At The Altar Of Democracy

May 27th, 2008 | by Craig |

Sometimes a nice little twofer lands in your lap.

So here we have a story that is illustrative both of pure democracy and public schools in action.

A Port St. Lucie mother says her five-year-old son with special needs was voted out of his classroom by his peers at the behest of the teacher, who has since been reassigned.

Five-year-old Alex Barton will be starting his summer vacation early. His mother doesn’t want him to to return to school after what allegedly happened in class at Morningside Elementary Wednesday afternoon.

[...]

“(She) took him and stood him in front of his classmates this week, asked every single child to tell Alex why we don’t like him… in his words, tell Alex why we hate him,” she explains.

After having each child ridicule the boy, she says the teacher continued belittling him.

“Then they had a vote on if he deserved to stay in the class or not,” says Barton.

Pure Democracy and Public Schools — Always looking out for the least among us.

(H/T: SU)

  1. 4 Responses to “At The Altar Of Democracy”

  2. By David Crisp on Jun 2, 2008 | Reply

    Interesting that you use this as the basis for a slam on public schools. I have been around public schools all of my life, as a student, son of a teacher, brother of a teacher, husband of a teacher, parent, taxpayer and reporter, and this is the first time in 50 years I have ever heard of an incident of this sort. But any ammunition will do, right?

  3. By Craig on Jun 2, 2008 | Reply

    All I can say, David, is that you must not be around Special Needs kids and their issues very much.

    This isn’t all that uncommon.

  4. By David Crisp on Jun 3, 2008 | Reply

    OK, so name one other time it has ever happened.

  5. By Steve t. on Jun 4, 2008 | Reply

    I agree, Craig. You’re very good at this. You use single examples of extremism to bash something that is clearly more complex and nuanced. You do this all the time with things like Islam, unions, and education.

    It’s a really shitty method, really. And it certainly doesn’t prove anything other than that sometimes people take things too far.

Post a Comment