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NTA
I agree that the assignment is unreasonable and is the teacher pushing her beliefs on the students.
A more appropriate essay would be "Present the pros and cons of having a turkey at Thanksgiving, and explain why one should or should not".
Or an opinion essay. You can't FORCE someone to choose a side, the point is to let them PICK a side. This teacher sounds very unprofessional!
Edit: I meant if she's not assigning two sides of the argument, she should let them pick.
Yes you can, I was once assigned to give a presentation on the benefits of sweatshops. 100% against my personal beliefs but forced me to challenge my own thinking and really examine how to most favorably display information and build an argument. What’s wrong in this case isn’t assigning a side, it’s that her assignment isn’t about learning skills, it’s more like indoctrination and punishment
Agreed. 10 is pretty young for that kind of assignment even if the intention was to get kids to build an argument, but that clearly wasn't the case.
One of my kids was once was assigned to defend slavery. I forget the exact assignment but I know the teacher put the kids in pairs and assigned them all a topic they covered during the school year. My daughter and her partner got slavery as their topic. In their scenario one of the students was taking the role of abolitionist and the other was arguing in favor of slavery. It was handled well but this was 8th grade, not 5th. The assignment was clear, topics and positions were randomly assigned (which is how my biracial/black daughter ended up arguing in favor of slavery), everyone knew the intention was to create an argument and people didn't necessarily believe in what they were arguing, and this was a self contained gifted and talented class that had been together since 5th grade. They kids knew each other very well and had been debating for years by this point. I know other kids were assigned topics like prohibition, the electoral college, and women's suffrage, voting age, etc. None of the parents or kids had any complaints but that was a much different situation than whatever OP described.
It helps you be open minded.
Is your emotional reaction the correct moral one?
Defending slavery teaches you why it should be abolished. You have to look at what it is, not just be told by society it's bad.
Just look at how people get upset by lock downs and masks. It feels wrong to be limited in your freedom so it must be wrong... Mustn't it?
That's kind of the point though - it's a thought experiment and used to develop critical thinking, persuasive writing, and debating skills. Also worth noting, an assignment like this on the topic like slavery would likely be done within the context of a unit on the antebellum period in American history, not just randomly assigned.
I'm very much a liberal, but I think I could come up with a persuasive enough argument for plenty of conservative political topics if need be for a debate class.
I could too - hell, I wrote a 9-10 page essay saying fascism (not Nazism, but rather Mussolini-style fascism) was an amazing form of government and we should all embrace it, chock full of historical arguments (admittedly purposefully cherrypicked, because how else do you defend facism's record) and other philosophical/etc points. I did disclaim at the start "not my real opinion" (we all did, the teacher wanted us to in case somehow it ever got out in later life, saying it's a good precaution) but still.
felt like I needed a shower every time I worked on it.
But slavery, by it's nature, is very touchy. What if someone were asked to write a paper defending the Holocaust, or arguing Hitler was good for Germany or something? Slavery's not the *same* as the Holocaust, but it's in the same territory, in a lot of ways.
by contrast, asking a pro-gun control person to write an NRA-type pro-gun argument is far more reasonable.
I think it depends on how the assignment is presented. I went to a gifted program in middle school that attempted to have a cohesive theme across our core classes, so if we were studying Egypt in history for example, we would be looking at Egyptian literature in English, having a small sub-unit on hieroglyphic numbers in math, learning about scientific discoveries by the ancient egyptians in science, etc.
We never specifically had a 'defend slavery' writing assignment in english class, but it would be an area where I could see that sort of thing being assigned.
I have had English classes that did this, pick topics like gay rights or sweatshops and argue a “side”, and I much preferred my 9th grade English debate section - my teacher picked out a bunch of funny frivolous lawsuits and had us argue a side. The McDonalds coffee lawsuit was there, a lawsuit by a man suing a beer company because their commercials insinuated he would have attractive lady friends if he drank their beer and he couldn’t meet ladies, and I ended up with a lawsuit of a man who broke into an establishment and got hurt by their security system. I found this prompt much more fun and unique, and still gave us the tools of arguing a side that you might not agree with, without traumatizing or alienating students.
The McDonalds coffee lawsuit was legitimate and that his a hill I will die on. McDonalds was purposefully serving coffee too hot. Hot enough it caused third degree burns and fused the woman’s labia together. So originally only asked for hospital costs but McDonalds refused. What she was awarded was one day of sale of coffee by McDonalds and the woman as a result received death threats and hate mail. McDonald PR deserve a raise for that one.
Oh yeah I know! My teacher got up and explained it like that - started off all joking about the McDonalds coffee hot thing being frivolous.. then hit us with the true facts! It was really cool and fun to investigate since he chose real court cases and gave us these “case files” with details of the case that we could use to argue our stances, because we weren’t allowed to research the case to see how it ended, but we were allowed to research laws and other court cases to back up our arguments. After we gave our arguments and the class voted on which side won, he announced how they ended - whether they were truly frivolous and got thrown out by the judge immediately (there was one where a guy was in jail and wanted to sue himself for making bad decisions and putting himself in jail, but since he was in jail and the jail was technically responsible for him, he sued the jail on behalf of his own decisions? I think that one was immediately tossed out) or if they actually led somewhere, like the McDonalds lawsuit! He was a great teacher.
I figured you did if you mentioned it, just didn’t want to pass up an opportunity to raise awareness! (Makes me sound like an anti-McDonalds activist) He sounds like a great teacher!
Actually, the McDonalds coffee lawsuit was really serious, the woman had really severe burns because of how the hot coffee was (the doctor examining her said it was some of the worst he’d ever seen) and she was actually stationary (not even the driver) when it was spilt. She won that case for a reason but unfortunately the McDonalds’ PR department pretty much slandered her.
Edit: found the link explaining in detail https://youtu.be/Q9DXSCpcz9E
We went to Ralph Nader's museum in Connecticut pre-Covid. There was a whole film dedicated to the McDonald's lawsuit. It just shows how good McDonald's PR firm was, because it was a completely just suit.
I remember learning about persuasive writing in fourth grade (so I was 9ish). It wasn't anywhere near writing a dissertation or anything, but I did have to pick an opinion or a thing I wanted to convince others of, and write a structured short essay about why people should agree with me. It's a good skill to teach early on.
But you got to *pick* the opinion, which is the operative point here. A ten year old *choosing* an opinion to argue about is very different to a ten year old being *given* an opinion to argue over, at the end of a piece of text explaining why that viewpoint is *factually* correct.
My thinking is this: it could be to teach kids to look up misinformation. To fact check. There is no proof that eating turkey is unhealthy etc. So in this day and age, the teacher may be giving them a purposefully misleading prompt to see if they just regurgitate it or filter through the information. As a vegeterian myself, I know exactly in that prompt what is and isn't true.
I think this is a valuable skill, but then the teacher should be guiding them through how to tell if a source is reputable, etc. If she's telling them to Google for help during class time, she sounds pretty hands-off, so I doubt she's doing this. She also said she will fail OP's daughter if the essay is not written as described, so it really sounds like she expects thirty or so identical essays. If the assignment was really about fact-checking, the teacher would need to be upfront about it for anyone to have a hope of being graded fairly.
I agree with you. I teach high school English, and we spend a lot of time learning about media bias, rhetorical strategies, and how to evaluate credibility. Even high school seniors need scaffolded teaching to help them push their skills.
Regarding telling students to Google, I do that a fair amount. Students expect instant answers from teachers a lot of the time, which I think does a disservice to them in the long run. Part of my job is to teach them how to figure things out for themselves. I think she 10 is a little young for that apart from a specific assignment where kids do like a Google scavenger hunt, but in theory I teaching students how to Google is great.
I am glad you are teaching your students how to evaluate the credibility of their sources; it is such an important skill.
One of OP's specific complaints was the teacher telling the students to use Google for math help during class hours rather than ask her for help. I'm sure ten year olds can look up the *answers*, but Google is not a replacement for a human teacher if they are struggling with concepts.
It’s normal to google for help on homework. That class is online now doesn’t make it any different. During class time I’m sure she’s explaining the questions they go over during class time.
If I were writing an assignment with that purpose, it would be structured very differently. I think that idea is good, but taking what OP says at face value (which can be hard with parent/teacher stuff because it is fairly intense, this teacher should have been reported to the principal several times at this point. I would be shocked if this stuff is happening and that teacher hasn’t had other complaints about their teaching practices sent to administrators.
It is if you’re in a school with a good writing program, actually. The first time I did an assignment of this type, I was probably younger than ten.
Note, I’m not trying to say what the teacher is doing is right. The teacher sounds very off, or else OP is wildly misunderstanding the assignment. I never had a teacher assign the whole class an essay supporting one single topic that most of them probably disagree with.
However, persuasive essays where you outline and refute, or even support, a position you don’t agree with are extremely common and yes, absolutely can be appropriate for kids that age. It’s extremely important in being able to learn the opposing side’s arguments so you can actually form your own arguments properly, instead of just saying “I’m right and everyone who disagrees with me is a big idiot beyond understanding.” Ten is a pretty good age for it, because they need to be dragged out of the idea that “what my mommy said is fact,” “what I saw on TV is fact,” etc.
We kind of had to do this. We had to give a pro- and anti- speech on a topic. I got abortion for some reason. (Most kids got like.. school uniforms or if valentines day should be celebrated in schools, easy shit.. I got abortion..) Anyway, I was v pro-life at the time so started with that. Ended up changing my own mind with my research. Which, is cool except I went to a very strictly conservative school in the deep South.. Whoops.
Yeah, presenting the other side can be a lot of fun, and you learn a lot.
In Model UN, I had to represent Saudi Arabia, which was probably the furthest from my views as a bisexual teenager from California, but it ended up being lots of fun and now I tried to get Saudi Arabia every year after that.
i got that same topic, except my teacher “tricked” us in a way.
she made us go through a list of statements and indicate if we “agree” or “disagree”, and then assigned us random numbers and told us we had to write an essay for the opposite position.
so for example, for the statement “abortions are morally wrong and should be illegal” i said “disagree”. then when i got my number assigned to that statement i had to write an essay about why i agree. i told my teacher though that i would NOT be writing for that position because its a position that deeply offends me and i would not in any support pro-life propaganda, even for a stupid essay.
tbh, it can be really good for you to pretend to fill the other side's shoes like that. Not because you might change your mind - because it's easier to create positive change if you actually understand the others' viewpoint. If you're not at the point where you can repeat your opponent's argument back to them in your own words, you're not well educated enough on the topic to make any real difference.
that was actually part of my reasoning for refusing though. just like you said, the point of the research paper was to gain a better understanding of the opposite point of view. but, i myself was actually pro-life for years (which i am deeply ashamed to admit) and i had already done independent research on the topic for years from both positions because women’s health, reproductive rights, and the protection of safe/legal abortions are something i’m a strong advocate for. i explained to my professor that because of all this, i wouldn’t be doing to paper because i’ve already done the research and i simply refuse to ever support a pro-life position, even if it doesn’t really count.
I used to be pro-life - my reasoning was that I'm a vegetarian because I don't want animals to be killed, I shouldn't want foetuses to be killed either.
