Michigan teacher on leave over homework

[fernweh]

Assignment asking students to identify the primates and included a picture of Barack Obama

www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2022/05/19/roeper-school-teacher-on-leave-after-assignment-depicts-barack-obama-alongside-primates/

[erbear]

I’d like to say I’m surprised but alas….22 years of teaching and hearing about stupid racists in the classroom says otherwise.

[timorousbeastie]

Wow. I was not expecting this to be from Roeper (very expensive private school; it was very well regarded back when I went to high school nearby, I assume it still is). I guess it’s just yet another example that money/education most definitely do not equal not racist.

Even if I give them the benefit of the doubt in that maybe the teacher was just trying to say that humans are primates, they quite obviously should have known better than to use a black man as their example. So best case scenario, the teacher is incredibly stupid for not knowing better. More likely, just openly racist.

[goldengirlz]

May 19, 2022 20:14:24 GMT -5 timorousbeastie said:

Wow. I was not expecting this to be from Roeper (very expensive private school; it was very well regarded back when I went to high school nearby, I assume it still is). I guess it’s just yet another example that money/education most definitely do not equal not racist.

Even if I give them the benefit of the doubt in that maybe the teacher was just trying to say that humans are primates, they quite obviously should have known better than to use a black man as their example. So best case scenario, the teacher is incredibly stupid for not knowing better. More likely, just openly racist.

Come on, there is ZERO chance that’s what happened. Why even go through the exercise of pretending? It makes you sound like an apologist because you recognize the school name.

[timorousbeastie]

May 19, 2022 20:26:51 GMT -5 goldengirlz said:

May 19, 2022 20:14:24 GMT -5 timorousbeastie said:

Wow. I was not expecting this to be from Roeper (very expensive private school; it was very well regarded back when I went to high school nearby, I assume it still is). I guess it’s just yet another example that money/education most definitely do not equal not racist.

Even if I give them the benefit of the doubt in that maybe the teacher was just trying to say that humans are primates, they quite obviously should have known better than to use a black man as their example. So best case scenario, the teacher is incredibly stupid for not knowing better. More likely, just openly racist.

Come on, there is ZERO chance that’s what happened. Why even go through the exercise of pretending? It makes you sound like an apologist because you recognize the school name.

I genuinely apologize if I came off that way. I realize I was being overly generous in saying “more likely just openly racist;” that was poor wording on my part. It’s not really a matter of any other option.

[wanderingback]

May 19, 2022 20:14:24 GMT -5 timorousbeastie said:

Wow. I was not expecting this to be from Roeper (very expensive private school; it was very well regarded back when I went to high school nearby, I assume it still is). I guess it’s just yet another example that money/education most definitely do not equal not racist.

Even if I give them the benefit of the doubt in that maybe the teacher was just trying to say that humans are primates, they quite obviously should have known better than to use a black man as their example. So best case scenario, the teacher is incredibly stupid for not knowing better. More likely, just openly racist.

You really thought that rich people can’t be racist?!?
My god.

[timorousbeastie]

May 19, 2022 20:37:38 GMT -5 wanderingback said:

May 19, 2022 20:14:24 GMT -5 timorousbeastie said:

Wow. I was not expecting this to be from Roeper (very expensive private school; it was very well regarded back when I went to high school nearby, I assume it still is). I guess it’s just yet another example that money/education most definitely do not equal not racist.

Even if I give them the benefit of the doubt in that maybe the teacher was just trying to say that humans are primates, they quite obviously should have known better than to use a black man as their example. So best case scenario, the teacher is incredibly stupid for not knowing better. More likely, just openly racist.

You really thought that rich people can’t be racist?!?
My god.

Not at all, and again I apologize for my wording. My thought process was more meant to be that I would have thought they had enough money to hire someone not so dumb to be so blatant with their racism, not that they were above it in any way.

I’m sorry. It’s been a long week and I’m clearly not expressing myself well. (Probably still am not)

[wanderingback]

May 19, 2022 20:42:14 GMT -5 timorousbeastie said:

May 19, 2022 20:37:38 GMT -5 wanderingback said:

You really thought that rich people can’t be racist?!?
My god.

