Teacher of the Year does not understand her subject

Novalee

When rioters destroyed 500 businesses in Minnesota alone, CNN called it mostly peaceful protests. When Greta Thunberg galivanted around the world preaching her climate change socialism, CNN talking heads recommended her for a Nobel Peace Prize.

But when parents get noisy at a school board meeting, that's violence. And when a 9-year-old girl speaks at a school board meeting, that is weaponizing children. 

CNN weaponized Jennifer Wolfe, New York "State Teacher of the Year," to pen, "When parents scream at school board meetings, how can I teach their children?"

Median teacher pay in New York is $71,723 a year. If she cannot figure it out, she should find another line of work. She is vested in perhaps the country's best teacher retirement plan. If she quits now, with 25 years in, she will collect at least $30,000 a year for the rest of her life when she retires.

Wolfe wrote, "Unfortunately, school board meetings have become a forum where scared and angry people descend on the one accessible government structure they feel they have the most control over and then, without filter or grace, hurl personal insults demanding somebody listen.

"As a teacher trying to educate students (some of whom are the children of parents participating in these outbursts), I've been thinking about what's at stake for the future generation if we don't change."

Well, maybe someone should listen.

I mean it is not like they are burning buildings and car lots at night. It is not like they are ransacking stores. It is not like they are taking over the streets and threatening TV camera crews.

Wolfe wrote, "First, it's public education. One long-standing purpose of public schools since the early 20th century is to graduate people who know how to be part of a democratic society. That purpose is being threatened by the Balkanization of the US population into distinct and rigid political groups that fight for control over what content ought to be taught in their public schools.

"The United States of America is built on democratic principles. I teach my Government and Law class that it is the people who direct the actions of the government. I also teach them that to do this democratic process effectively, they need to solve problems collectively. All voices should be heard and all opinions considered. Some discussions will not be easy to have, all parties may not agree on the solution, but ideally the democratic process should turn out a resolution we all can accept."

All voices need to be heard.

Except those Wolfe disagrees with.

Like people who oppose masking children for no reason at all. Cloth masks do not stop the covid virus.

And Wolfe does not want to hear criticism of Critical Race Theory, which holds that as the men who wrote the Constitution owned slaves, the Constitution is invalid.

Frankly, while she lectures about democracy, I don't think this Teacher of the Year understands a thing about elections, particularly school board elections.

She wrote, "Folks who run for the board sign up for acting as the public oversight over budgets. They act as the advocates for the community and its children. BOE members are elected people from the community, volunteering to serve."

So she says they are advocates for the community and its children.

Unless she disagrees with them.

She wrote, "School boards from Southlake, Texas, to Smithtown, Long Island, are seeing elections that have resulted in new members who represent singular moral viewpoints that tend to swing away from mask mandates and culturally responsive teaching. Many moderate members are either resigning, retiring or not running again -- scarier still, moderate folks who want to enhance public education aren't interested in running in this climate."

By culturally responsive teaching (CRT), I believe she means Critical Race Theory.

School board meetings can be emotional because parents care about their children. The big issue in West Virginia is school consolidation. Parents do not like closing the local school, and I do not blame them.

The "threats" she cited sound to me like promises to vote the board out. At least that was how things went when I covered board meetings 30 years ago.

In Lalalaliberal Land, politics spills over into schools.

The New York Post reported in June, "A 9-year-old girl’s complaints to her Minnesota school board about Black Lives Matter posters staying up despite there being no politics allowed in school is gaining her national attention, after she told the school board: “I do not care or look at the color of skin, but you make me think of it.”

"The unidentified female student, who referred to herself as Novalee, pointed out the double standard at her school to the Lakeville Area School Board during a June 8 meeting, though video of the speech only began making the rounds this week.

"The child began by telling the school board that she initially saw the posters while walking down the hall at Lakeview Elementary School to give a teacher a going away present.

"'I looked up onto the wall and saw a BLM poster and an Amanda Gorman poster,' she continued, referencing the Nobel laureate poet who spoke at President Biden’s inauguration in January."

The Post said she scolded the board. She said they ordered the posters to be posted. If what she says is true, they deserved it.

School board meetings are important. All voices must be heard. On November 9, 1940, the high school in Arlington, Vermont burned down. The school board wanted to build a replacement. Who could oppose this?

Jim Edgerton, that's who. He had lost his dairy herd to disease. The government made him slaughter his cattle. He could not afford the tax.

The only reason we know about this event is because his neighbor, Norm Rockwell, was at the meeting. Jim inspired Rockwell's Freedom of Speech painting. He used as his model another man who looked more Lincolnesque.

I suggest Miss Teacher of the Year bone up on the story and share it with her students.

Free speech is just that. It can get loud. It can be hateful. It can be the last thing you want to hear. But we protect it because God gave us the right to speak up against school consolidation, against mask mandates, and even a new high school that everyone else in town wants.

Our government exists to protect our rights. Wolfe was hired to teach that but she does not seem to understand.