Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Teachers vs Educators - The Neshaminy High School Story

If you're lucky, in your life, you will have teachers who have a huge influence over you and prepare you for the real world you are about to enter into (Luke Prendergast, Terence Dean Kane & James Hetherington - to name a few)

Then you'll have "educators" who educate you about how shitty that "real world" can be. Though, it is unlikely that education was created in a lesson planned, it'll likely stay with you the rest of your life.

Tara Huber vs Rob McGee is a great example of this.

Tara Huber works at Neshaminy High School as a faculty adviser for the student run newspaper. She was suspended without pay for "willful neglect of duties and insubordination." Also, the paper was fined (for lack of a better word) $1,200 from it's activity fund.

WOW!
What kind of action must have occurred to result in such discipline?
  • Plagiarism?
  • Some horribly, libelous story about corruption on the school board?
  • A titillating exposé about what's REALLY in the coleslaw in the cafeteria?
...Or Huber allowed the students, of the student run paper - The Playwickian, to "ban" the word "Redskins" from it's printing. Huber, who was recently named the "journalism teacher of the year" from the Pennsylvania School Press Association, allowed the students to follow the Associated Press standard for replacing certain letters in slurs with dashes. Teacher.

According to the Daily Beast, Principal Rob McGee had told the students they would either have to print “Redskins” in full or not print the issue at all. Educator.

Following the publication of the paper, following the AP model, Huber was suspended. The fine was leaved. And the student editor was also suspended from the paper for 1 month.

The word "teacher" here, seems to mean getting in the muck and teaching the kids in a "hands on" manner. Working with them. Succeeding and failing with them. "Teach them well, and let them lead the way..."

The word "educator" seems to represent someone who instills a lesson by putting on a pair of rubber gloves and handing you something with their arm fully extended while holding their nose. "I wouldn't touch you, with a 39 and half foot pole..."

So what was learned here?

That Ms Huber gets down and dirty to make sure her students learn.
While Mr. McGee needs to kneel down on a mat to protect his pants while kissing a pig.

*That's a REAL photo I pulled from The Neshaminy Redskins twitter page. And that really is Rob McGee.

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