwise prosecuted for carrying or displaying weapons on or near schools, *EVEN AFTER* receiving confirmation from teh school principal and/or local police department that their educational program would not be liable for prosecution. I even saw a newspaper article that alleged that one "frontier life" interpreter hand-carved a replica Pennsylvania rifle out of wood, so he could demonstrate their workings while not being liable who was *still* either warned or charged (at this point I forget which) for carrying a "weapon or weapon lookalike" on school grounds.

A lot of administrators like to claim that these sorts of policies are necessary because if they use their own judgement they will be laying themselves and their school/district open to lawsuits from concerned parents. IMO this is a bogus claim, but even if it were true, surely our legal system needs to be able to protect people using good judgement and penalize people for filing frivolous or nonsensical lawsuits.

I'm inclined to think that there is an overwhelming breakdown in what used to be called "common sense." I don't think that people share a common perception of what is sensible any more, at least to the extent they used to. If I were more conservative I might, like the author you were posting about recently, ascribe the process to multiculturalism and the collapsing of a consensus culture. But it's my impression that the most hysterical and unrealistic people, at least when it comes to schools and kids in general are middle class and upper middle class anglo parents.