Recently in Education Category

Upon hearing there would be new editions of Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer" substituting the N-word with "slave," I quickly became a 15-year-old again. I was back in that cramped classroom, one of three black students, uncomfortably listening to students of other races read "Huck Finn" aloud.

Granted, the teacher took the right precautions: a pre-lecture on inappropriate use of the N-word, a separate conversation with the black students asking how they felt about the rest of the class using the term and a no-questions-asked option for all students to skip over the word during recitation. Still, I remember it being a few incredibly uncomfortable weeks of my secondary school experience.

Though I can remember being offended by the students who used the word more brazenly than I liked or the stares by students wanting to catch my reaction to use of the word, I now laugh off the memory as a growing pain, something me and many friends have commiserated about.

The reality is, Twain aimed to bring the language, attitude and actions of the people of a certain time to life through his literature. If read in the right context, with appropriate teaching methods, "Huck Finn" becomes both a historical and social learning experience. To erase the N-word from the text is to say it didn't exist in history. Doing so would be a disservice to our youth.

On a recent trip with girlfriends, a discussion regarding appropriate social network behavior arose. One friend said she's reluctant to post pictures of herself with alcoholic beverages fearing its effect on work prospects. Another argued that bosses, execs drink too. The discussion ended abruptly, with no consensus.

Four Kansas nursing students must have not come to a consensus either. They were temporarily dismissed from their program at Johnson County Community College after posting a picture with a placenta to Facebook. One of the students has filed a lawsuit claiming she didn't violate any school policy and wasn't notified by the instructor that such practices were prohibited.

I'm reluctant to side with either party in this story as I'm unaware of JCCC 's mission statement or privacy and behavioral policies. What I do know is that for the most part, social network etiquette has thrived on one rule: use common sense. Would an employer want to hire me if they saw me chugging a beer? Or, scantily dressed? Probably not.

But, what about a placenta? The answer isn't too cut and dry. Most know what too far looks like, but what about the realm between too far and appropriate? Cases like this will continue to pop up if businesses, educational institutions do not begin to provide concrete social network behavioral expectations.

Consider me relieved that some libertarians and conservatives are willing to call a kook a kook. If both parties dial down their kookiness, we can yet navigate this mess.

I think this musing about political diversity from a University of Oregon student is worth considering on college campuses around the country. It's in the interests of liberal faculty to take this seriously, if they are serious about wanting to connect with and shape their world, rather than being cloistered away from it.

Never heard the case against summer vacation made as well as it is here.

Antonio just praised LAUSD Superintendent Ray Cortines and pledged to put "a team in place" to help reform schools.

He's probably said the word "charters" eight times already.

And if our schools don't succeed:

"When wholesale change is the only answer, we will close them down ... and turn them over to charter operators, the mayor's partnership, local universities."

As reported by CNN, UCLA has refused to offer academic credit to some Christian schools' courses on science and history, jeopardizing the admissions prospects of graduates from those schools. Good for UCLA and the UC system.

One religious school administrator offered this other-worldly defense of his school's academics:

Our teachings reflect that God exists ...whereas UC wants courses to be taught from a perspective that there is no God.

And one student offered this defense of her religious school's curriculum:

When you look at our science curriculums -- we're given every theory from intelligent design to evolution... whereas it's more narrow in public schools so I think we're given a broader spectrum.

Sure, that's great. But it's fair to say that, at any school where creationism is taught as a legitimate theory, evolution will be taught as a weaker cousin. In other words, such a school intentionally places its ideology above the ideology of empiricism, which drives American higher education.

So they've made their choice. And choices have consequences. They'll need to go to Azusa Pacific instead of UCLA.

This month you can catch yours truly talking (with my hands, mostly) about charter schools on a roundtable for the city channel. (It's labeled "Rountable #43"). The talk was moderated by KCAL 9's political reporter, Dave Bryan, and included the always amusing Sandra Tsing Loh of KPPC's "The Loh Life" fame, Robin Potash a teacher and UTLA rep and Mikelle Willis, founder and director of the KIPP Academy of Opportunity in Los Angeles.

It's running through July and August on cable Channel 35. You can also see Roundtable #44, which was a discussion of the State of the L.A. Times. Fun stuff.

Today I heard from a highly placed LAUSD official -- who will remain anoymous -- who called today's Daily News editorial about Superintendent David Brewer "amazing," and added, "you nailed it."

This is the editorial, mind you, in which we all but called for the firing of said official's boss.

Someone alert the admiral -- a mutiny appears to be under way.

Today's Daily News features an op-ed from a local dad who was surprised one day to hear his girls' singing the following from their school's upcoming holiday concert:

"Rockin' around, the holiday tree, have a happy holiday..."

Yep, you read that right -- "holiday" tree. And with that, SoCal gets the first local skirmish of the annual War on Christmas, in which aggressive secularists and/or the hyper-sensitive try to banish every hint of the reason for the season. As the dad in this story, Johnny Knight, notes, this purgation is the antithesis of the tolerance we say we want to teach our children:

I want my children to be able to accept that other people have different beliefs, and I hope they have meaningful and fulfilling relationships with these other children as they grow up together. ...

I am bothered, however, about how our children are being taught what seems to be the complete opposite of tolerance in their schools. The lesson they are being taught is not that differences should be honored, celebrated and appreciated, but hidden and squelched. They are learning that to "get along," we all must check our differing beliefs and cultures at the door.

Obviously the rantings of some right-wing Christianist, right? Wrong. Mr. Knight is a practicing Jew raising his girls in his faith. This is not, as he notes, ultimately a question about religion, but tolerance -- and whether we are willing to tolerate beliefs contrary to our own.

Happy Hanukkah, Mr. Knight -- and merry Christmas, too.