Teacher's Antics and Educational Ethics

By Bonnie Kerrigan Snyder

For nearly a decade now, I’ve been keeping track of what I call “K-12 Whoppers” -- examples of egregious and embarrassing educator antics -- in order to understand and document the problem of growing teacher bias and general lack of professionalism in our schools. I do this because, like many Americans, I’m a captive observer of our declining cultural standards and also because I’ve personally experienced unacceptably substandard teaching, both as a student and parent.

I’m not talking about momentary, understandable lapses of judgement coupled with a sincere apology when warranted; we all understand that teaching is a difficult, ongoing, live, semi-impromptu performance with correspondingly high stress levels, and we can be very forgiving of teachers who earnestly do their best and strive to improve on their practice.

No, I’m talking about brazen, unrepentant operators who deliberately and intentionally misuse their access to other citizens’ children to enact their partisan, personal aims, viewing the impressionable young students assigned to their classrooms (and compelled by law to attend) merely as means to their cherished political ends.

Collecting these K-12 disaster anecdotes is a horrible hobby that I don’t recommend, except that it comes with this occasional silver lining: watching the worst operators get their comeuppances. I have to confess that the last week has been pretty satisfying on a schadenfreudian level, watching well-earned consequences accrue to three very deserving parties -- all caught on camera boasting of their exploits in indoctrination and demonstrating less maturity and poorer judgment than the adolescents in their classrooms. So much for the idea of teachers as exemplary role models for American youth!

First, we have the Tik Tok Teacher who giggled about removing the American flag from her classroom because it made her “uncomfortable.” When students then asked where they should face when saying the pledge, she suggested towards the gay pride flag that she had hung on the wall instead. No word on how she felt about the students who felt “uncomfortable” with her suggestion, but they don’t seem to be on her list of concerns. She has, thankfully, been removed from the classroom................ To Read More