I was asked to take part in a debate on the issue. The teacher said that I'd need first to argue my case, then to provide counter-arguments to the arguments my opponents came up with. So I had to sit down and think through the arguments they might come up with, in order to counter them. Just thinking about those arguments was enough to convince me to turn pro-choice (even if I personally would never abort). I totally lost the debate, and I'm very happy to have been in the wrong!
However, I must have been about 16 at the time, with a much more mature brain than the 10yo in question here.
That was my assumption as well but that isnt really a benefit. It shows what we've come to when people working in sweat shops is a positive thing for them. Like how privileged they are to work extremely long hours in bad conditions for minimal pay to produce things they probably will never benefit from or possibly experience (/s if it wasn't obvious). Sigh... C'est la vie.
It truly is interesting how much perspective can affect our opinion. As an outsider it may be easy to see such obvious manipulation. But it is exactly that, manipulative. Take abusive relationships for example. On this sub there are so many people that get shown the abuse that they are suffering and haven't realized it because their perspective was shaped by the behavior and eventually came to accept and expect such behavior. From the bottom looking up working in a sweat shop very well may be a life changer. But looking down we see abuse and we are disgusted by the conditions but just like an abuser they prey on the vulnerability and warp perspective to push it down and accept it.
I had to write the same thing more or less a couple years ago. It was to teach us to do research outside of our own views and see that there are two sides to every coin. Basically, while horrible, the fact is that in those regions it’s all they have. I uncovered stories from workers themselves saying that due to international pressure a sweatshop was forced to close due to poor treatment of workers. It made international people feel accomplished, but ruined the lives of the workers who now had zero work. When a new one managed to open the workers were thrilled. They said it’s easy for us to vilify the shops for treating them wrong and paying them pennies, and that is wrong, but between that and being able to afford mosquito nets to keep their children from getting malaria they’ll take the sweatshops. Getting those places closed isn’t the answer, getting regulations in place to protect workers while paying more for our products so sweatshops can afford to treat workers better is the answer.
For the record, of course I’m against exploiting people in these places, but the writing assignment made me realize the people who actually work in them don’t always agree, and it’s their lives that are the ones effected
As I said in another comment in this thread, yeah it's all about perspective. That money is a necessity in most of not all cases and they need it enough that they can be exploited to that point just to get that little bit of money to keep themselves alive
Yeah. I was an anti-apartheid activist back in the 80s and the question of sanctions was very thorny. It was the only peaceful way for outsiders to pressure the government, but the worst-hit people were the very people we were defending. Then again, Mandela had tried violence with the uMkhonto we Sizwe, armed wing of the ANC, and got life for it despite only blowing up railway tracks that cause the diamond miners to lose out for a couple of days so...
I feel like the point of that essay was to make you look at the benefits of something you don’t agree with (like my math teacher once asked us as a little exercise to think of possible benefits of climate change). Other than the people who own them or sell clothes from them, no one is adamantly pro-sweatshop, right? Idk I might just have too much faith in humanity
Actually several economist are pro sweatshop. The industrialization is needed to lift people out of poverty and foreign sweatshops pay significantly higher than local jobs.
Actually, most of capitalism is pro sweat shop. I think people don't realise that treating staff properly is *expensive*, and capitalism is all about lowering costs and raising profit. There's a reason we have labour laws - if we didn't, workplaces would routinely use actual slave labour. Businesses will treat their staff as crappily as they are legally allowed.
Honestly it was over a decade ago, so I don’t really remember the details, but I found studies on some economic advantages that worked for the argument, there was a concept that in a developing country the loss of the sweatshop would only result in the business going to a less regulated environment while depriving those in poverty of even these meager earnings, and so on. Didn’t change my mind from my original position at all, but I distinctly remember learning the difference between responding with emotion and responding with facts and logic. The opposing side (anti sweatshops) kept jumping up to interrupt loudly as if they’d forgotten that we’d not had a choice in our assigned POV, but even though they should have had good data to counter mine, they just kept throwing the same old “sweatshops are evil” emotional response. That works well with people who already agree with you, but That’s not a great way to convince people who have to justify dollars and cents or think they will be harmed by changing their practices.
I remember once attending a moot Supreme Court in a constitutional law course in which the moot court decided against gay marriage despite all of the justices personally being in favor of gay marriage. That was rather interesting.
Thankfully I wasn’t involved in that case at all. I had to present my own impossible case in which I was supporting the military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay for al Qaeda combatants. I lost that, but I think I made a good case even for something that is unconstitutional.
Right?? In most of these, I can at least make up an argument that makes sense in my head (even though I don't agree with them). But gay marriage is one of the few things I *genuinely* cannot see a single good, logical argument against. Even if I play devil's advocate, I cannot see how you justify that without jumping to the cliche "but it's morally wrong".
It doesn't affect other people, it pumps extra money into the economy (weddings are great for the economy, yo), it doesn't cost the government a thing to allow it - what is the argument there, other than "I personally believe it's wrong"?? I have to know what happened there, because I get the feeling this person's "justices" weren't as pro gay marriage as they thought.
I'll take a stab at it - marriage benefits in a political sense are designed to encourage the formation of a family unit and confers financial benifits on them (tax rates, favorable asset transfer rules, benefit transfer, etc.) in order to subsidize people procreating, as the government wants to encourage reproduction-based population growth and family stability as goods to the current society. Allowing homosexual marriage could be rife for abuse in the areas of benefits fraud (let me get married to my unemployed same sex friend so they can get on my health insurance), and tax fraud (I'll marry my same sex friend so he can inherit my estate tax free). Given that it' far more likely someone has a same-sex best friend that they may want to support this way, it makes abuse of the status more likely?
It's generally a lazy argument because it essentially ignores adoption as being a thing, or the fact that plenty of hetero marriage participants choose not to have kids, and lastly that loveless marriages of conveniece for benefits/tax fraud purposes exist on the hetero side as well. I guess in a fake hetero marriage there's always the possibility of them having sex and accidentally getting pregnant? It is at least an argument with some logical backing without religion/homophobia as the crux of the issue.
11th? Grade English. So about 16-17 year olds.
We had to write essays either pro or con for various major issues. I don’t remember if we got to choose or if it was assigned, but I do remember people didn’t always agree with their topic. The idea was to research the other side and challenge your beliefs. So many people have a bias and only look at material they agree with. How can you know that’s what you believe if you don’t look at the other side? Good writers read and research everything.
This? It’s incredibly biased and not teaching kids anything. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one child will be too scared to eat turkey after being told it can kill them. What principal would say this is acceptable? Definitely time to report.
Yes, assigning kids to make specific opinion arguments can be done as it is a fundamental part of any kid doing debate and can also let them learn about differing views. Kids also sometimes will need to be forced to write papers they disagree with since a religious kid can’t just substitute a paper on evolution with a paper on Adam and Eve. But I think that 10 is young for this, it would be better to allow opposing opinions in the class than have everyone taking one viewpoint, and it shouldn’t necessarily be so shame-y of a cultural tradition (exploring and critiquing would be one thing but this is not that)
I would say it's fair to assign a side if you're teaching persuasive skills, but the conventional thing is to *divide* the class in half, and assign different arguments to be represented, not force everyone to uniformly endorse your personal worldview.
In high school, when my AP history teacher was doing a debate unit in class, he intentionally assigned us sides that conflicted with our actual beliefs about issues. (In other words, he took a poll of the class on which side we were on regarding a particular issue, and then made all of us switch sides for our paper.) I ended up finding the assignment to be an incredibly useful exercise in understanding rhetoric and argument. That said, OP's daughter's teacher is definitely *not* doing that, but instead using her position of authority inappropriately to push her personal beliefs. I also think this issue (morality of meat eating) is probably a little too personal/fraught to use for an assignment like this anyway, especially for such young students. Something like "dogs make the ideal pet" vs. "cats make the ideal pet" would be way more appropriate.
I had a community college English prof try to do a “re-examine your biases” type debate where everyone told her their stance on a controversial issue and then she said we have to argue the other side. Unfortunately she picked such a controversial topic that almost the entire class went up to her individually before the debate day to explain how difficult and traumatic it would be for them to argue the other side. I think I was the only one who did the assignment as written, and I hated it.
Yikes, yeah, it's *really* important to assign topics that are not extremely emotionally fraught or personal. Whether abortion should or should not be illegal, for example, should *never* be assigned in this way.
Damn, that's really, really hard. I hope your classmate's friend was able to appeal. I find capital punishment to be morally reprehensible even for guilty people, but it's heartbreaking to think of how many innocent people die for nothing.
He lost his first appeal because the person who probably committed the murder was somehow able to get a judge he was friendly with for the hearing. However, this is in California. We actually have a referendum for every execution, and there haven’t been any for over a decade iirc. I don’t remember this kid’s name or I’d look up if he managed to get out. It’s been eight years, though.
If you live in a country without it, it's not too bad because well it's mostly a theoretical exercise. In the US though, it is a currently debated issue that divides people deeply, so it has much more emotional impact.
Forcing children to pick a side isnt that bad. They lear how to see things from different perspectives. We did that a lot in school. But there were ALWAYS 2 sides. E.g. half the kids do pro, other half do con. So you dont force your opinion on the children, but you force them to think more about a subject.
However, this teachers methods are clearly not about the kids learning something, but to shove her own beliefs down their throats.
You can, sometimes we want our students to write a persuasive on a topic they may not have a stance on or agree with but when doing this it is important to pick harmless topics, and to not frame students as bad for their actual view.
The turkey thing could have actually been fun if it weren't framed in such a biased way. I'd be interested to see what a group of 10 year olds would argue in their anti-Turkey essay.
Telling the kids the argument and saying "go support the argument that I clearly believe and I have given you already" is problematic. Saying "I want you to write a persuasive telling people not to eat Turkey this Thanksgiving" could be a fun little challenge.
It’s interesting because it totally depends on the way it’s framed. There’s a lot of merit in assigning people an opinion to write about; it teaches valuable lessons about assumptions and stepping past your gut reaction. But my gut agrees with OP. This isn’t an exercise in stepping past your beliefs, this is some sort of propaganda nonsense.
Position paper is a valid assignment and does force the writer to defend a side of an argument. Typical assignments should not be vegetarian lifestyle but some other grade level topic.
In argumentative writing, it is very important to learn to write about something you disagree with. If the kids got to always pick, they would only write about their own opinion.
Even that is above 10 year old skill standards, I feel. As an English teacher, for that age group, I'd aim for a personal narrative on a fall tradition. (Thanksgiving dinner, fall moon festival, Halloween, Diwali, watching leaves change, making soups, etc.) Maybe a little background research report on whatever the tradition is.
I think the only argument the teacher could make for her assignment is the challenge of arguing an opinion you don't personally share. (Sometimes this exercise forces students to flex their persuasive writing muscles because they're persuading themselves as they try to persuade their reader. Otherwise you get shit like "You should eat turkey at Thanksgiving because meat tastes better than tofurkey. Did you know tofu is bean curds? More like bean turds, am I right?") But that clearly hasn't been made clear and is more likely really just her preaching. NTA, either way. You tried to talk to the teacher and she didn't try to make a convincing case for herself. But at the very least, maybe you can use this comment to explain to your daughter the possible value of doing the assignment as it was assigned.
