I agree with the other posters saying that it’s possible the teacher didn’t actually utter the words “Al Gore kills babies.” Probable, even.
A more likely scenario is that the teacher said “Al Gore is pro-choice” or “Al Gore supports abortions” (which may not be a good thing to say to 10 year olds anyway) and the kids later talked among themselves about what it means to be pro-choice or support abortions, and one of the kids piped up with “it means killing babies.”
It’s still worth a talk with the teacher in my opinion, but I wouldn’t go in there guns a-blazin’ asking her why she said “Al Gore kills babies.”
The teacher was out of line, but I don’t know if snapping on her is necessarily the best idea. We had a similiar situation with my daughter’s kindergarden teacher, and while we could have reamed out the teacher we chose to use it as an example of the right we all have to our own opinion, and the importance of sometimes keeping it to ourselves.
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Forgive me if I am digging a hole for myself, but I don’t get the animosity that Brutus is receiving for stating that Pro-Choice people accept abortion as a viable option.
Based on this site http://www.pro-truths.org/05-11-why.html it would appear to me that at least some Pro-Choice groups believe the right to have an abortion is fundamental to their cause. Here is one quick quote, “Are the “Pro-life” Leaders really Pro-life? When one gives only a quick and cursory look at the anti-abortion movement…” By their very own statement they are putting Pro-Choice people into the not-anti-abortion camp, making them pro abortion and thereby validating Brutus’ claim.
If I am missing something, I am sure you will let me know
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So you’re saying they believe pregnant women should have abortions? They stand outside maternity wards picketing for pregant women to go to the abortion clinic instead?
I didn’t put that very well. Thanks for bringing that up.
She is most certainly not an idiot for being pro-life. That is a very valid point of view.
She is an idiot for having the simplistic point of view that “Al Gore kills babies.” Al Gore has never killed a baby. That’s where my “not so much for” came from. It is OK for a teacher to have that point of view so long as he or she keeps it to themself.
She is also an idiot to say what she did in front of children. For that she should be repremanded at the very least.
I agree with **Cranky ** the subject matter of abortion has no business in a 10 year old’s class, not unless it is directly related to sex ed and it clearly isn’t.
This teacher needs to learn appropriate behavior and subject matter and how to seperate her own platform from what she is teaching.
What if she had said, " Al Gore didn’t win the Presidency because he was a Trekkie fan."
Did I say that? No, what I said was, “believe the right to have an abortion is fundamental to their cause”.
Reading your response has reminded me that I should be extremely explicit with my wording, but I do think you took my statement and formed a false dichotomy of a person being either anti-abortion or abortions for all. That was not my intent, and IMHO, the only way it could be construed as such is by willful misreading. Especially given my own statement several sentences prior to the one you quoted.
Shit…the OP just reminded me about my 8th grade history teacher (ca. 1973, when abortion was a hot, current topic, even in dignified Germany). He stood in front of the class and editorialized along the following lines: “…to remove a little baby from it’s mother’s womb, with little hands and little feet, and to throw it in the garbage.”
Well, no one had a shitfit about it (his melodrama actually made some of us giggle), but then, free speech has taken a few beatings since those days, has it not.
One should keep in mind that children are the absolute worst possible witnesses in terms of reliability. Go the extra mile, be really sure about what was said. If it turns out to be true, give her both barrells.
BTW, I think Dragongirl should still pursue this. I think she should ask her child if she’s SURE she heard the teacher right.
If the teacher DID say this, or even something like it, I think it’s important to pursue. NO WAY should a teacher get off for saying something like that. If it turns out your 10 y/o might have heard wrong, then I would at least talk to the teacher and a superior at the same time. Find out what she claims was said and in what context… but if you have nothing on her, I suppose you can’t do much about. The conference alone should worry the teacher to keep her damn mouth shut if she DID say it.
I don’t understand what the big deal is. The world is a colorful place, with all kinds of people. Maybe she should just teach her child that there are a lot of people out there who talk shit.
This could actually be used as a valuable learning experience for the child. It could teach the child how to think critically, filter out good information from bad, and to not take everything she hears at face value.
In the real world, you can’t beat someone over the head (verbally, or otherwise), complain about them to some all-powerful authority, sue them, or whatever, just because they said something you don’t like, or something that has upset your child. You are drawing a false picture of how the real world works for your child if you give her the impression that every “bad” thing that someone says must and can be avenged by the righteous “victim(s)” whose delicate ears have been sullied by having had to hear it.
When my son was young, he would often report to me a garden variety of garbage he heard people say in the course of any given day. I turned this into a lesson of how to develop an open mind and take things you hear with a grain of salt. Unless someone is outright damaging innocent people (slander), not just voicing an over-the-top opinion in a general way, IMHO stay out of it. You may be able to put this one teacher in her place, but you will never be able to control, and protect your child from, everything she will overhear. Kids are much smarter than we give them credit for, and much less emotionally fragile.
The problem isn’t so much that an adult said a wierd and inappropriate thing to a ten year old. The problem is that a teacher said it. Your elementary school teacher tells you Washington was the first president; that two plus two equals four, etc. You believe her about these things. She’s a knowledgeable person and a trusted authority figure. Why wouldn’t you believe her when she says that Al Gore kills children?
No matter how she phrased it, this woman shouldn’t have been sharing her political opinions with a class of 5th graders.
