School in Maryland Asks Teachers to Remove “Pro-Diversity” Posters Because They Are Anti-Trump

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1. GregB says:

   February 22, 2017 at 6:07 pm

   Maybe the students can teach the adults what that whole “land of the free, home of the brave” stuff is supposed to be about.

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   • Joel Herman (@jwherman11) says:

     February 22, 2017 at 7:48 pm

     Not happening . Another day of disgust as my wife went to lunch with
     a retired NYC public school teacher (or guidance counselor). She comes home to tell me the woman is a rabid Trumpster . There is only one way people like this learn . That is by getting crushed the sooner the better. Of course it will always be the others who bare the brunt . Cutting Social security and medicare will be just fine as long as it only affects those who come behind her. Pension cuts are just fine but not theirs. … … …

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     • Joel Herman (@jwherman11) says:

       February 22, 2017 at 7:50 pm

       bear the brunt. But Greg you would have figured out a way to use bare.

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2. TC says:

   February 22, 2017 at 6:12 pm

   That’s fine, as long as they ban all camo clothing, seen at partisan Trump rallies.

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3. TC says:

   February 22, 2017 at 6:16 pm

   What’s the principal’s objective litmus test of what can be allowed in the school? Nothing that was seen at a political rally or protest? Just like the travel ban, arbitrary and capricious policy is the mark of, well, “a bad high school student”.

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4. Laura H. Chapman says:

   February 22, 2017 at 6:39 pm

   Unfortunately, teachers may lose the poster battle. The school board usually has the legal authority to approve instructional materials, including reading lists, music, and art.

   But the intended lessons may still be possible even if the lawyers intervene on the side of the school board.

   The poster images can legally (with permission of the copyright owners) be migrated to t-shirts (as in the current plan) and then be distributed off campus by parents or some outlet other than one run by teachers. Unless the school leaders are willing to risk making more big and bad news, they could not prevent anyone from wearing the t-shirts on the campus without address a dress code.

   Of course, there is a lot of hypocrisy going on within this mostly white district—posturing about diversity–and then seeming to cave because really wonderful posters depicting “the others” in their midst are viewed ( by a couple of people) as “anti-Trump and political.”

   Well, they are anti-Trump and they are political because Trump has “other-ed” almost everyone who does not have meet his narrow-minded and ahistorical view of who belongs in this country… also, the posters are anti-Trump because they are not in gold frames.

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5. Mamie Krupczak Allegretti says:

   February 22, 2017 at 6:44 pm

   How about the students and teachers duct taping their mouths for a day. Teachers and students can certainly teach and learn without speaking. I can’t imagine there is any specific regulation against this!

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   • LeftCoastTeacher says:

     February 22, 2017 at 11:43 pm

     Taping shut mouths? Sí Rhee puede. Yes Rhee can.

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6. Therlo says:

   February 22, 2017 at 7:02 pm

   What if they had little kids draw pictures of blacks, browns, yellows, pinks, whites in all shades of flesh? Would that be offensive too? Is that anti-trump?

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7. TC says:

   February 22, 2017 at 7:06 pm

   What if a teacher puts up a rainbow wall? Rainbows and unicorns, reading rainbow, or gay pride, what’s the implicit meaning? These posters are not implicitly anti-Trump. Venn diagram, the set is not entirely part of the sub-set, etc.

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8. Laura H. Chapman says:

   February 22, 2017 at 7:17 pm

   I have just spent some time at the website for the remarkable work of the amplifier foundation where these posters and others are avaiable for free, free, free.

   The foundation has four ways you can participate in their work. It is reaching into over 200 countries.

   Here is how they describe it.

   We are a visual media experiment dedicated to amplifying the voices of grassroots movements through art and community engagement. We do this by funding collaborations between community engagement movements and contemporary artists so that their messages can reach a wider audience.

   THE AMPLIFIER FOUNDATION IS AN ART MACHINE FOR SOCIAL CHANGE.
   Our goal is to flip artists into activists and observers into participants. Our experiments are built on a foundation of free and open source art, the unlimited possibilities within a human centered design process, and the potentials when analog and digital technology merge.

   We aim to build bridges not walls, believing strongly in the innovative power of collaborations between nonprofits on the front-lines and the journalists, artists, and storytellers that best move their messages through the world.

