Hot For Teacher

I read a story in the paper today about a teacher in Arizona who was recently fired due to controversy over YouTube video of her performing a cheerleading routine for her class and over a book she assigned her class to read. This saddens me, because the teacher in question was guilty of nothing more than trying to make her class more interesting and interactive for her students.

The video in question depicted the teacher, who was also the cheerleading instructor, performing a cheerleading routine for her class during the school's spirit week. She was fully clothed and said nothing inappropriate, yet the video and the controversy surrounding it has made it as far as the major network news. Granted, her hip motions could be seen as suggestive, but cheerleaders at schools do much worse while wearing much less. Which raises a question: where do you draw the line? Students love pep rallies; they are the highlight of the school week where I come from. During these pep rallies, even in junior high, female students in skimpy outfits perform cheers and suggestive dances to the pounding beats and sex fueled lyrics of artists such as Brittney Spears and Justin Timberlake. Yet when a teacher does something similar yet not nearly as extreme in an effort to relate to her students in a fashion that has been the norm in education for decades, (i.e. cheerleading, which is recognized as a legitimate sport now, btw) she is punished and reprimanded.


The question of the book seems even more ridiculous. It is called Jake Reinvented, by Gordon Korman, and has been described as The Great Gatsby for teens. The book tells the tale of a popular high school student who is exposed as a fraud, and was assigned to the teacher's freshman English class. One of the student's fathers, however, deemed the book inappropriate for his 14 year old daughter, which was apparently the straw that broke the camel's back. My question is this: does this father expect his daughter to go to college? Because if she does, she will be reading far more dubious material than Jake Reinvented. She is in high school. The job of a high school teacher is to prepare his or her students for college, if I'm not mistaken. How can our teachers do that, though, if the books that they assign to broaden the perspective of their students become grounds for termination? I thought we had already been through this with The Catcher in the Rye, The Outsiders, and Huck Finn. We have to accept valid literature for what it is. I haven't read Jake Reinvented, but if the comparisons that it has received to The Great Gatsby are any indication, it deserves to be read.

Teachers are already underpaid, under-appreciated, and overworked in our society. It's a wonder that anyone still wants to do it. It seems that their hands are becoming more tied everyday, leaving them unable to perform that crucial task that is the main point of their jobs: preparing their students for college. And while the cheerleading thing could have been avoided, and really doesn't contribute to the student's education, the relevance of spirit week and the concept of school spirit cannot be overlooked.

One more question before I go...cell phones aren't allowed in school, right? What happened to the kid who posted the video on YouTube to begin with? I'm pretty sure he was in the wrong, too. Did his punishment fit his crime? Just something to think about.

Until next time,

Clay