NC Teacher Shouting Match with Students Over Obama’s Reelection – She Gets Facts Wrong – Dummying Down of America from the Top Down

Consider the Scores (click to enlarge): Performance Scores from Salisbury High School - On Par with the Social Study Teachers Base of Knowledge


The story began with an article in the Salibury, NC, Post, students had taped their teacher on what can only be referred to as an uneducated rant regarding President Obama. According to the teacher, (who name is being withheld by the school), if one criticizes the President, then on is subject to being slammed in jail, however, it is perfectly ok, to criticize anyone running against the President or who does not agree with the President. In listening to the audio tape, one can tell that the students find this to be on the side of hilarious – and they continue to goad the “educator” until she explodes.

A partial transcript, provides by the

The nearly 10-minute video, shot by a student and uploaded to YouTube on Monday, had been viewed more than 1,000 times by Friday afternoon.
It begins with a classroom conversation about a recent news story detailing Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney allegedly bullying a classmate in prep school. It turns into a heated, sometimes confrontational debate.
One student asks, “Didn’t Obama bully someone though?”
The teacher responds: “Not to my knowledge.”
In response to the Romney story, conservatives have recently been pointing to a passage in Obama’s book, “Dreams from My Father,” in which the president writes that while in grade school he shoved a little girl, the only other black student in his grade, after other students called him her boyfriend.
When the student tells the teacher that Obama admitted to bullying a girl in school, the teacher goes on the defensive.
“Stop, no, because there is no comparison,” she says. Romney, she says, is “running for president. Obama is the president.”
When the student says they’re both “just men,” the teacher continues to argue that Romney, as a candidate for president, is not to be afforded the same respect as the president.
The teacher tells the class Obama is “due the respect that every other president is due.”
“Listen, let me tell you something, you will not disrespect the president of the United States in this classroom,” she says.
The student replies that he’ll say what he wants.
“Not about him you won’t,” the teacher says.
Later in the conversation, the teacher tells the class it’s criminal to slander a president.
“Do you realize that people were arrested for saying things bad about Bush?” she says of former President Bush. “Do you realize you are not supposed to slander the president?”
The student responds by saying being arrested for talking badly about the president would violate the right to free speech.
“You would have to say some pretty f’d up crap about him to be arrested,” he says. “They cannot take away your right to have your opinion. ... They can’t take that away unless you threaten the president.”

The video is worth the agonizing listen (quality of issue) due to the insight it gives one on the tone in the classroom and the trend of students to question the authority of the educator, who, when one listens, understands the students are better educated, and on top of current affairs, than the individual responsible for taking them further in their knowledge. It tells the listeners two things: the classroom appears to have a diverse student body – yet the only one arguing for the President appears to be the Teacher, and to the point of hysterics – the students on the other hand are standing up for Mitt Romney – which infuriates the teacher. The fact that politics are brought into a Social Studies class is, on face, not unusual, as the curriculum blends geography and history into one disciplines, a broad overview of how history has impacted society, therefore a debate would not be in question. However, the fact that the teacher was not debating, in a calm and rational manner, nor backing up her claims in anything approaching honestly rather than blind partisanship – sets the stage for 2012 and the youth vote. This is not an anomaly whereby the message in high schools remains basically the same – however, there’s this backlash very similar to those students in this tape – those who are turning eighteen are either not interested in voting at all, or have chosen to vote the economy, again, if they find the time.

What should infuriate the parents and the taxpayers is that the school system has on its staff an educator who is not educated. It is no wonder that students in states where there is a “race to the top” program found that only 50 percent were able to pass the reading exam in Florida, The Florida Board of Education took the low road and lowered the test standards – graduate at any cost. The losers are the students, and then the taxpayer.

The only thing that keeps these substandard teachers on the public dole – tenure – and unless and until those Union Contracts are written in such a way as to allow public schools to fire for incompetency – then this downward spiral will continue to take its toll – additionally the backlash is that for every one bad teacher, there are thousands of good teachers who end up being painted with the same large brush. Just like politics.

The audio via YouTube below is approximately 10 minutes, but gives on the intensity of the one-sided debate going on between the teacher and students, and the disdain that the students have as well as disgust for her blind partisanship – one can bet, if this teacher is not an anomaly in this system, then these students, their parents and those taxpayers who support the student, should get a tax rebate.



Although the school is not releasing the name of the teach, the School Website easily accessable to the public, does list the staff, there are two female Social Study Teachers at Salisbury High school- from there it's anyone's guess which of these two should be shown the door.