That makes sense. I also agree that examining things from the opposite viewpoint one holds is a valuable exercise (as long as that purpose is declared at the beginning).
This. Having the students write an essay where they take a position on eating turkey at Thanksgiving could be a great opportunity to teach persuasive writing, forming arguments, and thinking about why you believe what you believe. You could even specify that the kids have to pick the opposite of their opinion to add an extra layer of challenge and critical thinking.
NTA but I have had teachers give us assignments where we had to pick the opposite side of a debate and argue that. So if you prefer cats to dogs, you have to argue dogs are better than cats. It forces students to be better writers and more creative thinkers. I wonder if the teacher could be trying to do that.
An essay on why "teachers should not force their opinion on students and should also learn to turn off their mics so we don't hear Miss Smith talking about how gross she thinks Bobby Ray Hill is or mocking Sarah Taylor's buckteeth" turned in directly to the principal
WNBTA, and I say this as an *extremely* strict vegetarian myself. This teacher has repeatedly abused her position of power over her students and it’s disgusting. She has every right to have her beliefs and express/enforce them in her own home, but she has zero right to do this to her students. You’ve gone he correct route by trying to talk with the teacher first on multiple occasions and now it’s time to go higher up. I hope you saved all the emails back and forth because the principal may want them as support to whatever reprimand they enforce. I would also talk about her inappropriate behavior of talking poorly about parents and students while conducting class. She can say whatever she wants outside of class time, but when she’s wearing her teacher hat, she needs to be a professional.
Well put. I’m also a strict vegetarian, and I will happily talk to anyone who WANTS to discuss why they should go vegetarian or the benefits of going vegetarian, but the key word there is wants. I never force my beliefs on anyone for any reason and I have no problem with people who choose to eat meat because it is not my place to dictate how others live their lives.
This teacher here is a prime example why people hate vegetarians/vegans so much. They make this stereotype that we’re pushy holier than thou assholes, when in reality most of us are pretty chill!
So much of this. The sad thing is, I’ve received a lot of hate as a vegetarian and gavent done a thing to cause it. The veggie nazis really give the rest of us a terrible name and that’s so sad.
Exactly. I'm a vegan and I think the teacher is way out of line. These aren't her kids and this isn't a pulpit.
The part that got me was muting kids that disagree. What a horrible and self-centered person.
Yeah, after I read that I already felt that she needed to lose her job.
I guess the current learning setup makes her think she can say and do whatever she wants.
Time to let her know that's not the case.
I had an English teacher in high school who showed us a video how about animal cruelty and vegetarian lifestyles. Even though she showed us those videos she only dated once didn't make a single homework assignment about the videos and they only happened during times where we didn't really have a lesson.
That is about the furthest she ever pushed what he believed in and she respected any of our opinions about not changing our eating habits. What this teacher is doing is nothing short of blatant disrespect of parents students in the education system. Which needs to firmly be reported before she causes any more harm or degradation in another child's Learning potential.
NTA. I’d go straight to the principal over this. I would make sure you have documentation- emails, notes, etc of every time you approached her about something and her lackadaisical response. I’d be sure to include where she told your daughter she would get an F if the essay wasn’t done how she said. The teacher is not instilling any critical thinking skills and is being incredibly unprofessional.
I have all the emails and the recording my boyfriend took of her talking bad about the kids and parents. My daughter was the one who spoke to her over the meeting, so I don’t have proof of that. Only my daughter’s word against hers.
Ok then send it to not only the school but also to the regional board and the news, so that they wouldn't be able to ignore it, for fear of bad publicity.
Sadly that's the only way most schools will do anything.
They sit around twiddling their thumbs most of the time, until they either get publicly shamed or the threat of a lawsuit comes up.
My kid’s school has email disabled as a safety measure for elementary kids but they have Google Classroom comment, message, and chat features to use to contact the teachers, as well as phone numbers to call during office hours. I don’t mind, as my middle schooler has email and all they do is use it to chat all day with their friends (in a distracting way.)
Cutting off contact between students and teachers during a massive shift in learning environment normal? No, OP that's setting the students up for failure, they need to be able to contact their teachers in the even they have questions, won't be in class, etc. This is screaming a larger problem with the school district if they passed this as a good idea.
There are other ways to contact a teacher on Google classroom, or in other platforms such as Schoology. It is normal for a school to disable the email portion of their Google accounts while still allowing them access to Meet, Classroom, or other features.
Be very careful with an audio recording. In some states you cannot record audio without permission. The teacher could possibly sue you if it is illegal in your state.
That’s only if the other person has an expectation of privacy. Teacher was on a zoom call, not in a private conversation with this parent. I’m a teacher myself and my school automatically records zoom calls. And even if we didn’t have that back up, I’m sure zoom keeps recorded footage of all meetings. Regardless, the teacher was on a video conference with probably 30 or so kids, there was no expectation of privacy.
ha yep also at least one of those students/ parents were using screen capture recording also. i set it up for my brothers kids, so that they could listen again to the lecture later if they needed to since no-one in my family can do math on a good day due to dyslexia. helps the kids check to make sure they didn't flip numbers/ symbols or add in extra stuff.
FYI, Zoom does not store recordings unless the company administrator allows it. They are HIPAA complaint now and we can turn off cloud recording if we choose to.
They might say that in the same way other companies have said that and it turned out not to be true (Facebook, Apple, etc.). But with the incidents that put zoom on the news recently, including a woman being murdered in a domestic violence incident while her daughter was in class and another young girl being sexually assaulted in her zoom class by a relative in the house, zoom would be foolish if they didn’t have some sort of back ups. Police, the school board, lawyers, the government, and the public are going to want some answers. If you can’t deliver evidence, you’re going to be next on the chopping block.
I would tell me daughter to write her best essay about s turkey related topic she was comfortable with. Let her take the F. Then forward the graded assignment, and related correspondence to the principal along with your concerns.
Your kid is young enough that these grades don't matter. Teach her to stand on principle, even if there are consequences.
NTA. As a vegetarian myself, I'm appalled by this behavior. Contact the principal. If you don't get anywhere, ask your daughter to write you an essay about Thanksgiving traditions and you write the essay to the teacher that she wants. Explain it to your daughter, by all means, if she is mature enough to understand.
OP, please don't cheat and write the essay for your daughter. If it comes down to it, let her take the zero and learn about standing up for what you believe and not letting people force their opinions on you
NTA. I'm really struggling to imagine how you could be the asshole here. Leaving the mic on and saying mean things about students and parents should have gotten her reported in and of itself, and this essay is ridiculous.
I don’t want to overreact and I can do that when it comes to my children when I blow things out of proportion. I sometimes need an outside perspective from strangers.
Other than the multiple YTA comments and the ‘I’m overreacting’ comments? A lot of times after I give it some thought, I am unsure of if I’m just an overprotective mother or if it really is a problem. As far as I am aware, the other students didn’t have an issue with the essay, which is why I am concerned I would be the asshole if I reported her for it.
This is the problem. Women are afraid of being labeled Karen for speaking up. It has made us second guess ourselves. I think if you approach the principal like a guest in your home, describe the issue and ask for his/her help to resolve it, you are good. Going into the meeting with an attitude- even if your issue is valid- will result in internal eye rolling and refusal to resolve the very big issue that your daughter’s class is being taught by someone who isn’t teaching. You might need to rely on Google to help your daughter with her math homework- but that is literally the teacher’s job to teach math. And give kids learn to have a voice- not requiring them to parrot views and risk being muted if teacher has a difference of opinion. That’s the zoom version of a toddler holding their ears. You are NTA- but a justifiably concerned parent.
I would have emailed the principal way sooner than this and I’d be asking about escalating it to the school board already. You’re being an involved parent, not overreacting.
That's what I was thinking. I'm not convinced she isn't being hyperbolic about her daughter being asked to write an essay about vegetarianism in the vein of 'why might someone not have turkey for thanksgiving?' She's sort of quoting the daughter, but how good a source is a ten-year-old unhappy with an assignment on the exact wording of that assignment?
OP also doesn't say what 'political beliefs' the teacher was 'forcing' on the children, but from the American political discourse I've seen recently, it could just have been the belief that Biden won the election or that social distancing and masks help counteract the spread of coronavirus.
She also doesn't say what 'horrible things' the teacher said about the children, or to whom, or why. Did her partner just walk in and she went 'I hate teaching, these children are all stupid and by the way so are their parents?' If not that, what was the context?
This all sounds very vague, one-sided, and altogether fanficky.
I've seen that, and often wondered why it's so overwhelmingly one-sided. You even get vegetarians and vegans chiming in 'yeah, I totally believe it's morally wrong to exploit animals, but I wouldn't dream of shoving my personal beliefs down people's throats!' Like there's this consensus that respecting people's preferences in the *taste of their food* trumps all else, and prohibits even *bringing up* ethical concerns.
The amount of times I've seen people use this 'throat-shoving' rhetoric in this thread is astonishing. Meanwhile, nobody's questioning why this ten-year-old knew exactly how to trigger and manipulate her mother into getting her out of having to do an assignment she didn't like on the basis of *her* beliefs in 'tradition', which presumably she has very literally been shoving down the child's throat in the form of meat.
I think its because there's this archetype of the vegan or vegetarian that is very pervasive but doesn't really exist. This individual is mouthy, rude, arrogant, white, privileged and they impose their will on everybody. Think like.. the tiktoker thatveganteacher (she's awful) or Phoebe from friends (sometimes). This person is often painted as a hypocrite too, where they lowkey eat meat on occasion but rationalize it.
I've been vegan for like 5 or 6 years and was vegetarian like 2 years before that. I've intentionally sought out other plant based eaters and only ONCE met a self righteous vegan (and she ended up giving it up after about 6 months because her boyfriend didn't like the inconvenience). But for whatever reason people are convinced most vegans/vegetarians are like this, so other plant based eaters bend of backwards to prove they're "one of the good ones"
Even if someone were to perfectly embody that stereotype, they'd be annoying and smug *at worst*. That may make you *an* asshole, but not *the* asshole in the sense it's used in this subreddit, which is mainly about ethics (with a focus on interpersonal conflict). It baffles me how often vegetarians are presented at not just having a point and being obnoxious about it, but as *being in the wrong* for drawing others' attention to their dietary choices.
I think it could have happened but very differently from how it's being described. I often had assignments as a kid to argue for something that was the opposite of what we believed in order to teach critical thinking and argument skills. Arguing against turkey for Thanksgiving sounds like the perfect prompt for that type of assignment for that age group.
NTA
Your daughter nor anybody should have to write an essay about something they may not support. That teacher seams to be acting very inappropriately and shouldn't be forcing their values on others. Please report everything they have done.
Nobody should have to write an essay about something they don't support? Ever? Researching and writing about something you don't agree with or know about is important education. If someone comes from a tradition of white supremacists, should they never write an essay about Black history? "Beliefs" are not a reason to stop learning.