   Over the last year we have been busy behind the scenes working intimately with artists, activists and nonprofits to challenge and deepen how we can create visual media campaigns. This July we are launching a series of experiments, in collaboration with 18 international artists and nonprofits, that will take the form of street campaigns to challenge the current monopolies of our visual landscape, collaborations with celebrities to raise awareness of human rights movements, and community workshops to mobilize collective action and knowledge sharing.
   The Amplifier Foundation will be running highly visible public experiments throughout Seattle, Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Washington D.C., New Orleans, Chicago and Philadelphia. We invite you to join us for the ride. We are recruiting collaborators all summer! The posters are appearing in many rallies now.

   One of the key staff memebers and collaborators is Shepard Farley who created the Obama Poster, Hope.

   http://theamplifierfoundation.org

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9. Lenny Rothbart says:

   February 22, 2017 at 7:24 pm

   From the article: “The school does not allow teachers to put up political posters in their classrooms ‘unless it’s part of a curriculum and they represent both sides…’”
   Simple solution: re-hang the diversity posters, putting each one next to a corresponding white power, anti-LGBTQ, anti-immigrant, or anti-Muslim poster (they shouldn’t be hard to procure from any of the many websites promoting those positions). Label the whole presentation “Differing Social Views in America Today.” Let viewers decide for themselves which outlook represents an America they want to live in & participate in creating. If anything, the contrast will make the point even better than just the diversity posters alone.

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   • bethree5 says:

     February 22, 2017 at 10:00 pm

     Good catch. My mind also snagged at the sentence you quoted. The only thing that makes these posters ‘political’ is the xenophobia unleashed by Trump. The only ‘other side’ is intolerance.

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   • bethree5 says:

     February 22, 2017 at 10:08 pm

     This article also tells the story of a school administration so craven that they scuttle like cockroaches in the face of “at least one staff complaint.”

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10. Andrea Lancer says:

    February 22, 2017 at 7:25 pm

    What’s the “other side” of diversity? Bigotry?

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11. Shelley Zipper says:

    February 22, 2017 at 7:34 pm

    So disappointed in my home state…

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12. West Coast Teacher says:

    February 22, 2017 at 7:34 pm

    The administration could not have done more to show the inherent bigotry and fear of the administrators. Now they have informed the entire world. Had they done nothing the posters may have had little impact. Now they are a symbol they were not before.

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    • Joel Herman (@jwherman11) says:

      February 22, 2017 at 7:51 pm

      yup

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13. Lloyd Lofthouse says:

    February 22, 2017 at 8:27 pm

    The Chinese do this very well. They are so careful that sometimes, China’s leaders call the state owned media and tells (orders) them to run stories on topics that the state owned media self-censored.

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14. Chiara says:

    February 22, 2017 at 8:58 pm

    “U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos Issues Statement on New Title IX Guidance

    We have a responsibility to protect every student in America and ensure that they have the freedom to learn and thrive in a safe and trusted environment. This is not merely a federal mandate, but a moral obligation no individual, school, district or state can abdicate. At my direction, the Department’s Office for Civil Rights remains committed to investigating all claims of discrimination, bullying and harassment against those who are most vulnerable in our schools. ”

    The Trump Administration lecturing anyone on moral obligations is insulting.

    Not only would I be ashamed if my 8th grader spoke or behaved or treated people like President Trump treats people, I would punish him.

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    • Yvonne Siu-Runyan says:

      February 23, 2017 at 12:34 am

      Love your statement: The Trump Administration lecturing anyone on moral obligations is insulting.

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15. Elaine Errigo-Gilyard says:

    February 22, 2017 at 9:35 pm

    WOW! The fact that anyone would see these posters as political messages tells a whole lot about how this country is moving backward. And to compare it to displaying the Confederate flag? Oh my. I’m a 65 year old retired teacher. I often tell my husband how lucky that I was able to retire, because surely, my big mouth would have gotten me fired. Thank you, Diane, for helping me to remain sane in this unsettling time. I may be retired, but I will always be an educator by description, and continue to care about our public schools and children.

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16. Sheri McCord says:

    February 22, 2017 at 11:55 pm

    I can’t even imagine having to remove pro diversity posters! That is scary. So if we have to be like Trump, are the children permitted to grab each others. . . Oh, never mind. I don’t believe that kind of thing would happen here in California. So, they are teaching their children in Maryland to hate other people who don’t look like them? Are we going to have people in the next generation who have no empathy for each other? I hope that this situation is just one misguided school administrator acting on his/her own. At the end of this school year, I will have been retired for 6 years. I fear for the future of the public schools. I hope that they will be able to survive Betsy DeVos and Trump.

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17. homelesseducator says:

    February 23, 2017 at 12:37 am

    This is so sick and much like this: In Arizona, in January, members of the GOP introduced a bill to prohibit the teaching of social justice in public K12 schools and colleges.

