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Nebraska Teacher Taken Out Of Classroom For Showing Iraq Documentary

Last year, Michael Baker was one of only forty-seven teachers in Nebraska to obtain National Board Certification. Last month, he showed his students at East High School in Lincoln the documentary, Baghdad ER, which shows the lives of doctors, nurses, medics, and soldiers in Iraq. The next day, Baker was no longer in his geography classroom.

Says former colleague Michael Anderson: "I believe there were students who went home and were troubled about what they saw, and there were parental phone calls to the principal, and the next day she walked him out the door because she didn't have the courage to stand up to the complainers."

Baker was suspended for ten days without pay. Apparently, school administrators have never liked his teaching style. Baker taught history by starting with the present and moving backwards, but the school forbade him to continue doing that. Then his history classes were taken away altogether.

A spokeswoman for the Lincoln public schools says that Baker asked to retire and his request was honored.

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I, too, quit teaching. I was being forced to blindly 'teach' a curriculum based on raising test scores. It was totally inappropriate for my students. It is hard not to believfe that someone(s) is intentionally destroying public education.

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This is a no-brainer. Typically, your most excellent teachers are the ones being escorted out, being given the crappy classes to teach, harassed until they leave, etc. Why? Because these are the teachers who stand up to adminstration for being a bunch of spineless blind bureaucrats who "follow orders" from the district head shed. It's really a dis-service to our students because they NEED to see reality; they NEED to be aware of what happens in war and how irresponsibly tax dollars are spent.

History should be taught backwards because that way a teacher can point out why things are they way they are--students can 'solve the mystery' to much. Example: How did some of America's most wealthy families become that way? (Everything from land-stealing, to legal loopholes, to genocide during the Westward expansion!)

Are any of you suprised????

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this is incredible. just because some people can't stand to the truth, the people telling it have to 'vanish'?!? This really sounds like a CIA method in a bad movie. I don't live in the states so I can't say if this is the 'normal' way of leading a school, but even (or exspecially?) there protest against these things should rise. It is interesting to watch the news from U.S.A.: massacrees, money for education is used to finance the war, american soldiers in other countrys without any reason... i'm sorry for spreading my anger about these things in the web, but where else could I?

p.s.I'm sorry for my english

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They best way to voice your concern..send all of the staff at East Lincoln High an email telling 'em how spineless and weak they are for not backing a teacher that teaches the truth. I found all of their email addresses on their website (http://ehs.lps.org).

Here are the email addresses for the Principal, VP, Assistant VP, Assoc VP

mlehman@lps.org
cruley@lps.org
gthomps@lps.org
gwilliam@lps.org

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I live in Washington state, where they have made it illegal to miss too much school, the consequences, even if a child has a excused illness is loss of credits, jail, or probation. The parents can even go to jail. We also have a democrat governor who is throwing money at education, when what is really needed is reform from the administrators down, even the teachers Union needs reform. Kids with learning disabilities are punished and jailed for not wanting to go to a school where they are debased, punished ignored and under educated. My senior son, who is an iep student, special ed, with an unspecified learning disablitlliy has 0 credits for four years of school, until recently where mysteriously during a court hearing the school gave him 4 credits, blaimed him and me for it...Anyway also the Wa state WASL test which is also requuired for all students to pass before graduating, going through 12 years of school is not enough now they must by law pass a state exam to prove they learned enough before being allowed to pass high school. What is going on with education and many other things are so unbelievable, the poor disabled and minorities get the brunt of the punishments for being who they are...Honestly if I counld afford to move out of this state I would, I feel like I am living in Nazi Germany, but the rest of the US is part of the picture and the problem. I personally have had to back off from reading any news because I am a wreck with the realities in the US concerning personal liberties and freedoms. I have gone to the ACLU, tried to get help through legal aid, that was a joke, without money in this country you are doomed to be scapegoated, oppressed and an emotional slave to bullys on all levels of our society...I am truely depressed, and I love my children, but I feel guilt that I brought them into this horrible world...No worries, I am not crazy, they will have to live and deal with it, and I hope will learn to stand up for their rights, I have been trying, and I still am trying but I have dreams about the school arresting my kids and I, or am fearful of speaking up too loudly about other huge issues, others are nothing is really being done. The nasty people seem to be in charge now, and really the democrats are just as bad, or almost as bad as the right wing republican nazi's...What is going on, the negativity and punishment is rampid, and crazy, and yet it still is going on...People who are on the bottom, or close to it in our culture feel it much more than anyone else, it's almost as if America is ridding itself of the poor and disabled by very viscious, subtle tactics, no one seems to care, not even the radical liberals, they are too preoccupied with other local matters, which seem also to be more important than stopping the war...And the other pet projects on a local level, that they put their energy into is self serving agendas, honestly the radical liberals are as bad as the radical conservatives in this area....I have always been a liberal, always but I can't align my energies with others who seem to miss the large picture, and care more about their personal pet projects than poor learning disabled kids being jailed, or poor kids and their families dealing with rotting teeth abcesses, that can kill them but no dentist will take them, even with state medical. Not enough money to eat a healthy diet especially for growing teenagers, who eat alot.Even in out state capital of Olympia, it's against the law for homeless people to hang out down town, street mucicians to play, I guess they compromised and allow them to play on limited hours for a limited time. Homeless people all over compromising of alcoholics, abused women, mentally ill people, drug addicts, and just people who have no home and can't afford to rent one...People out of jails, so they reoffend, to get money to llive on sometimes,,,Jail is the answere here, there are jailing all people who have mental health problems,, addictions, etc...disabled,, and they are building new jails, bigger better jails...Will the poor and disabled all live in jail someday, because thats the way it's going, honestly, read the local news paper, Daily Olympian, or the TAcoma News Tribune, The Seattle Times, and past issues, and you will see that in WA state, we are one of the worst most offense anti civil rights state for the poor and disabled that I know of...The Becca bill, that jails kids for education is not even a news issue, and is accepted as normal and good for education....Goodness (I stopped believeing in God) help us all....