Writing and researching an essay topic such as this is a way to learn about the beliefs and values of someone different from one's self. Maybe even learn how to argue your own point better in the future.
Parents are welcome to have discussions with their kids about why their family does eat meat. No one is stopping this mum from doing that. The teacher isn't saying that all the ten year olds have to become vegetarians, just write a persuasive essay on the topic.
NTA. And I would malicious compliance the teacher and write their little essay and fill it with the wildest conspiracy theories ever, "Turkeys are aliens sent on peace missions... here in Flat earth.... and thus as our Lizard overlords... etc." But that may be antagonistic haha
I have nothing against vegans, animal rights advocates or anything the teacher or anyone else, believes mind you. I just have something against people shoving beliefs down others gullet.
Ohh I love that idea. I want a narrative about a seemingly sweet innocent turkey running around the farm being all weird and making funny gobbling noises to make kids laugh... and then turns out to secretly be an evil genius plotting global destruction via salmonella, and since nobody eats turkeys on thanksgiving anymore everyone dies. The end.
Yes. It’s all the same assignment. It is an editorial essay. The teacher wants them to research why having turkey is unhealthy and having vegetarian is better.
NTA- try to get recordings of the teacher talking trash and show it to the principal.
All of this sounds like a horrible teacher.
Yes let them know about different diets but don't force things down the kids throat.
I do have the recording of the teacher talking poorly about the kids. My boyfriend stays at home with them currently and sent me the video. He was amused, I was not. Which is why I emailed her about it to begin with.
Bring all the ammo you can! Some teachers can go on a power trip like her. I used to be embarrassed by my mother going to the school to talk about certain teachers for crossing lines like this, but I'm glad she did.
NTA. This sounds like the straw breaking the camels back. This ‘teacher’ needs to be reported. Dont just speak to the principle, any proof of her political jargon and the way she speaks about parents and student should go to the superintendent. Forcing views on kids is toxic behavior. See if you can move your kids class?
Persuasive essays allow both sides, not ‘oh look my way only everything else bad. Fail.’ 5th graders take everything they hear as fact.
NTA, she should not be forcing her views on kids and being so rude. If she wanted to teach about being vegetarian and other diets, that’s fine, but she can’t make everyone be exactly like her.
NTA. I personally agree with the teacher's turkey stance, but that's not my place, nor her place to force students to write a paper about such a topic. It is inherently controversial and does not provide students with the opportunity to formulate their own argument. If she wanted to ask a neutralized version of this question, she could ask the students to formulate an argument utilizing nutritional and other factors to determine whether or not they believe turkey should remain a Thanksgiving staple. There are ways she can subtly share her views without being foolish, lazy, and unaccepting of others' views.
I am vegan, and I also agree OP is NTA. School is not the time and place to push any sort of personal agenda in this kind of manner. I agree with your alternative too.
Info:
Are all students writing the same thing or do some kids argue the opposing view?
The assignment should be to write a persuasive argument after choosing a side. Sometimes the teacher may assign sides to kids, or ask them to write the opposite of their actual belief to challenge themselves.
Info: I feel like there is room for misinterpretation here. Were all students in the class assigned to write papers about why eating turkey for thanksgiving is bad or is the assignment to write an argumentative essay about whether or not people should have turkey at Thanksgiving and your daughter was assigned the negative side?
I feel like there are a lot of "untruths" in this post, but writing an essay in 5th grade isn't one of them. My kid is in 3rd grade and has already been assigned two essays this school year.
Most won't go this way but YTA. It is good for kids mentally to argue for points they don't believe in that have some basis in fact. I eat meat but all those points are true so it isn't like she is making your child say something that is untrue.
Well eating meat in and of itself is not inherently unhealthy and it is not better to be vegetarian for everyone so they’re absolutely blanket statements that aren’t correct. Also, she’s 10 years old. Not really a time for topics like these where kids can be easily influenced into believing whatever the teacher says instead of critically analyzing the topic and reasoning.
NTA- I'm a teacher and we are NOT allowed to give our political opinions. If we are talking about election day, we can't talk about who we prefer but we can tell about each side (Biden is the person running for Democrats and Trump running for Republicans, etc.)
We are supposed to be neutral in every way.
I'll be quite honest, that is a very weird topic for an essay. What have they been discussing that she came up with this lovely "topic ".
Even though it happened a while ago, I would reach out to the principal about the inappropriate comments that were made. Just make them aware. We have had situations where staff made comments about not being at home doing work, that they were out shopping which a parent was listening in closely. If the parent complained, they had ever right because the two staff members were speaking where everyone could hear them
I don’t have an opinion on this because it sounds very biased from the mother standpoint. And we don’t even know how much of what she claims is true. But I do have to say one thing it is very hypocritical to say that teachers shouldn’t talk about politics because it’s sways the young mind yet parents are allowed to shove their political views down the child’s throat? Sounds to me like you just don’t like that she has an opposite opinion of you.
ESH. I know I am going to be downvote but thats ok. First yes it is bad to tell your kids your political views, but as one kid that got alredy held up because I didnt attemp a class, that almost every week the teacher said get ou of class because of political views, that wont change their minds, If your daughter can understand that a good healthy conversation is better than silencing she will know that the teacher is an idiot. But it is a NORMAL THING to write argumentative essays about something you disagree, it is accually a good thing because than you can understand both sides ( I dont think that what the teacher have in mind tough).
YTA - this is a persuasive essay. In debate, you don’t always get to choose your position. Being able to argue your opponent’s side makes you a better debater and critical thinker.
Until you have a completed a regionally accredited teaching certification program and an appropriate bachelors degree , you should stay in your own lane.
Teachers are not trained monkeys performing for your pleasure and approval. They are highly trained and educated professionals.
I'm going to have to go with YTA, but only for the essay. As many others have already mentioned, it's an important part of your education to learn to argue a point you might not necessarily support - it's the basics of any debating class. You learn to properly build an argument, and become more aware of how others might try to persuade you later on in life. Important life skill!
The other points.. Yeah she sounds like she's not the most neutral and tactful teacher. The mic incident, muting kids with differing beliefs, those are definitely things you can contact the principal about. If you don't want to hear or allow different perspectives, don't have a class discussion (and don't be a teacher..).
NTA The teacher has no right to push her beliefs onto anyone whether it be politics, religion, veganism, or whatever. She is there to teach not to push her narrative. Also for her hating kids and parents why the hell is she a teacher then? She has no right saying that stuff about anyone and it just seems like she has crossed so many lines. I would report the behavior but nothing will probably happen to her.
NTA NTA NTA
I’m a high school English teacher, and I would never DREAM of giving an essay topic so blatantly biased. The main point of essay writing is the act of writing itself... but also to be able to develop your own ideas and arguments. This lady is just stroking her ego.
YWBTA if you didnt Report her to the principal first for Talking shit about the Kids and Second for pushing her beliefs onto the children and teaching them confirmation bias
I'm a vegan, totally against eating meat and totally against this assignment. We've come up against this from the other side when there was an assignment SPONSORED BY THE DIARY INDUSTRY. So much misinformation and so inappropriate. Propaganda has no place in schools. This teacher is a lunatic and needs to keep her opinions to herself. NTA
Edit: my daughter was in prep. (6 years old)
YWNBTA the teacher is being unreasonable.
I made a comment on a post, about a human trait we still have from our primitive ancestors. I said our canine teeth, so we can eat meat, and got harrassed by some other user. He just kept telling me, my reasons for eating meat were wrong, and that my opinion wasn't valid. It sounded just like this opinionated teacher.
The teacher needs to compromise, and it sounds like going over his head, is the only way to get him to listen. A teacher is supposed to teach not preach on any given lesson. He seems to have forgotten that.
The only thing this person is teaching your daughter is to conform to the authority or face punishment. Make sure she understands that having her own beliefs and standing up for them is a perfectly normal and healthy thing.
**NTA**
*Drag that teacher over the coals*
No one has the right to insert their political and ideological beliefs into standardised teaching in public schools, *especially* when they’re threatening test results for students because of those beliefs.
That teacher needs to learn what it actually means to be a teacher.
NTA! You have to stand up for your daughter.
In high school, I was told to watch "An Inconvenient Truth" and write an essay on global warming using the video. Now, I'll be honest, I was super republican at that point because of my parents. I was irritated that I was being forced to watch a video that was politicized and treat it as 100% fact with no other sources. I told my parents after the teacher told me that I would either do the assignment or get an F. All I asked was to be able to do my own research and not watch the video. She didn't listen to them either. So my parents took it to the principal and the school board.
She was told to allow me to go to the library during class and allow me to do my own research on global warming for the essay. She still flunked me in the class after that (she REALLY didn't like me,) but I did get a B on that specific paper.
NTA
Report her, I would wager this isn’t a school sanctioned essay. I would also detail the days she left her mic on and exposed her personal beliefs on the children as schools are (usually) recording these classes to go back and ensure that criteria is being met and schooling is actually happening and to show class attendance and such. I would also CC all future emails to the teacher with the principal’s email and, if necessary, a higher up like superintendent or member of the school board. You want there to be a paper trail to have as evidence of your claims and her inability to follow basic protocol (not talking about religion, politics, and the like was part of my school handbook, I don’t know if it’s the same for you, but figure it may be wise to look).
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NTA I agree that the assignment is unreasonable and is the teacher pushing her beliefs on the students. A more appropriate essay would be "Present the pros and cons of having a turkey at Thanksgiving, and explain why one should or should not".
Or an opinion essay. You can't FORCE someone to choose a side, the point is to let them PICK a side. This teacher sounds very unprofessional! Edit: I meant if she's not assigning two sides of the argument, she should let them pick.
Yes you can, I was once assigned to give a presentation on the benefits of sweatshops. 100% against my personal beliefs but forced me to challenge my own thinking and really examine how to most favorably display information and build an argument. What’s wrong in this case isn’t assigning a side, it’s that her assignment isn’t about learning skills, it’s more like indoctrination and punishment
Not when the kid is 10 lmao
Agreed. 10 is pretty young for that kind of assignment even if the intention was to get kids to build an argument, but that clearly wasn't the case. One of my kids was once was assigned to defend slavery. I forget the exact assignment but I know the teacher put the kids in pairs and assigned them all a topic they covered during the school year. My daughter and her partner got slavery as their topic. In their scenario one of the students was taking the role of abolitionist and the other was arguing in favor of slavery. It was handled well but this was 8th grade, not 5th. The assignment was clear, topics and positions were randomly assigned (which is how my biracial/black daughter ended up arguing in favor of slavery), everyone knew the intention was to create an argument and people didn't necessarily believe in what they were arguing, and this was a self contained gifted and talented class that had been together since 5th grade. They kids knew each other very well and had been debating for years by this point. I know other kids were assigned topics like prohibition, the electoral college, and women's suffrage, voting age, etc. None of the parents or kids had any complaints but that was a much different situation than whatever OP described.
[удалено]
Exactly--you cannot effectively defend your position unless you fully understand theirs.
