I would have eaten that liberal Vermont teacher for breakfast
Here’s one of those stories that make my fellow rightwingers fall into Victorian-style swoons:
The school superintendent whose district includes Mount Anthony Union High School has labeled “inappropriate” and “irresponsible” an English teacher’s use of liberal statements in a vocabulary quiz.
“I wish Bush would be (coherent, eschewed) for once during a speech, but there are theories that his everyday diction charms the below-average mind, hence insuring him Republican votes,” said one question on a quiz written by English and social studies teacher Bret Chenkin.
The question referring to the president asked students to say whether coherent or eschewed was the proper word. The sentence would be more coherent if one eschewed eschewed.
Another example said, “It is frightening the way the extreme right has (balled, arrogated) aspects of the Constitution and warped them for their own agenda.” Arrogated would be the proper word there.
Chenkin, 36 and a teacher for seven years, said the quizzes are being taken out of context.
“The kids know it’s hyperbolic, so-to-speak,” he said. “They know it’s tongue in cheek. They know where I stand.”
He said he isn’t shy about sharing his liberal views with students, but invites vigorous debate in the classroom.
Pfft. Pantsy-assed pseudo pinko. I had a teacher in grade school who was an outspoken Stalinist. Her most memorable defense of the Soviet Union was that the Workers’ Paradise had so few cars because it was environmentally sensitive. As a kid whose arcade-game nom de guerre was “Commie Killer” (no kidding) I had a field three years in her class (which was every class except for shop, phys ed and similar side shows). I’m sure the two of us went at it every week. The upside was that I had to relentlessly research my arguments. The downside was that my already way too combative and political psyche was even more politicized. Not that I would have minded the opportunity for a parting shot along the lines of “how’s that Soviet Union working out for you, YOU BOLSHIE BASTARD?”
