fired for doing your job?

This blog originally was intended to be about issues relating to education and as you all know, it never really ended up being that. Its become more of a place for me to rant about one thing or another and make my opinion known. After reading this story (click on 'fired for doing your job?' above) about a teacher in Yonkers, this post is a flash back to what this blog was intended to be.

So a teacher in Yonkers is on administrative leave and will probably be fired for doing what his job. Jeffrey Kirby of the Pearls Hawthorne school in Yonkers teaches 7th grade there, or at least he did. Mr. Kirby was removed from his classroom for asking students to draw pictures of the male anatomy on the board.

Now when you first read that, you may think to yourself, "Well he should get fired for that. That's inappropriate for just any teacher to ask of his middle school students." Only Mr. Kirby teaches ANATOMY, or at least he tried to.

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't anatomy the study of the human body and I do believe the penis is a part of the human (male) body. What's wrong with asking a student to be able to draw or annotate a diagram of something that s/he is learning? Should we fire math teachers for asking their students to draw a parallelogram? Should english teachers be removed from their classrooms for asking students to diagram sentences? Heck, should I - as a physics teacher - be sent home with my pink slip when I ask my kids to draw a picture that represents the forces acting on an object?

The answers to each and every one of those questions is an emphatic and resounding NO! So why is the Superintendent Bernard Pierorazio saying that it (the content covered) was "age inappropriate" for the students of the class? Age inappropriate??? HE WAS TEACHING THE STATE MANDATED CURRICULUM!!! This guy was doing his job, educating kids about what the human reproductive system looks like and is being fired for doing what the state told him to.

This is just wrong and support needs to be shown for Jeffrey Kirby. I went to the Pearls Hawthorne school's website so that I could send him an email as a showing of my support. HE'S ALREDY BEEN REMOVED FROM THE STAFF LISTING. That's right, the school doesn't want anyone to know how to contact him to show support. While at the school's website, I checked to see if he was teaching the curriculum that was written. The curriculum maps are linked on the site but you get a 404 error (file not found) when you try to access the maps. So I went to the NY State Education website and found the pdf of their curriculum, to see if Mr. Kirby was indeed teaching was he was supposed to. Here's what the curriculum says he is supposed to teach.

PERFORMANCE INDICATOR 1.2 - Explain the functioning of the major human organ systems and their interactions.
Major Understandings:
1.2a Each system is composed of organs and tissues which perform specific functions and interact with each other, e.g., digestion, gas exchange, excretion, circulation, locomotion, control, coordination, reproduction, and protection from disease.
1.2i The male and female reproductive systems are responsible for producing sex cells necessary for the production of offspring.

So what happens when kids, who are in the midst of puberty and wonder about their sexual self, ask a question about how the male and female reproductive systems work? Does the teacher say, "Sorry kids, I can only tell you that there are reproductive systems and that's what makes embryos?" No, because then parents would get in an uproar about how an ANATOMY teacher didn't teach them what the STATE MANDATED CURRICULUM told them to.

Look at Performance Indicator 1.2 - It says to "explain the functioning of the major organ systems". How exactly does a teacher get a student to understand how an organ system works without having them know the parts and be able to describe how those parts work? And what's wrong with asking kids to volunteer to come to the board to draw a representation of a major organ system? Would he be in this same mess if he asked someone to draw the circulatory system? No, but Lord help him if he had asked them to draw the excretory system - imagine a kid drawing an anus on the board...

I'm really chaffed at this one. I am embarassed that the Puritanical ethos of this country stymies someone when they try to educate people. What's wrong with learning about how the human body works? Aren't parents complaining that schools don't do enough to educate kids about the perils of sex and how to avoid teen pregnancy? How else are kids going to know how to prevent getting pregnant without knowing anything about how a penis or vagina work? Abstinence is great but most teens are sexually active and 7th graders are not known for making the best decisions. Some of them are mature enough to be fertile (and carry a child) and it would be a disservice to them to not educate them on their body and how it works.

Since I am a bit riled up about this, I've decided to write to the superintendent and let him know my opinion. There is a webpage specifically designated for contacting him. If you'd like to write to this spineless weasel who doesn't support his teachers, feel free to write to Bernard Pierorazio, Superintendent of Yonkers Public Schools. Be sure to tell him that he's a moron too.