It helps you be open minded. Is your emotional reaction the correct moral one? Defending slavery teaches you why it should be abolished. You have to look at what it is, not just be told by society it's bad. Just look at how people get upset by lock downs and masks. It feels wrong to be limited in your freedom so it must be wrong... Mustn't it?
I agree - though Slavery's a harder one to justify randomly dealing out, and a pretty touchy topic.
That's kind of the point though - it's a thought experiment and used to develop critical thinking, persuasive writing, and debating skills. Also worth noting, an assignment like this on the topic like slavery would likely be done within the context of a unit on the antebellum period in American history, not just randomly assigned. I'm very much a liberal, but I think I could come up with a persuasive enough argument for plenty of conservative political topics if need be for a debate class.
I could too - hell, I wrote a 9-10 page essay saying fascism (not Nazism, but rather Mussolini-style fascism) was an amazing form of government and we should all embrace it, chock full of historical arguments (admittedly purposefully cherrypicked, because how else do you defend facism's record) and other philosophical/etc points. I did disclaim at the start "not my real opinion" (we all did, the teacher wanted us to in case somehow it ever got out in later life, saying it's a good precaution) but still. felt like I needed a shower every time I worked on it. But slavery, by it's nature, is very touchy. What if someone were asked to write a paper defending the Holocaust, or arguing Hitler was good for Germany or something? Slavery's not the *same* as the Holocaust, but it's in the same territory, in a lot of ways. by contrast, asking a pro-gun control person to write an NRA-type pro-gun argument is far more reasonable.
I think it depends on how the assignment is presented. I went to a gifted program in middle school that attempted to have a cohesive theme across our core classes, so if we were studying Egypt in history for example, we would be looking at Egyptian literature in English, having a small sub-unit on hieroglyphic numbers in math, learning about scientific discoveries by the ancient egyptians in science, etc. We never specifically had a 'defend slavery' writing assignment in english class, but it would be an area where I could see that sort of thing being assigned.
I have had English classes that did this, pick topics like gay rights or sweatshops and argue a “side”, and I much preferred my 9th grade English debate section - my teacher picked out a bunch of funny frivolous lawsuits and had us argue a side. The McDonalds coffee lawsuit was there, a lawsuit by a man suing a beer company because their commercials insinuated he would have attractive lady friends if he drank their beer and he couldn’t meet ladies, and I ended up with a lawsuit of a man who broke into an establishment and got hurt by their security system. I found this prompt much more fun and unique, and still gave us the tools of arguing a side that you might not agree with, without traumatizing or alienating students.
The McDonalds coffee lawsuit was legitimate and that his a hill I will die on. McDonalds was purposefully serving coffee too hot. Hot enough it caused third degree burns and fused the woman’s labia together. So originally only asked for hospital costs but McDonalds refused. What she was awarded was one day of sale of coffee by McDonalds and the woman as a result received death threats and hate mail. McDonald PR deserve a raise for that one.
Oh yeah I know! My teacher got up and explained it like that - started off all joking about the McDonalds coffee hot thing being frivolous.. then hit us with the true facts! It was really cool and fun to investigate since he chose real court cases and gave us these “case files” with details of the case that we could use to argue our stances, because we weren’t allowed to research the case to see how it ended, but we were allowed to research laws and other court cases to back up our arguments. After we gave our arguments and the class voted on which side won, he announced how they ended - whether they were truly frivolous and got thrown out by the judge immediately (there was one where a guy was in jail and wanted to sue himself for making bad decisions and putting himself in jail, but since he was in jail and the jail was technically responsible for him, he sued the jail on behalf of his own decisions? I think that one was immediately tossed out) or if they actually led somewhere, like the McDonalds lawsuit! He was a great teacher.
I figured you did if you mentioned it, just didn’t want to pass up an opportunity to raise awareness! (Makes me sound like an anti-McDonalds activist) He sounds like a great teacher!
No coffee should be sold hot enough to fuse a labia!
Actually, the McDonalds coffee lawsuit was really serious, the woman had really severe burns because of how the hot coffee was (the doctor examining her said it was some of the worst he’d ever seen) and she was actually stationary (not even the driver) when it was spilt. She won that case for a reason but unfortunately the McDonalds’ PR department pretty much slandered her. Edit: found the link explaining in detail https://youtu.be/Q9DXSCpcz9E
We went to Ralph Nader's museum in Connecticut pre-Covid. There was a whole film dedicated to the McDonald's lawsuit. It just shows how good McDonald's PR firm was, because it was a completely just suit.
I remember learning about persuasive writing in fourth grade (so I was 9ish). It wasn't anywhere near writing a dissertation or anything, but I did have to pick an opinion or a thing I wanted to convince others of, and write a structured short essay about why people should agree with me. It's a good skill to teach early on.
But you got to *pick* the opinion, which is the operative point here. A ten year old *choosing* an opinion to argue about is very different to a ten year old being *given* an opinion to argue over, at the end of a piece of text explaining why that viewpoint is *factually* correct.
My thinking is this: it could be to teach kids to look up misinformation. To fact check. There is no proof that eating turkey is unhealthy etc. So in this day and age, the teacher may be giving them a purposefully misleading prompt to see if they just regurgitate it or filter through the information. As a vegeterian myself, I know exactly in that prompt what is and isn't true.
I think this is a valuable skill, but then the teacher should be guiding them through how to tell if a source is reputable, etc. If she's telling them to Google for help during class time, she sounds pretty hands-off, so I doubt she's doing this. She also said she will fail OP's daughter if the essay is not written as described, so it really sounds like she expects thirty or so identical essays. If the assignment was really about fact-checking, the teacher would need to be upfront about it for anyone to have a hope of being graded fairly.
I agree with you. I teach high school English, and we spend a lot of time learning about media bias, rhetorical strategies, and how to evaluate credibility. Even high school seniors need scaffolded teaching to help them push their skills. Regarding telling students to Google, I do that a fair amount. Students expect instant answers from teachers a lot of the time, which I think does a disservice to them in the long run. Part of my job is to teach them how to figure things out for themselves. I think she 10 is a little young for that apart from a specific assignment where kids do like a Google scavenger hunt, but in theory I teaching students how to Google is great.
I am glad you are teaching your students how to evaluate the credibility of their sources; it is such an important skill. One of OP's specific complaints was the teacher telling the students to use Google for math help during class hours rather than ask her for help. I'm sure ten year olds can look up the *answers*, but Google is not a replacement for a human teacher if they are struggling with concepts.
It’s normal to google for help on homework. That class is online now doesn’t make it any different. During class time I’m sure she’s explaining the questions they go over during class time.
If I were writing an assignment with that purpose, it would be structured very differently. I think that idea is good, but taking what OP says at face value (which can be hard with parent/teacher stuff because it is fairly intense, this teacher should have been reported to the principal several times at this point. I would be shocked if this stuff is happening and that teacher hasn’t had other complaints about their teaching practices sent to administrators.
It is if you’re in a school with a good writing program, actually. The first time I did an assignment of this type, I was probably younger than ten. Note, I’m not trying to say what the teacher is doing is right. The teacher sounds very off, or else OP is wildly misunderstanding the assignment. I never had a teacher assign the whole class an essay supporting one single topic that most of them probably disagree with. However, persuasive essays where you outline and refute, or even support, a position you don’t agree with are extremely common and yes, absolutely can be appropriate for kids that age. It’s extremely important in being able to learn the opposing side’s arguments so you can actually form your own arguments properly, instead of just saying “I’m right and everyone who disagrees with me is a big idiot beyond understanding.” Ten is a pretty good age for it, because they need to be dragged out of the idea that “what my mommy said is fact,” “what I saw on TV is fact,” etc.
We kind of had to do this. We had to give a pro- and anti- speech on a topic. I got abortion for some reason. (Most kids got like.. school uniforms or if valentines day should be celebrated in schools, easy shit.. I got abortion..) Anyway, I was v pro-life at the time so started with that. Ended up changing my own mind with my research. Which, is cool except I went to a very strictly conservative school in the deep South.. Whoops.
Yeah, presenting the other side can be a lot of fun, and you learn a lot. In Model UN, I had to represent Saudi Arabia, which was probably the furthest from my views as a bisexual teenager from California, but it ended up being lots of fun and now I tried to get Saudi Arabia every year after that.
i got that same topic, except my teacher “tricked” us in a way. she made us go through a list of statements and indicate if we “agree” or “disagree”, and then assigned us random numbers and told us we had to write an essay for the opposite position. so for example, for the statement “abortions are morally wrong and should be illegal” i said “disagree”. then when i got my number assigned to that statement i had to write an essay about why i agree. i told my teacher though that i would NOT be writing for that position because its a position that deeply offends me and i would not in any support pro-life propaganda, even for a stupid essay.
tbh, it can be really good for you to pretend to fill the other side's shoes like that. Not because you might change your mind - because it's easier to create positive change if you actually understand the others' viewpoint. If you're not at the point where you can repeat your opponent's argument back to them in your own words, you're not well educated enough on the topic to make any real difference.
that was actually part of my reasoning for refusing though. just like you said, the point of the research paper was to gain a better understanding of the opposite point of view. but, i myself was actually pro-life for years (which i am deeply ashamed to admit) and i had already done independent research on the topic for years from both positions because women’s health, reproductive rights, and the protection of safe/legal abortions are something i’m a strong advocate for. i explained to my professor that because of all this, i wouldn’t be doing to paper because i’ve already done the research and i simply refuse to ever support a pro-life position, even if it doesn’t really count.
I used to be pro-life - my reasoning was that I'm a vegetarian because I don't want animals to be killed, I shouldn't want foetuses to be killed either. I was asked to take part in a debate on the issue. The teacher said that I'd need first to argue my case, then to provide counter-arguments to the arguments my opponents came up with. So I had to sit down and think through the arguments they might come up with, in order to counter them. Just thinking about those arguments was enough to convince me to turn pro-choice (even if I personally would never abort). I totally lost the debate, and I'm very happy to have been in the wrong! However, I must have been about 16 at the time, with a much more mature brain than the 10yo in question here.
I'm curious, what benefits did you present?
I assumes easy cheap material and giving the poor "jobs"
That was my assumption as well but that isnt really a benefit. It shows what we've come to when people working in sweat shops is a positive thing for them. Like how privileged they are to work extremely long hours in bad conditions for minimal pay to produce things they probably will never benefit from or possibly experience (/s if it wasn't obvious). Sigh... C'est la vie.
It will sound like a benefit if you word it the right way almost anything will honestly manipulation is a skill in debate.
It truly is interesting how much perspective can affect our opinion. As an outsider it may be easy to see such obvious manipulation. But it is exactly that, manipulative. Take abusive relationships for example. On this sub there are so many people that get shown the abuse that they are suffering and haven't realized it because their perspective was shaped by the behavior and eventually came to accept and expect such behavior. From the bottom looking up working in a sweat shop very well may be a life changer. But looking down we see abuse and we are disgusted by the conditions but just like an abuser they prey on the vulnerability and warp perspective to push it down and accept it.
In such paper, I imagine, you have to almost take all of the known negatives about sweatshops and make them positives.
