Teacher suspended over 'gay animal' article
October 29, 2009 10:37 PM
BY MAGGIE BORMAN
Journal-Courier
A Southwestern High School English teacher has been suspended after reports he had students in his classes to read an article about homsexuality in the animal kingdom.
Dan Delong of Carlinville acknowledged his suspension but declined to comment further until he spoke with his union representative.
Delong is said to have allowed students to read the article “The Gay Animal Kingdom” from the June 7, 2006, edition of Seed magazine. Seed magazine is a science and culture publication.
The article by Jonah Lehrer talks about the research of Joan Roughgarden, a biology professor at Stanford University who said she has documented homosexual societies among the more than 450 animal species.
School district secretary Pat Milner said a special School Board meeting has been set for 6 p.m. Monday at the district office in Piasa to discuss personnel/employee discipline.
Superintendent Larry Elsea was unavailable for comment Wednesday and Thursday, as was Macus Albrecht, the union representative for the Illinois Education Association that represents the district’s Southwestern Education Association members.
I wonder on what exact grounds the suspension was based on? It's not like he is getting them to read something that isn't verifiable.
"This statement, in its utterly clueless hubristic stupidity, cannot be improved upon. I merely quote it in admiration of its perfection." - Garibaldi
"Problem is, while the Germans have had many mea culpas and quite painfully dealt with their history, the South is still hellbent on painting themselves as the real victims. It gives them a special place in the history of assholes" - Covenant
"Over three million died fighting for the emperor, but when the war was over he pretended it was not his responsibility. What kind of man does that?'' - Saburo Sakai
I would like to know more. I started to get riled up at the mere notion of a scientific article being suppressed due to bigotry, then I noticed he was an English teacher? I suppose if he was waaaay off curriculum they might have a legitimate point.
I can't actually think of any American Classics aht feature gay people but then again I went to catholic school and we read "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Ciderhouse rules" like twice a year.
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This topic is... oh Village Idiot. Carry on then.--Havok
Themightytom wrote:I would like to know more. I started to get riled up at the mere notion of a scientific article being suppressed due to bigotry, then I noticed he was an English teacher? I suppose if he was waaaay off curriculum they might have a legitimate point.
Didn't you do cross-discipline work in English? I do vaguely remembering reading a few scientific articles and writing a report/paper about it in high school English. I suspect our science teacher quietly told our English teacher that our report writing skills needed a bit of practice.
"This statement, in its utterly clueless hubristic stupidity, cannot be improved upon. I merely quote it in admiration of its perfection." - Garibaldi
"Problem is, while the Germans have had many mea culpas and quite painfully dealt with their history, the South is still hellbent on painting themselves as the real victims. It gives them a special place in the history of assholes" - Covenant
"Over three million died fighting for the emperor, but when the war was over he pretended it was not his responsibility. What kind of man does that?'' - Saburo Sakai
bobalot wrote:
Didn't you do cross-discipline work in English? I do vaguely remembering reading a few scientific articles and writing a report/paper about it in high school English. I suspect our science teacher quietly told our English teacher that our report writing skills needed a bit of practice.
As far as I'm aware, the cross-discipline is mostly with Social Science, at least on the English side. On the other side, there is a lot of cross-disciplining english skills into other subjects.
I know that our district has a severe push for writing in all subjects. It hadn't gotten as bad as essays in math class when I was a student, but it really wouldn't surprise me if they are now. We did have to write essays in PE.
Themightytom wrote:I would like to know more. I started to get riled up at the mere notion of a scientific article being suppressed due to bigotry, then I noticed he was an English teacher? I suppose if he was waaaay off curriculum they might have a legitimate point.
Didn't you do cross-discipline work in English? I do vaguely remembering reading a few scientific articles and writing a report/paper about it in high school English. I suspect our science teacher quietly told our English teacher that our report writing skills needed a bit of practice.
I think mine were more of an English literature class rather than English as a language. I did lots of cross cultural stuff up to fifth grade, then transferred to a public school with the LOWEST STANDARDS EVER. (Everyone gets a C if they hand in a paper with their name on it, even if it is otherwise blank.), We did have an MLA manual but we were expected to jsut use it, we never went over "How to write..." anything in class.
that being said, i'm working on three masters programs right now, Nonprofit Management, mental health counseling and School Counseling. In my school counseling class I have heard classmates who are teachers talk about how everything is cross disciplinary, and I don't actually think its a bad idea.
I might have liked a practical writing course.
"Since when is "the west" a nation?"-Styphon "ACORN= Cobra obviously." AMT
This topic is... oh Village Idiot. Carry on then.--Havok
Mr.. Delong teaches an English class, so you may be wondering why he allowed students to read that article in a scientific journal. The reason is that he was teaching a unit on critical reading and students were reading non-fiction work to assess their point of view and the validity of the writer’s thesis. In short, Mr. Delong was actually asking students: “Do you believe this research?”
However, the source of this is a blogspot post, so hardly definitive proof that this was the case. I find a bit weird to ask students to assess a validity of a scientific paper, how exactly are they supposed to know?
Regardless, I'm interested to know how it warrants a suspension.
"This statement, in its utterly clueless hubristic stupidity, cannot be improved upon. I merely quote it in admiration of its perfection." - Garibaldi
"Problem is, while the Germans have had many mea culpas and quite painfully dealt with their history, the South is still hellbent on painting themselves as the real victims. It gives them a special place in the history of assholes" - Covenant
"Over three million died fighting for the emperor, but when the war was over he pretended it was not his responsibility. What kind of man does that?'' - Saburo Sakai
Reading the article he handed out would probably help puzzle out possibilities for his suspension...
Mayabird is my girlfriend
Justice League:BotM:MM:SDnet City Watch:Cybertron's Finest "Well then, science is bullshit. "
-revprez, with yet another brilliant rebuttal.
Mr.. Delong teaches an English class, so you may be wondering why he allowed students to read that article in a scientific journal. The reason is that he was teaching a unit on critical reading and students were reading non-fiction work to assess their point of view and the validity of the writer’s thesis. In short, Mr. Delong was actually asking students: “Do you believe this research?”
However, the source of this is a blogspot post, so hardly definitive proof that this was the case. I find a bit weird to ask students to assess a validity of a scientific paper, how exactly are they supposed to know?
That argument doesn't quite hold. Seed magazine is pretty clearly not a scientific journal; it's a pop-science magazine that (apparently) reports on scientific research.
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It holds up just fine it it's more of a "Can you take what you read in pop-science magazines at face value and why?" type assignment in the same vane as we had to study newspaper articles in English language and analyse the quality of the journalism.
It's difficult to work out exactly what his agenda was, but it could just as easily have been conservative as liberal without more information.
Member of the Unremarkables Just because you're god, it doesn't mean you can treat people that way : - My girlfriend Evil Brit Conspiracy - Insignificant guy
It could be more along the lines of:
Teacher: "Class read this article."
Class: Reads article.
Teacher: "Now what would you say the thesis, or main idea of this artcle is?"
Student: Proceeds to answer.
Teacher: "Good, now what evidence did they use to support this claim?"
I distinctly remember similar questions on standardized tests, and since the current fad in education seems to be test prep...
I was in high school a few years ago (in central new york so it could be different out in flyover country) and we had to do shit like this in my English classes all the time. Sounds like a perfectly reasonable assignment.
