Subject: Leader-Telegram "Forum" Question--Beth Franklin Date: Mon, 2 May 2005 10:11:39 -0500 Message-ID: <B14120EE5C432443B21102F7925DAD020235F4DE@COKE.uwec.edu> From: "Hale, C. Kate" <HALECL@uwec.edu>
http://www.leadertelegram.com/interact/ltforum/index.asp
Colleagues,
If you feel more comfortable leaving an emailed comment rather than a
recorded message (which is what you do if you call the Leader-Tel phone
line), you can do so at the URL above.
Below is the text of the email message I just sent from that web
page--"cross the line" is the phrasing they use in their question.
Kate Hale
English
I speak as the parent of a Memorial High School student and as a
post-secondary teacher for nearly 25 years.
"Cross the line" is a virtually meaningless expression, since there is
widespread disagreement about where any line might be drawn. In my
opinion, Memorial High School teacher Beth Franklin followed the best
possible classroom practice in presenting this topic to her class: she
sought to help them see that there is more to the world than what is
obvious, that human lives are complex, that students need to be
open-minded if they are to learn to think critically and deeply about
the world. If Ms. Franklin crossed a line, I would say that the line
she crossed was the barrier that keeps students comfortably mis-informed
and unchallenged in their assumptions about the way the world works