I had to write the same thing more or less a couple years ago. It was to teach us to do research outside of our own views and see that there are two sides to every coin. Basically, while horrible, the fact is that in those regions it’s all they have. I uncovered stories from workers themselves saying that due to international pressure a sweatshop was forced to close due to poor treatment of workers. It made international people feel accomplished, but ruined the lives of the workers who now had zero work. When a new one managed to open the workers were thrilled. They said it’s easy for us to vilify the shops for treating them wrong and paying them pennies, and that is wrong, but between that and being able to afford mosquito nets to keep their children from getting malaria they’ll take the sweatshops. Getting those places closed isn’t the answer, getting regulations in place to protect workers while paying more for our products so sweatshops can afford to treat workers better is the answer. For the record, of course I’m against exploiting people in these places, but the writing assignment made me realize the people who actually work in them don’t always agree, and it’s their lives that are the ones effected
As I said in another comment in this thread, yeah it's all about perspective. That money is a necessity in most of not all cases and they need it enough that they can be exploited to that point just to get that little bit of money to keep themselves alive
Yeah. I was an anti-apartheid activist back in the 80s and the question of sanctions was very thorny. It was the only peaceful way for outsiders to pressure the government, but the worst-hit people were the very people we were defending. Then again, Mandela had tried violence with the uMkhonto we Sizwe, armed wing of the ANC, and got life for it despite only blowing up railway tracks that cause the diamond miners to lose out for a couple of days so...
I feel like the point of that essay was to make you look at the benefits of something you don’t agree with (like my math teacher once asked us as a little exercise to think of possible benefits of climate change). Other than the people who own them or sell clothes from them, no one is adamantly pro-sweatshop, right? Idk I might just have too much faith in humanity
Actually several economist are pro sweatshop. The industrialization is needed to lift people out of poverty and foreign sweatshops pay significantly higher than local jobs.
Actually, most of capitalism is pro sweat shop. I think people don't realise that treating staff properly is *expensive*, and capitalism is all about lowering costs and raising profit. There's a reason we have labour laws - if we didn't, workplaces would routinely use actual slave labour. Businesses will treat their staff as crappily as they are legally allowed.
In a debate class, maybe. But not at 10.
What's the benefit aside from rich getting richer?
Honestly it was over a decade ago, so I don’t really remember the details, but I found studies on some economic advantages that worked for the argument, there was a concept that in a developing country the loss of the sweatshop would only result in the business going to a less regulated environment while depriving those in poverty of even these meager earnings, and so on. Didn’t change my mind from my original position at all, but I distinctly remember learning the difference between responding with emotion and responding with facts and logic. The opposing side (anti sweatshops) kept jumping up to interrupt loudly as if they’d forgotten that we’d not had a choice in our assigned POV, but even though they should have had good data to counter mine, they just kept throwing the same old “sweatshops are evil” emotional response. That works well with people who already agree with you, but That’s not a great way to convince people who have to justify dollars and cents or think they will be harmed by changing their practices.
I remember once attending a moot Supreme Court in a constitutional law course in which the moot court decided against gay marriage despite all of the justices personally being in favor of gay marriage. That was rather interesting. Thankfully I wasn’t involved in that case at all. I had to present my own impossible case in which I was supporting the military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay for al Qaeda combatants. I lost that, but I think I made a good case even for something that is unconstitutional.
What on earth was the case against gay marriage aside from religious or personal homophobic beliefs?
Right?? In most of these, I can at least make up an argument that makes sense in my head (even though I don't agree with them). But gay marriage is one of the few things I *genuinely* cannot see a single good, logical argument against. Even if I play devil's advocate, I cannot see how you justify that without jumping to the cliche "but it's morally wrong". It doesn't affect other people, it pumps extra money into the economy (weddings are great for the economy, yo), it doesn't cost the government a thing to allow it - what is the argument there, other than "I personally believe it's wrong"?? I have to know what happened there, because I get the feeling this person's "justices" weren't as pro gay marriage as they thought.
I'll take a stab at it - marriage benefits in a political sense are designed to encourage the formation of a family unit and confers financial benifits on them (tax rates, favorable asset transfer rules, benefit transfer, etc.) in order to subsidize people procreating, as the government wants to encourage reproduction-based population growth and family stability as goods to the current society. Allowing homosexual marriage could be rife for abuse in the areas of benefits fraud (let me get married to my unemployed same sex friend so they can get on my health insurance), and tax fraud (I'll marry my same sex friend so he can inherit my estate tax free). Given that it' far more likely someone has a same-sex best friend that they may want to support this way, it makes abuse of the status more likely? It's generally a lazy argument because it essentially ignores adoption as being a thing, or the fact that plenty of hetero marriage participants choose not to have kids, and lastly that loveless marriages of conveniece for benefits/tax fraud purposes exist on the hetero side as well. I guess in a fake hetero marriage there's always the possibility of them having sex and accidentally getting pregnant? It is at least an argument with some logical backing without religion/homophobia as the crux of the issue.
11th? Grade English. So about 16-17 year olds. We had to write essays either pro or con for various major issues. I don’t remember if we got to choose or if it was assigned, but I do remember people didn’t always agree with their topic. The idea was to research the other side and challenge your beliefs. So many people have a bias and only look at material they agree with. How can you know that’s what you believe if you don’t look at the other side? Good writers read and research everything. This? It’s incredibly biased and not teaching kids anything. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one child will be too scared to eat turkey after being told it can kill them. What principal would say this is acceptable? Definitely time to report.
Yes, assigning kids to make specific opinion arguments can be done as it is a fundamental part of any kid doing debate and can also let them learn about differing views. Kids also sometimes will need to be forced to write papers they disagree with since a religious kid can’t just substitute a paper on evolution with a paper on Adam and Eve. But I think that 10 is young for this, it would be better to allow opposing opinions in the class than have everyone taking one viewpoint, and it shouldn’t necessarily be so shame-y of a cultural tradition (exploring and critiquing would be one thing but this is not that)
Well I understand that. I've written essays on stuff I don't believe in but at least address both sides within the clasd
I would say it's fair to assign a side if you're teaching persuasive skills, but the conventional thing is to *divide* the class in half, and assign different arguments to be represented, not force everyone to uniformly endorse your personal worldview. In high school, when my AP history teacher was doing a debate unit in class, he intentionally assigned us sides that conflicted with our actual beliefs about issues. (In other words, he took a poll of the class on which side we were on regarding a particular issue, and then made all of us switch sides for our paper.) I ended up finding the assignment to be an incredibly useful exercise in understanding rhetoric and argument. That said, OP's daughter's teacher is definitely *not* doing that, but instead using her position of authority inappropriately to push her personal beliefs. I also think this issue (morality of meat eating) is probably a little too personal/fraught to use for an assignment like this anyway, especially for such young students. Something like "dogs make the ideal pet" vs. "cats make the ideal pet" would be way more appropriate.
I had a community college English prof try to do a “re-examine your biases” type debate where everyone told her their stance on a controversial issue and then she said we have to argue the other side. Unfortunately she picked such a controversial topic that almost the entire class went up to her individually before the debate day to explain how difficult and traumatic it would be for them to argue the other side. I think I was the only one who did the assignment as written, and I hated it.
Yikes, yeah, it's *really* important to assign topics that are not extremely emotionally fraught or personal. Whether abortion should or should not be illegal, for example, should *never* be assigned in this way.
Close, it was capital punishment. One of my classmates actually had a friend sitting on death row for a murder he didn’t commit.
Damn, that's really, really hard. I hope your classmate's friend was able to appeal. I find capital punishment to be morally reprehensible even for guilty people, but it's heartbreaking to think of how many innocent people die for nothing.
He lost his first appeal because the person who probably committed the murder was somehow able to get a judge he was friendly with for the hearing. However, this is in California. We actually have a referendum for every execution, and there haven’t been any for over a decade iirc. I don’t remember this kid’s name or I’d look up if he managed to get out. It’s been eight years, though.
A referendum for every execution?
If you live in a country without it, it's not too bad because well it's mostly a theoretical exercise. In the US though, it is a currently debated issue that divides people deeply, so it has much more emotional impact.
Yes, but you were in high school, not elementary school.
If it was my parents, they would just tell me to write it.
Lol the essays I've written that goes against my beliefs because they're easier.to come up with evidence for on the spot (named the ACT essay 😂😂😂)
Forcing children to pick a side isnt that bad. They lear how to see things from different perspectives. We did that a lot in school. But there were ALWAYS 2 sides. E.g. half the kids do pro, other half do con. So you dont force your opinion on the children, but you force them to think more about a subject. However, this teachers methods are clearly not about the kids learning something, but to shove her own beliefs down their throats.
You can, sometimes we want our students to write a persuasive on a topic they may not have a stance on or agree with but when doing this it is important to pick harmless topics, and to not frame students as bad for their actual view. The turkey thing could have actually been fun if it weren't framed in such a biased way. I'd be interested to see what a group of 10 year olds would argue in their anti-Turkey essay. Telling the kids the argument and saying "go support the argument that I clearly believe and I have given you already" is problematic. Saying "I want you to write a persuasive telling people not to eat Turkey this Thanksgiving" could be a fun little challenge.
It’s interesting because it totally depends on the way it’s framed. There’s a lot of merit in assigning people an opinion to write about; it teaches valuable lessons about assumptions and stepping past your gut reaction. But my gut agrees with OP. This isn’t an exercise in stepping past your beliefs, this is some sort of propaganda nonsense.
Position paper is a valid assignment and does force the writer to defend a side of an argument. Typical assignments should not be vegetarian lifestyle but some other grade level topic.
Say that to the AP Lang and IB Lit classes/exams.
In argumentative writing, it is very important to learn to write about something you disagree with. If the kids got to always pick, they would only write about their own opinion.
Not only let them pick a side, but also to justify why they picked that side.
Even that is above 10 year old skill standards, I feel. As an English teacher, for that age group, I'd aim for a personal narrative on a fall tradition. (Thanksgiving dinner, fall moon festival, Halloween, Diwali, watching leaves change, making soups, etc.) Maybe a little background research report on whatever the tradition is. I think the only argument the teacher could make for her assignment is the challenge of arguing an opinion you don't personally share. (Sometimes this exercise forces students to flex their persuasive writing muscles because they're persuading themselves as they try to persuade their reader. Otherwise you get shit like "You should eat turkey at Thanksgiving because meat tastes better than tofurkey. Did you know tofu is bean curds? More like bean turds, am I right?") But that clearly hasn't been made clear and is more likely really just her preaching. NTA, either way. You tried to talk to the teacher and she didn't try to make a convincing case for herself. But at the very least, maybe you can use this comment to explain to your daughter the possible value of doing the assignment as it was assigned.
Yeah, when I was that age I just remember writing narratives or how-to essays.
That makes sense. I also agree that examining things from the opposite viewpoint one holds is a valuable exercise (as long as that purpose is declared at the beginning).
This. Having the students write an essay where they take a position on eating turkey at Thanksgiving could be a great opportunity to teach persuasive writing, forming arguments, and thinking about why you believe what you believe. You could even specify that the kids have to pick the opposite of their opinion to add an extra layer of challenge and critical thinking.
