Evening star., 1939-02-04
The Petition
To Remove
Teacher
High School Senior
Glass May Have
Valid Reason
By ANGELO PATRI.


These school children are too
fresh. They ought to be made to
shut their mouths and attend to
their own business. The idea of
them sending a petition to the
board, asking that their teacher be
removed. The cheek! That couldn't
happen in any other country in the
world"
That something could happen in
this country that couldn't happen
in any other brought no grief to
my heart. What l wanted to know
from the irate gentleman was what
caused the school children to petit
tion the board.
The children were seniors in
high school in a good-sized town
in State that prides itself on its
schools. The trouble seemed to be
this: A teacher, retired for age on
a pension, in another State, was ap-
pointed to teach in this small, select
high school, in staid community
The class as a whole were not doing
we'll in her subject. She was said
to talk more about her family and
their American ancestry than about
the subject she had to teach. The
class has to pass a State examina-
ton in her subject in order to be
graduated and enter college. Their
chances are slim, everybody admits
Yet, when they appealed to the last
authority available to them, they
were called fresh
But are the children right?" I
asked.
Suppose they were. Are you
going to let young ships like them
petition for new teacher? 1t is not
for them to criticize the school they
are given. If you allow them to do
that, where are you?"
In far better position than if I
don't allow them to speak. A school
is supported by the community to
serve the children. That is its one
and only function. If it does not
serve the children it has no right to
exist. If a teacher cannot teach it
is the duty of the supervisors to
know it, help her and the children,
but especially to help the children.
I would expect to get help in
school affairs from the seniors. I
would expect them to take them
selves and their work and their re-
lation to the community seriously.
And in return I would expect to
take them and their statements Sc
riously. I would expect to study
any question they brought me, any
complaint they made, very carefully,
fully as carefully as any that body
of citizens brought me, for the pupils
in the school would be far more
likely to know what was going on
there, and how it affected them,
than any outsider would.
And if the students had to petit
ton me to save them from an in
competent teacher I would think
that there was something seriously
wrong with my administration of
the school, I should have known
the teacher and have been prepared
to answer any question about his
work to anybody who needed to
know.
In the beginning grades of the
elementary schools we teach chill
dren to accept the authority of the
leader without question. When we
do we undertake full responsibility
for the rightness of that leader.
When school students reach the age
of seniors it is certain that they
have some maturity of intelligence,
and if that is so, their voice should
be heard, their suggestions taken in
the spirit in which they are offered,
and their cooperation enlisted. Else
why college, high school, any school?
The real end of education is to
send out a generation of individuals
who reason, judge and act with in
telligence upon their own initiative.
(copyright 1939)