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Schools are places for kids to learn, they're places for kids to be molded into good little drones.

Wake up!! America's already lost. The people in power are criminals.

The sooner you accept it the sooner you can start fixing it.

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I think Granger must have gone to a school where they didn't teach "paragraphs". Pity.

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These administrators are spineless scum who should be flogged until I feel better. We no longer "teach" anything - we just make worker drones for the future crappy jobs that will suck the very life out of their bones. The next generation will see the total collapse of the lie, "The American Dream".

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Oooh, the babies mommies can't take reality so they will make sure little johnny doesn't get any either. Every damn time truth is brought forward in a school, or a teacher makes an effort above and beyond the call of sticking to the biased textbook curriculum, he/she is booted. And WHY are our schools just hangouts for the lazy? And why do we have to lower college entrance standards to get kids there? The truth will out.

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It's middle school all over again. Only this time it's John who's trying to humiliate his gym teacher, trying to expose his true nature as an evil, sadistic hypocrite. Funny thing, though. The more John criticizes and insinuates, the more attractive Mr. Woodcock becomes in the eyes of John's enamored mom.
---------------
jbsjhn

Nebraska Treatment Centers

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Yeah, maybe Granger didn't write according to the rules, but at least he or she wrote something real. I read something a while back, think it was in Harper's, about a teacher who was teaching English to a lot of foreign students (ESL) and comparing their ungrammatical, fumbling essays to those of her freshman students. Her ESL students wrote about life, death, and struggling to survive and keep hope alive in harsh conditions. Her freshmen wrote about their cars, their friends, their high school football and cheerleading. So which do you think was really the better writing? Which would you want to read?

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thanks.

Oooh, the babies mommies can't take reality so they will make sure little johnny doesn't get any either. Every damn time truth is brought forward in a school, or a teacher makes an effort above and beyond the call of sticking to the biased textbook curriculum, he/she is booted. And WHY are our schools just hangouts for the lazy? And why do we have to lower college entrance standards to get kids there? The truth will out.

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Oooh, the babies mommies

Oooh, the babies mommies can't take reality so they will make sure little johnny doesn't get any either. Every damn time truth is brought forward in a school, or a teacher makes an effort above and beyond the call of sticking to the biased textbook curriculum, he/she is booted. And WHY are our schools just hangouts for the lazy? And why do we have to lower college entrance standards to get kids there? The truth will out.

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English to a lot of foreign

English to a lot of foreign students (ESL) and comparing their ungrammatical, fumbling essays to those of her freshman students. Her ESL students wrote about life, death, and struggling to survive and keep hope alive in harsh conditions. Her freshmen wrote about their cars, their friends, their high school football and cheerleading.

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...Nice

Wake up!! America's already lost. The people in power are criminals. Thanks...

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interesting.ıraq in high scholl in nebraska realy interesting : )

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I, too, quit teaching. I was

I, too, quit teaching. I was being forced to blindly 'teach' a curriculum based on raising test scores. It was totally inappropriate for my students

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interesting.ıraq in high scholl in nebraska realy interesting : )

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