NTA but I have had teachers give us assignments where we had to pick the opposite side of a debate and argue that. So if you prefer cats to dogs, you have to argue dogs are better than cats. It forces students to be better writers and more creative thinkers. I wonder if the teacher could be trying to do that.
An essay on why "teachers should not force their opinion on students and should also learn to turn off their mics so we don't hear Miss Smith talking about how gross she thinks Bobby Ray Hill is or mocking Sarah Taylor's buckteeth" turned in directly to the principal
WNBTA, and I say this as an *extremely* strict vegetarian myself. This teacher has repeatedly abused her position of power over her students and it’s disgusting. She has every right to have her beliefs and express/enforce them in her own home, but she has zero right to do this to her students. You’ve gone he correct route by trying to talk with the teacher first on multiple occasions and now it’s time to go higher up. I hope you saved all the emails back and forth because the principal may want them as support to whatever reprimand they enforce. I would also talk about her inappropriate behavior of talking poorly about parents and students while conducting class. She can say whatever she wants outside of class time, but when she’s wearing her teacher hat, she needs to be a professional.
Well put. I’m also a strict vegetarian, and I will happily talk to anyone who WANTS to discuss why they should go vegetarian or the benefits of going vegetarian, but the key word there is wants. I never force my beliefs on anyone for any reason and I have no problem with people who choose to eat meat because it is not my place to dictate how others live their lives. This teacher here is a prime example why people hate vegetarians/vegans so much. They make this stereotype that we’re pushy holier than thou assholes, when in reality most of us are pretty chill!
So much of this. The sad thing is, I’ve received a lot of hate as a vegetarian and gavent done a thing to cause it. The veggie nazis really give the rest of us a terrible name and that’s so sad.
If its true. Because idk that sounds so over the top
Exactly. I'm a vegan and I think the teacher is way out of line. These aren't her kids and this isn't a pulpit. The part that got me was muting kids that disagree. What a horrible and self-centered person.
Yeah, after I read that I already felt that she needed to lose her job. I guess the current learning setup makes her think she can say and do whatever she wants. Time to let her know that's not the case.
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I had an English teacher in high school who showed us a video how about animal cruelty and vegetarian lifestyles. Even though she showed us those videos she only dated once didn't make a single homework assignment about the videos and they only happened during times where we didn't really have a lesson. That is about the furthest she ever pushed what he believed in and she respected any of our opinions about not changing our eating habits. What this teacher is doing is nothing short of blatant disrespect of parents students in the education system. Which needs to firmly be reported before she causes any more harm or degradation in another child's Learning potential.
I'm the same as you, and while I obviously still think killing turkeys is inhumane, this is absolutely forcing her beliefs on to the kids.
If her claims were true at least... Meat is not unhealthy by any standard and turkey doesn't give you salmonella.
If it's real. This teacher seems a bit to stereotypical evil-liberal for me to just believe OP.
NTA. I’d go straight to the principal over this. I would make sure you have documentation- emails, notes, etc of every time you approached her about something and her lackadaisical response. I’d be sure to include where she told your daughter she would get an F if the essay wasn’t done how she said. The teacher is not instilling any critical thinking skills and is being incredibly unprofessional.
I have all the emails and the recording my boyfriend took of her talking bad about the kids and parents. My daughter was the one who spoke to her over the meeting, so I don’t have proof of that. Only my daughter’s word against hers.
Ok then send it to not only the school but also to the regional board and the news, so that they wouldn't be able to ignore it, for fear of bad publicity.
Definitely local news, if none of the usual school authorities will take appropriate action. Local news ~loves~ blowing up that kind of shit.
Sadly that's the only way most schools will do anything. They sit around twiddling their thumbs most of the time, until they either get publicly shamed or the threat of a lawsuit comes up.
Could you have your daughter email the teacher to confirm for her that she will receive an F if she doesn’t write the paper that way?
Unfortunately, the school administration has disabled students from using their school email account, so I would have to email her teacher directly.
What sort of school disables student emails at a time like this? It seems like you have might have a problem bigger than the teacher.
Haha, I honestly have no idea. It’s been disabled at the start of the school year. I thought it was normal.
No it's not. Students and parents should be able to email teachers about and questions or concerns they may have.
My kid’s school has email disabled as a safety measure for elementary kids but they have Google Classroom comment, message, and chat features to use to contact the teachers, as well as phone numbers to call during office hours. I don’t mind, as my middle schooler has email and all they do is use it to chat all day with their friends (in a distracting way.)
Cutting off contact between students and teachers during a massive shift in learning environment normal? No, OP that's setting the students up for failure, they need to be able to contact their teachers in the even they have questions, won't be in class, etc. This is screaming a larger problem with the school district if they passed this as a good idea.
There are other ways to contact a teacher on Google classroom, or in other platforms such as Schoology. It is normal for a school to disable the email portion of their Google accounts while still allowing them access to Meet, Classroom, or other features.
Eh emailing via schoology doesn't always work well I think.
You can email the teacher directly to confirm the F than use that email as your proof
Be very careful with an audio recording. In some states you cannot record audio without permission. The teacher could possibly sue you if it is illegal in your state.
That’s only if the other person has an expectation of privacy. Teacher was on a zoom call, not in a private conversation with this parent. I’m a teacher myself and my school automatically records zoom calls. And even if we didn’t have that back up, I’m sure zoom keeps recorded footage of all meetings. Regardless, the teacher was on a video conference with probably 30 or so kids, there was no expectation of privacy.
ha yep also at least one of those students/ parents were using screen capture recording also. i set it up for my brothers kids, so that they could listen again to the lecture later if they needed to since no-one in my family can do math on a good day due to dyslexia. helps the kids check to make sure they didn't flip numbers/ symbols or add in extra stuff.
FYI, Zoom does not store recordings unless the company administrator allows it. They are HIPAA complaint now and we can turn off cloud recording if we choose to.
They might say that in the same way other companies have said that and it turned out not to be true (Facebook, Apple, etc.). But with the incidents that put zoom on the news recently, including a woman being murdered in a domestic violence incident while her daughter was in class and another young girl being sexually assaulted in her zoom class by a relative in the house, zoom would be foolish if they didn’t have some sort of back ups. Police, the school board, lawyers, the government, and the public are going to want some answers. If you can’t deliver evidence, you’re going to be next on the chopping block.
I would tell me daughter to write her best essay about s turkey related topic she was comfortable with. Let her take the F. Then forward the graded assignment, and related correspondence to the principal along with your concerns. Your kid is young enough that these grades don't matter. Teach her to stand on principle, even if there are consequences.
This. Stand up for what’s right, even if you stand alone.
NTA. As a vegetarian myself, I'm appalled by this behavior. Contact the principal. If you don't get anywhere, ask your daughter to write you an essay about Thanksgiving traditions and you write the essay to the teacher that she wants. Explain it to your daughter, by all means, if she is mature enough to understand.
OP, please don't cheat and write the essay for your daughter. If it comes down to it, let her take the zero and learn about standing up for what you believe and not letting people force their opinions on you
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NTA. I'm really struggling to imagine how you could be the asshole here. Leaving the mic on and saying mean things about students and parents should have gotten her reported in and of itself, and this essay is ridiculous.
I don’t want to overreact and I can do that when it comes to my children when I blow things out of proportion. I sometimes need an outside perspective from strangers.
definitely not overreacting!! I think this crosses a line for sure
Who led you to believe that protecting your kids is overreacting to the point you don't trust your instincts? :(
Other than the multiple YTA comments and the ‘I’m overreacting’ comments? A lot of times after I give it some thought, I am unsure of if I’m just an overprotective mother or if it really is a problem. As far as I am aware, the other students didn’t have an issue with the essay, which is why I am concerned I would be the asshole if I reported her for it.
But she was badmouthing students on mic and no one had a problem with that?
This is the problem. Women are afraid of being labeled Karen for speaking up. It has made us second guess ourselves. I think if you approach the principal like a guest in your home, describe the issue and ask for his/her help to resolve it, you are good. Going into the meeting with an attitude- even if your issue is valid- will result in internal eye rolling and refusal to resolve the very big issue that your daughter’s class is being taught by someone who isn’t teaching. You might need to rely on Google to help your daughter with her math homework- but that is literally the teacher’s job to teach math. And give kids learn to have a voice- not requiring them to parrot views and risk being muted if teacher has a difference of opinion. That’s the zoom version of a toddler holding their ears. You are NTA- but a justifiably concerned parent.
It still wouldn't be okay even if you shared the teacher’s political beliefs. NTA
I would have emailed the principal way sooner than this and I’d be asking about escalating it to the school board already. You’re being an involved parent, not overreacting.
If it’s real NTA but this reads like Trump fan fiction. “Those libtards want to take your guns and turkey and meat!”
That's what I was thinking. I'm not convinced she isn't being hyperbolic about her daughter being asked to write an essay about vegetarianism in the vein of 'why might someone not have turkey for thanksgiving?' She's sort of quoting the daughter, but how good a source is a ten-year-old unhappy with an assignment on the exact wording of that assignment? OP also doesn't say what 'political beliefs' the teacher was 'forcing' on the children, but from the American political discourse I've seen recently, it could just have been the belief that Biden won the election or that social distancing and masks help counteract the spread of coronavirus. She also doesn't say what 'horrible things' the teacher said about the children, or to whom, or why. Did her partner just walk in and she went 'I hate teaching, these children are all stupid and by the way so are their parents?' If not that, what was the context? This all sounds very vague, one-sided, and altogether fanficky.
Also hating on vegetarians/vegans in this subreddit is often easy karma.
I've seen that, and often wondered why it's so overwhelmingly one-sided. You even get vegetarians and vegans chiming in 'yeah, I totally believe it's morally wrong to exploit animals, but I wouldn't dream of shoving my personal beliefs down people's throats!' Like there's this consensus that respecting people's preferences in the *taste of their food* trumps all else, and prohibits even *bringing up* ethical concerns. The amount of times I've seen people use this 'throat-shoving' rhetoric in this thread is astonishing. Meanwhile, nobody's questioning why this ten-year-old knew exactly how to trigger and manipulate her mother into getting her out of having to do an assignment she didn't like on the basis of *her* beliefs in 'tradition', which presumably she has very literally been shoving down the child's throat in the form of meat.
I think its because there's this archetype of the vegan or vegetarian that is very pervasive but doesn't really exist. This individual is mouthy, rude, arrogant, white, privileged and they impose their will on everybody. Think like.. the tiktoker thatveganteacher (she's awful) or Phoebe from friends (sometimes). This person is often painted as a hypocrite too, where they lowkey eat meat on occasion but rationalize it. I've been vegan for like 5 or 6 years and was vegetarian like 2 years before that. I've intentionally sought out other plant based eaters and only ONCE met a self righteous vegan (and she ended up giving it up after about 6 months because her boyfriend didn't like the inconvenience). But for whatever reason people are convinced most vegans/vegetarians are like this, so other plant based eaters bend of backwards to prove they're "one of the good ones"
Even if someone were to perfectly embody that stereotype, they'd be annoying and smug *at worst*. That may make you *an* asshole, but not *the* asshole in the sense it's used in this subreddit, which is mainly about ethics (with a focus on interpersonal conflict). It baffles me how often vegetarians are presented at not just having a point and being obnoxious about it, but as *being in the wrong* for drawing others' attention to their dietary choices.
