Part of teaching social studies is teaching kids about organized protests and civil disobedience. Whether it be Gandhi in World History or the Suffragettes & MLK in U.S. History, the subject will inevitably come up.
When you are teaching 9th graders and you try to convince them that civil liberties are worth fighting for, they might interpret that as: we should organize a cell phone protest so that we are allowed to use cell phones in school throughout the day...
Which leads to emails like this from administrators:
"Teachers we need you to be in the halls between classes today. Some students are learning about protesting in classes and are planning on using cell phones and i-pods in the hall to protest not being allowed to use them. If you see them please confiscate them."
It doesn't matter that my fellow social studies teacher did mention to the 9th graders that having a cell phone in school is not a civil liberty. They're teenagers. They're not going to listen.
Darn social studies department. Always stirring up the kids.
I'll let you know if we have a riot.
HAHA!!! I love it!!! It's so funny to read your thoughts on the teacher side of things.
ReplyDeleteWe were a little disappointed that they didn't pick a better cause - like protesting the SOLs. But, as teenagers, they really value their cell phones, hats, & ipods...
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