Not at all, and again I apologize for my wording. My thought process was more meant to be that I would have thought they had enough money to hire someone not so dumb to be so blatant with their racism, not that they were above it in any way.

I’m sorry. It’s been a long week and I’m clearly not expressing myself well. (Probably still am not)

Nope, that’s not how racism works. Would recommend re-evaluating your biases on how racism is perpetuated in our society.

[redpanda]

I am familiar with Roeper, too, as I also grew up nearby. I agree that it is surprising. It has a reputation as a very liberal/progressive school, perhaps one of the most liberal in the state.

[ECB]

May 19, 2022 22:00:29 GMT -5 redpanda said:

I am familiar with Roeper, too, as I also grew up nearby. I agree that it is surprising. It has a reputation as a very liberal/progressive school, perhaps one of the most liberal in the state.

and this is the fallacy we have to be careful of - liberals can absolutely be racist too.

[wanderingback]

May 20, 2022 5:43:45 GMT -5 ECB said:

May 19, 2022 22:00:29 GMT -5 redpanda said:

I am familiar with Roeper, too, as I also grew up nearby. I agree that it is surprising. It has a reputation as a very liberal/progressive school, perhaps one of the most liberal in the state.

and this is the fallacy we have to be careful of - liberals can absolutely be racist too.

Yes, OMG. This post is maddening, yet not surprising that white people still don’t understand how racism works. Was there not just a mass shooting targeting Black people in one of the most liberal states in the country?

[4speedy]

May 19, 2022 20:26:51 GMT -5 goldengirlz said:

May 19, 2022 20:14:24 GMT -5 timorousbeastie said:

Wow. I was not expecting this to be from Roeper (very expensive private school; it was very well regarded back when I went to high school nearby, I assume it still is). I guess it’s just yet another example that money/education most definitely do not equal not racist.

Even if I give them the benefit of the doubt in that maybe the teacher was just trying to say that humans are primates, they quite obviously should have known better than to use a black man as their example. So best case scenario, the teacher is incredibly stupid for not knowing better. More likely, just openly racist.

Come on, there is ZERO chance that’s what happened. Why even go through the exercise of pretending? It makes you sound like an apologist because you recognize the school name.

I visited this school when choosing where to send our kids, this article surprises me not one bit.  During the tour, I saw examples of both kids and parents being entitled, kids being disrespectful and rude to teachers.  Adding racism to the school culture seems right on brand.

I firmly believe that if this had not gone public, nothing would have been done to that teacher.  It’s kind of ridiculous what this school puts up with from teachers, parents and students.

[mrsukyankee]

If it's anything like the private schools that I have worked for, it's not at all surprising. My last one was basically run by the board who were either current or ex-parents of students. And they always seemed to hire Heads of school who ran it the way the parents wanted it to be run. If you try to do something outside the box of what these entitled conservative parents want, you are gone - they make sure of it. I was so happy to leave that world. I only had one private school out of the four where I worked that I thought was run well.

[picksthemusic]

The look on my face when I read the latter half of that sentence. WTF is wrong with people.

[atexan]

She "had her biology hat on" fuck right off with that. Of all the billions of people currently on this planet and who have ever been on this planet and whose pictures are freely available including for fucks sake she could have used a picture of herself even. I could not even be convinced that this was anything other than fully deliberate. I'll just be over here waiting for her private FB to be leaked and found to be full of disgusting racist memes.

[W.T.Faulkner]

This country is very hard on teachers and yet apparently sometimes not hard enough. Jesus.

[cmeon]

This isn't excusing her for USING that shitty assignment (it's probably safe to assume this is NOT the first year she has), but she didn't create it. It was a curriculum package available (freely) at Duke University's website (mysteriously, it no longer exists there- but is still accessible via archive).

web.archive.org/web/20160201193424/https://evolutionaryanthropology.duke.edu/sites/evolutionaryanthropology.duke.edu/files/file-attachments/lesson-plans-introduction-to-primates.pdf

This is a link to DL the course in a PDF- that worksheet is included on pg 12. This seems like really low level work (I mean, excluding the trash on page 12) for a high school Biology class.