    Specifically, “HB 2120 . . . would prohibit “courses, classes, events and activities” in public schools that promote “social justice toward a race, gender, religion, political affiliation, social class or other class of people.”

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18. Yvonne Siu-Runyan says:

    February 23, 2017 at 12:40 am

    This country has sank to a huge new LOW!

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19. m4potw says:

    February 23, 2017 at 1:09 am

    To: Lenny Rothbart

    Thank you Lenny for your simple solution because it is the best ever solution.

    I hope that all educators will follow your “simple solution” technique. This technique will surely awaken learners’ curiosity and sharpen learners’ sense of critical analysis.

    I would love to repeat your simple solution.

    [start paragraph]

    Simple solution:
    1) re-hang the diversity posters,
    2) putting each one next to a corresponding white power, anti-LGBTQ, anti-immigrant, or anti-Muslim poster (they shouldn’t be hard to procure from any of the many websites promoting those positions).
    3) Label the whole presentation “Differing Social Views in America Today.”

    Let viewers decide for themselves which outlook represents an America they want to live in & participate in creating. If anything, the contrast will make the point even better than just the diversity posters alone.

    [end paragraph]

    I would like to add the chronological evolution within a period of 100 years from 1917 to 2017 regarding “Differing Social Views in America Today VERSUS the past four generations like 1917, 1942, 1967, and 1992″. Back2basic

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    • Lenny Rothbart says:

      February 23, 2017 at 12:56 pm

      m4potw:
      Thank you for your response & encouragement. I think your addition of historical perspective is a brilliant enhancement. Feel free to apply & share my suggestion far & wide, anywhere you feel it would be helpful! I’d love to hear about anywhere it’s carried out!

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    • Lenny Rothbart says:

      February 23, 2017 at 1:17 pm

      m4potw:
      Some thoughts that occurred to me regarding examples earlier in US history:
      – Ads from the early 20th century for “Help Wanted” or housing, including the notation, “Irish/Italians Need Not Apply”;
      – Signs excluding black people from public facilities such as restrooms & water fountains; “No Colored” lunch counters;
      – Exclusion of Jews from jobs, housing & country clubs, though it might be more difficult to find visual evidence, as so much of this was carried out through “Gentlemen’s Agreement”-type of behavior or “dog whistle”/wink-wink style terminology

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20. SomeDAM Poet says:

    February 23, 2017 at 7:16 am

    Pro-DeVosity posters are anti-Trump?

    On what blog?

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    • SomeDAM Poet says:

      February 23, 2017 at 9:48 am

      “Hedging your Bets”

      DeVosify to hedge your Bets
      DeVosify investment debts
      DeVosity is really best
      With chart- n vouchers in your nest

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21. wgersen says:

    February 23, 2017 at 7:29 am

    This was the sentence that caught my eye:
    ”
    The school does not allow teachers to put up political posters in their classrooms “unless it’s part of a curriculum and they represent both sides,” (spokesperson) Gaddis said.

    And what would the “other side” look like? I have an idea. Since some people see this as a rebuttal to Mr. Trump’s Presidency, teachers could put up two posters: one of Donald Trump and one by Shepard Fairey. Presumably, Mr. Trump’s poster would be placed to the right.

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22. Akademos says:

    February 23, 2017 at 8:35 am

    Maryland’s DoE should weigh in.

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    • Lisa B says:

      February 23, 2017 at 9:45 am

      That won’t happen! This area in MD has a large KKK, Trump loving, gun loving population. It’s a pocket of racism that no one wants to deal with in MD. I live here and it has been this way forever.

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    • Akademos says:

      February 23, 2017 at 9:02 pm

      Well then, that’s the real story right there. Sad!

      No wonder Trump wants to break the media, that’s how these pockets of cave people persist, under and/or over the radar. Trump and all of these racists are such flaming, pluming embarrassments to themselves and others, in this modern age of science and self-knowledge, civility and justice.

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23. Dienne says:

    February 23, 2017 at 9:48 am

    The teachers, of course, being the fearless social justice warriors they are, banded together and with one voice refused to carry out this edict for the good of their students.

    Bwahahahaha. Oh, sorry, forgot I wasn’t in Mexico.

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24. Máté Wierdl says:

    February 23, 2017 at 11:16 pm

    “Read what this school in Maryland did to silence free speech.”

    But there is no free speech in schools or universities.

    Maybe the school admins wouldn’t mind tshirts that support our Orange Leader:

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2016/10/22/trump-supporter-shirts-are-just-as-bad-as-trump.html

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