Their first approach was to tell me that
they were concerned for Delena if she should give this speech and how the
children would treat her. I explained that Delena and I had spent about 30
minutes the night before going over possible questions or situations she might
encounter and that she was very aware of and accepting of the fallout that
could occur. I pointed out that it was regretful if they could not keep their
school environment safe for a child who was of an alterative faith. They, of
course, responded that delivering the information in a public forum (meaning
her classroom) would be the problem, in regard to Delena's safety. I asked
them what the difference would be in the information coming out in a public
forum versus on the playground. Did they really expect that if she mentioned
it at play that the news wouldn't travel like wildfire? A benefit to this is
that without interruption, she could say it and then immediately explain why
this was not a bad thing. Then I said, "Or perhaps you're suggesting that I
make sure Delena knows (lowered my voice to a loud whisper here)
that this is something that she must keep a secret and must never discuss
at school. They agreed that it would not be fair to take
that approach and I explained that we have a very normal family and I'm not
prepared to have my daughter get the impression that there's something "wrong"
with her faith or that she has to be ashamed of it in some way.
Then they went with the angle of how it
would affect the class and the parents' reaction. I asked them WHAT about the
speech they found offensive or felt the parents would find offensive (I asked
this several times and they never could pinpoint anything). "Just the general
content." I pressed on and said, "I want to know what exactly. Single out
something in the speech that is offensive information." Well, it wasn't the
information... "I thought you just said it was the content." ...it was the
subject matter.
OK, if it was the subject matter, then
why was another child allowed to deliver a speech on Witches last week that
offended my daughter deeply? Well, because her speech was done from a very
fanciful standpoint and showed pictures of Witches flying across the moon and
the Halloween Witch and touched a bit on the history. Um...OK. So she is
allowed to showcase the very stereotypes that offend us, but when Delena
writes a speech that respectfully depicts a truthful representation, it's not
acceptable? Well, if they had known that Delena would be offended, the girl's
speech would not have been approved. Other families
who have religions that might be a problem
have come forward at the beginning of school year to say, "This is
what I am and this is how the curriculum needs to be adjusted for my child."
I quickly informed them that I do NOT raise my children to need special
consideration and that I did not come forward because expecting a
problem isn't really in my mind. I pointed out that
I have three grown sons, told them their ages and that this is only the second
time that there has EVER been a problem, the first being 15 years ago when Joe
was asked not to wear his pentacle to school and THAT was quickly squelched
when I informed them they would have to also have every star of David and
cross banned as well if they were going to single out one religious symbol.
I also brought up that the purpose of
Delena's speech was to educated people from a anthropological
standpoint about gross inaccuracies regarding a group of
people living in the US and in the world and to in fact correct the inaccurate
stereotypes that had been propagated in that very class only the week before.
I suggested that if she had written a realistic, intimate and factual portrait
of The Amish, The Aborigines of Australia or The Civil Rights Movement in the
US, she would likely have been applauded and that I didn't find it fair that
because the subject involved a group of people about which THEY knew nothing,
it was unacceptable. I pointed out that her whole goal was to
educate, not to convert. They started in with how "society's views"
of the Witch are well ingrained and that this very view is what is sure to
result in the outcry... so I finished with, "So it's best to just let things
be and allow the discrimination to continue silently without ever attempting
to correct the view? To keep the peace and have things be 'nice,' Delena
should just sit in class and put up and shut up?" Well, in the interest of
creating an appropriate educational environment for the students...
OK, so to create an appropriate
educational environment for the students, you will ban speeches that ...
educate? In one breath, the principal told me that if Delena had approached
the speech from a historical, factual basis, that it might have been
acceptable ...
I interrupted to say, "OK, so historical
subjects are appropriate subject matter but anthropological ones are not? And
if she is discussing how she lives her life as a Witch and the people she
knows who are Witches live there lives, that's not factual enough?? The
events and descriptions that were portrayed by last week's speaker were given
as facts, but were completely inaccurate and biased..."
(the principal's "in one breath thing"
comes here) "but History is so subjective..."
Wait! Didn't you just say that if
she'd approached this from a historical factual standpoint that it would have
possibly been acceptable, but now you are telling me that history is
subjective??? It can't work both ways and you can't have different sets of
rules for different kids.
Of course, this is part of a
conversation that lasted over an hour, so I won't bore you with the whole
thing. In the end, I asked them what exactly (and I told her teacher - who is
really very, very nice that I needed her to think back VERY clearly and tell
me PRECISELY) was said to Delena when she interrupted her
speech while in progress. She said that Delena had gotten as
far as "...and I'm here to talk about a religion called Witchcraft..." and the
teacher cut her off and told her "this is not the topic we discussed" and told
her she'd have to stop her speech until it was further discussed.
So anyway, there was their loophole and
I handed it to them in protection of my daughter. I asked WHAT the rules for
the speech were regarding topics being reviewed by the teacher
for all students.
As it turns out, the first step in the
speech creation process (which makes sense to me to avoid such unpleasantness
as resulted) is to submit the topic of your speech to the teacher. Delena
said she was doing Harry Potter. She later traded to tarot cards and did not
inform the teacher, then switched to Witches after the other girl's speech
last week. I told them that Delena was under the impression that she had
permission to change subjects and wondered where she could have gotten that
idea. The teacher admitted that Delena had asked her if it was OK to
switch topics. The teacher told her it was, but Delena never submitted a new
topic, so the teacher thought she was still doing Harry Potter.
Anyway, I asked the teacher, given that conversation, if
it was logical that Delena thought she had permission to change topics just as
it was logical for the teacher to assume that Delena would submit the
new topic. They both agreed it was.
So in light of that, I gave them the loophole that since
submitting the topic is required and since Delena was giving her speech on the
last day of speeches, that she was going to be allowed to choose whether to
give her speech to the teacher and or to be graded on content alone. So Delena is under the impression that the only thing that was objectionable is
that her teacher was expecting she would follow through with the topic
submission and that the only problem was a miscommunication between her
and her teacher, NOT that there was anything wrong with the content of her
speech. After the hour long conversation I had with teacher and
principal, they agreed that Delena had no reason to believe that there was
anything wrong with the content, despite their knee-jerk biases and that she
deserved to be educated in an environment that does NOT give her the
impression that there is something wrong with her faith just because the
powers in charge are uneducated about it.
When Delena got home that day, she was
really down. I told her that she had the two choices and she decided
that the shine was off giving the speech and that she'd be graded on content
alone. I told her that if she thought about her purpose of the speech
that she had chosen, it was to educate and open people's eyes to how she and
other Witches are hurt by the continuation of stereotypes. I pointed out
that since all things happen for a purpose, we need to think about why this
could have happened. I also suggested that instead of getting her
message just to a group of kids, she'd managed to get it to the top of the
school by way of the principal and that perhaps she had opened some doors
there to things changing. I was very, very proud of her and I am pleased
that I've raised someone who "gets it."
The only real bitch about it is it was a speech
competition and Delena really wanted to have a chance at advancing to the next
level and that can't happen now. So that's the nutshell about that.
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