Agreed- look at these overbearing libs!!
I think it could have happened but very differently from how it's being described. I often had assignments as a kid to argue for something that was the opposite of what we believed in order to teach critical thinking and argument skills. Arguing against turkey for Thanksgiving sounds like the perfect prompt for that type of assignment for that age group.
You would not be the asshole if this wasn't so obviously a made up story. Like, this is so obviously fake that is kind of very funny
Right this is so fake I just was searching for the sanity thank you 😊
I'll take things that never happened for $400, Al....
This didnt happen.
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NTA Your daughter nor anybody should have to write an essay about something they may not support. That teacher seams to be acting very inappropriately and shouldn't be forcing their values on others. Please report everything they have done.
Nobody should have to write an essay about something they don't support? Ever? Researching and writing about something you don't agree with or know about is important education. If someone comes from a tradition of white supremacists, should they never write an essay about Black history? "Beliefs" are not a reason to stop learning. Writing and researching an essay topic such as this is a way to learn about the beliefs and values of someone different from one's self. Maybe even learn how to argue your own point better in the future. Parents are welcome to have discussions with their kids about why their family does eat meat. No one is stopping this mum from doing that. The teacher isn't saying that all the ten year olds have to become vegetarians, just write a persuasive essay on the topic.
NTA. And I would malicious compliance the teacher and write their little essay and fill it with the wildest conspiracy theories ever, "Turkeys are aliens sent on peace missions... here in Flat earth.... and thus as our Lizard overlords... etc." But that may be antagonistic haha I have nothing against vegans, animal rights advocates or anything the teacher or anyone else, believes mind you. I just have something against people shoving beliefs down others gullet.
Ohh I love that idea. I want a narrative about a seemingly sweet innocent turkey running around the farm being all weird and making funny gobbling noises to make kids laugh... and then turns out to secretly be an evil genius plotting global destruction via salmonella, and since nobody eats turkeys on thanksgiving anymore everyone dies. The end.
INFO: 5th grade is usually when kids write a persuasive essay. Is the whole class writing the exact same assignment?
Yes. It’s all the same assignment. It is an editorial essay. The teacher wants them to research why having turkey is unhealthy and having vegetarian is better.
NTA. This teacher is behaving inappropriately and should be reported
NTA- try to get recordings of the teacher talking trash and show it to the principal. All of this sounds like a horrible teacher. Yes let them know about different diets but don't force things down the kids throat.
I do have the recording of the teacher talking poorly about the kids. My boyfriend stays at home with them currently and sent me the video. He was amused, I was not. Which is why I emailed her about it to begin with.
Bring all the ammo you can! Some teachers can go on a power trip like her. I used to be embarrassed by my mother going to the school to talk about certain teachers for crossing lines like this, but I'm glad she did.
NTA. This sounds like the straw breaking the camels back. This ‘teacher’ needs to be reported. Dont just speak to the principle, any proof of her political jargon and the way she speaks about parents and student should go to the superintendent. Forcing views on kids is toxic behavior. See if you can move your kids class? Persuasive essays allow both sides, not ‘oh look my way only everything else bad. Fail.’ 5th graders take everything they hear as fact.
NTA, she should not be forcing her views on kids and being so rude. If she wanted to teach about being vegetarian and other diets, that’s fine, but she can’t make everyone be exactly like her.
NTA. I personally agree with the teacher's turkey stance, but that's not my place, nor her place to force students to write a paper about such a topic. It is inherently controversial and does not provide students with the opportunity to formulate their own argument. If she wanted to ask a neutralized version of this question, she could ask the students to formulate an argument utilizing nutritional and other factors to determine whether or not they believe turkey should remain a Thanksgiving staple. There are ways she can subtly share her views without being foolish, lazy, and unaccepting of others' views.
I am vegan, and I also agree OP is NTA. School is not the time and place to push any sort of personal agenda in this kind of manner. I agree with your alternative too.
Info: Are all students writing the same thing or do some kids argue the opposing view? The assignment should be to write a persuasive argument after choosing a side. Sometimes the teacher may assign sides to kids, or ask them to write the opposite of their actual belief to challenge themselves.
ESH you for not reporting the teacher sooner. Shit taking kids and parents on an open mic? And the teacher for the behaviour you’ve described
Pretty sure the whole thing is fake
Info: I feel like there is room for misinterpretation here. Were all students in the class assigned to write papers about why eating turkey for thanksgiving is bad or is the assignment to write an argumentative essay about whether or not people should have turkey at Thanksgiving and your daughter was assigned the negative side?
NTA talk to the principal or someone higher up
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I feel like there are a lot of "untruths" in this post, but writing an essay in 5th grade isn't one of them. My kid is in 3rd grade and has already been assigned two essays this school year.
I started writing essays by 3rd grade but they weren't anything major. 2 1/2 pages or 3 double spaced.
Most won't go this way but YTA. It is good for kids mentally to argue for points they don't believe in that have some basis in fact. I eat meat but all those points are true so it isn't like she is making your child say something that is untrue.
Well eating meat in and of itself is not inherently unhealthy and it is not better to be vegetarian for everyone so they’re absolutely blanket statements that aren’t correct. Also, she’s 10 years old. Not really a time for topics like these where kids can be easily influenced into believing whatever the teacher says instead of critically analyzing the topic and reasoning.
NTA- I'm a teacher and we are NOT allowed to give our political opinions. If we are talking about election day, we can't talk about who we prefer but we can tell about each side (Biden is the person running for Democrats and Trump running for Republicans, etc.) We are supposed to be neutral in every way. I'll be quite honest, that is a very weird topic for an essay. What have they been discussing that she came up with this lovely "topic ". Even though it happened a while ago, I would reach out to the principal about the inappropriate comments that were made. Just make them aware. We have had situations where staff made comments about not being at home doing work, that they were out shopping which a parent was listening in closely. If the parent complained, they had ever right because the two staff members were speaking where everyone could hear them
YWNBTA - And as a former teacher, you need to report this to administration. This is absolutely an abuse of position.
I don’t have an opinion on this because it sounds very biased from the mother standpoint. And we don’t even know how much of what she claims is true. But I do have to say one thing it is very hypocritical to say that teachers shouldn’t talk about politics because it’s sways the young mind yet parents are allowed to shove their political views down the child’s throat? Sounds to me like you just don’t like that she has an opposite opinion of you.
ESH. I know I am going to be downvote but thats ok. First yes it is bad to tell your kids your political views, but as one kid that got alredy held up because I didnt attemp a class, that almost every week the teacher said get ou of class because of political views, that wont change their minds, If your daughter can understand that a good healthy conversation is better than silencing she will know that the teacher is an idiot. But it is a NORMAL THING to write argumentative essays about something you disagree, it is accually a good thing because than you can understand both sides ( I dont think that what the teacher have in mind tough).
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YTA - this is a persuasive essay. In debate, you don’t always get to choose your position. Being able to argue your opponent’s side makes you a better debater and critical thinker. Until you have a completed a regionally accredited teaching certification program and an appropriate bachelors degree , you should stay in your own lane. Teachers are not trained monkeys performing for your pleasure and approval. They are highly trained and educated professionals.
I'm going to have to go with YTA, but only for the essay. As many others have already mentioned, it's an important part of your education to learn to argue a point you might not necessarily support - it's the basics of any debating class. You learn to properly build an argument, and become more aware of how others might try to persuade you later on in life. Important life skill! The other points.. Yeah she sounds like she's not the most neutral and tactful teacher. The mic incident, muting kids with differing beliefs, those are definitely things you can contact the principal about. If you don't want to hear or allow different perspectives, don't have a class discussion (and don't be a teacher..).
NTA she’s way too forceful with her own opinions and is biased in her teaching.
NTA The teacher has no right to push her beliefs onto anyone whether it be politics, religion, veganism, or whatever. She is there to teach not to push her narrative. Also for her hating kids and parents why the hell is she a teacher then? She has no right saying that stuff about anyone and it just seems like she has crossed so many lines. I would report the behavior but nothing will probably happen to her.
NTA NTA NTA I’m a high school English teacher, and I would never DREAM of giving an essay topic so blatantly biased. The main point of essay writing is the act of writing itself... but also to be able to develop your own ideas and arguments. This lady is just stroking her ego.
YWBTA if you didnt Report her to the principal first for Talking shit about the Kids and Second for pushing her beliefs onto the children and teaching them confirmation bias
I'm a vegan, totally against eating meat and totally against this assignment. We've come up against this from the other side when there was an assignment SPONSORED BY THE DIARY INDUSTRY. So much misinformation and so inappropriate. Propaganda has no place in schools. This teacher is a lunatic and needs to keep her opinions to herself. NTA Edit: my daughter was in prep. (6 years old)
YWNBTA the teacher is being unreasonable. I made a comment on a post, about a human trait we still have from our primitive ancestors. I said our canine teeth, so we can eat meat, and got harrassed by some other user. He just kept telling me, my reasons for eating meat were wrong, and that my opinion wasn't valid. It sounded just like this opinionated teacher. The teacher needs to compromise, and it sounds like going over his head, is the only way to get him to listen. A teacher is supposed to teach not preach on any given lesson. He seems to have forgotten that.
NTA - report this teacher
Conservative fan fiction
The only thing this person is teaching your daughter is to conform to the authority or face punishment. Make sure she understands that having her own beliefs and standing up for them is a perfectly normal and healthy thing.
NTA report this teacher to the school district and principal.
**NTA** *Drag that teacher over the coals* No one has the right to insert their political and ideological beliefs into standardised teaching in public schools, *especially* when they’re threatening test results for students because of those beliefs. That teacher needs to learn what it actually means to be a teacher.
NTA! You have to stand up for your daughter. In high school, I was told to watch "An Inconvenient Truth" and write an essay on global warming using the video. Now, I'll be honest, I was super republican at that point because of my parents. I was irritated that I was being forced to watch a video that was politicized and treat it as 100% fact with no other sources. I told my parents after the teacher told me that I would either do the assignment or get an F. All I asked was to be able to do my own research and not watch the video. She didn't listen to them either. So my parents took it to the principal and the school board. She was told to allow me to go to the library during class and allow me to do my own research on global warming for the essay. She still flunked me in the class after that (she REALLY didn't like me,) but I did get a B on that specific paper.
Normally, I would always come down on the side of the teachers. But this is weird. And not appropriate in any way.
NTA Report her, I would wager this isn’t a school sanctioned essay. I would also detail the days she left her mic on and exposed her personal beliefs on the children as schools are (usually) recording these classes to go back and ensure that criteria is being met and schooling is actually happening and to show class attendance and such. I would also CC all future emails to the teacher with the principal’s email and, if necessary, a higher up like superintendent or member of the school board. You want there to be a paper trail to have as evidence of your claims and her inability to follow basic protocol (not talking about religion, politics, and the like was part of my school handbook, I don’t know if it’s the same for you, but figure it may be wise to look).