Teacher Suspended With Pay After Abortion Discussed In Class

[spinbaby]

http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/8802993/detail.html

Here's a teacher in a school district local to me giving her 4th-grade students graphic details about abortion. What is not on line, but that they said on the local news this morning, is that the subject was brought up during a discussion of voting, and that the teacher, after sharing gory abortion details, told her students to put their heads down on their desks and think about whether they wanted to vote for abortion or adoption.

[LynnTheDem]

1. If teacher had had a proper factual discussion of abortion,

I'd have been angry at the suspension.

After reading about this so-called "teacher", I'm glad she was suspended. Stupid cow.

[seabeyond]

2. personally i would have issue with 4th grade learning details

of abortion. fourth is to young for me. i wouldnt go in great detail with oldest son, 5th. i have had to discuss abortion because of car stickers that say dont kill babies. but i know my son couldnt andle detail. and even with that, discussin abortion, to be balanced i had to talk about the irresponsibility of unprotected sex, results, repercussion, choices, results...... had to go way beyond what i or he wanted but cant just say, abortion is getting rid of pregnancy. it is to big a subject. but for a teacher to talk about it and in detail, and fourth grade is too... for me.

[LynnTheDem]

5. I can understand that. But by 4th grade kids are on the whole a lot

more knowledgable of sex (and some even having sex) than parents want to think they are. Factual knowledge would be better than myths, imo.

If a kid's old enough to ask, they're old enough to be told the facts, imo. But either way, this "teacher" was waaaay out of line.

[seabeyond]

7. 9? 10? nah. i mean i just talked it with son last year

he is a smart kid, intellectual, love the facts. insists on it. but for a kid this age to hear kill a baby. and then give the detail, too much. there is no way a child wants this info. so not age appropriate. and mine anyway dont live in that sexual world you suggest 9/10 yr olds live. mine actually ask not to have that world shoved in their face. again, they recognize it is not age appropriate.

it was brought up to son. and son immediately thought how wrong, cruel, mean, ugly..... and i had to take it too far. like, have no money to bring kid into world, a kid yourself, how hard a decision it is, judging others by choices they make, being responsible when having sex, using condomns. he got enough, to have to take it further, when it wasnt appropriate for him at the time. if i was telling him they pull baby out of canal and bash them on the head, he would have nightmares for weeks. or that they suck fetus out with vaccuum, or anything else. (i didnt read exactly what gory detail teacher was giving, i can only imagine)

so not 9/10 appropriate.

[Arkansas Granny]

12. I don't think it would be appropriate to discuss abortion in a 4th

grade classroom in any detail. There may be a few children in there who have the maturity for such a discussion, but I feel that they would be in a very small minority. This is one of those instances where the question should receive an age appropriate answer if asked by a child, but I don't think they are ready for graphic details or that the subject should be introduced to them at this age. I'm all for giving kids the facts, but this can be overdone.

As far as 4th grade kids having sex, that would mean 9 or 10 year old kids. I find it hard to believe that children in this age group would be having consensual sex with each other. If they are sexually active at this age wouldn't it be more likely to be pedophilia? I'll admit that it's been many years since I've had a child that age, but surely things haven't changed that much.

[moc]

13. Disagree. My daughter is 9 (will be 10 in June). No way in hell

is she ready for a graphic description of abortion. The issue did come up last fall, around that absurd boycott of American Girl. A girl who is the daughter of fundies told my daughter that AG "paid for abortions". My daughter thought doctors were giving women pills unaware and killing their babies. I gave her a very cursory overview of what abortion really was, but my description was not graphic. She is not ready for that.

Yes, when children ask, their questions should be answered. However, just because they ask doesn't mean they are developmentally ready for all of the details. You have to gauge your response to their level of readiness.

[mondo joe]

16. My oldest is 10, her mom is a planned parenthood provider, and there is

no way she'd be up to a graphic description like that either. I mention that her mom is a planned parenthood provider only because I want to make clear we have zero problem with abortion, and in fact the kids have a special need to understand it - but not like that and not yet.

[lastliberalintexas]

4. Even that with 4th graders would probably be a stretch

Most 4th graders are only 9 going on 10, and usually neither want nor need such detailed discussions. Simple explanations of issues still work with 4th graders, and anything else is usually overkill. But then, that's what this so called teacher wanted.

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. They are way too young, Lynn

This discussion MAYBE belongs in a high school classroom, but not in a 4th grade room.

[mzteris]

3. she described a girl's "anatomy"

in the process?? :wtf:

paraphrase from interview, "what she (the little girl) remembers is a baby was killed."

[Infomaniac]

6. Ignoring the topic, the politicking is beyond the pale...

The topic - depending on how its broached - may or may not be appropriate for that age group. However, the blatant politicking and bias towards voting "pro-life" is what I would object to my kid hearing in a class room.

[stepnw1f]

8. "vote for abortion or adoption"

That's about voting, not about abortion. The Teacher should be suspended or better yet, FIRED!

[spinbaby]

9. I was hoping they'd include that detail in the story

When I heard it on TV this morning, I tried to find it on line, but they only had the short version.

On edit: The Trib (Ugh, Scaife's paper) mentioned it:

http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/regional/s_445136.html

[stepnw1f]

11. It Figures

the MSM is always telling half-truths, and don't think for a second that they just overlooked important info such as that.

[Iris]

26. and she left out the most likely "vote"

keep the baby and be a teenaged mother, which is how it usually goes.

[bunkerbuster1]

10. FIRE. HER. ASS.

We have enough flying-monkey morans trying to inflict their pro-criminalization agenda in a gazillion stealthy ways. I've got one who has "Abortion stops a beating heart" sticker on her minivan, parked at my daughter's school.

This Pittsburgh teacher one didn't even bother with steath.

Fire her ass.

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. That is sick

I have taught 4th grade for many years and no way ever would I even consider discussing such a topic with these kids. They are 9 and 10 years old!! Some of them still don't know where babies come from!

This woman needs to have her head examined. Hopefully, she will have plenty of time to do just that.

[Fierce]

17. The issue is the voting...

...but I'm having a hard time understanding a lot of the responses here. The majority of abortions don't involve sticking a needle into the "baby" and "killing the baby." It's not a problem to explain to a fourth-grader about aborting six-week fetus. Or is it?

[SmokingJacket]

19. I think it's the appropriateness of the subject...

A nine-year old doesn't necessarily have the maturity to understand the incredibly difficult moral questions surrounding abortion, and a teacher has no place in imposing her political view on such intellectually vulnerable kids.

She could easily have done the opposite -- had the kids imagine getting raped by their father, being forced to carry the baby to term, then vote on whether they should have been allowed to abort. That would be equally inappropriate.

[Fierce]

21. I wasn't clear in my post.

FTR, I think it's completely inappropriate that the teacher did this. The icing on the cake was the voting, and definitely showed where the teacher was coming from.

[Lochloosa]

20. Maybe I can answer that for you with a question.

Imagine you have a 9 year old daughter and she comes home discussing what she learned in school that day.

Would you be pissed?

[Fierce]

22. See my above clarification.

I was posting while doing something else, and wasn't clear.

[Lochloosa]

23. Noted

and welcome to DU:toast:

[Fierce]

24. Thank you.

[Strong Atheist]

18. As a teacher, I can say that in our school system (Fairfax County,VA

one of the biggest in the country) if this happened the teacher would be fired. Family Life education (FLE as it is called) is strictly regulated. You have to take classes on HOW to teach it, and be certified, and only use county-approved materials. In addition, parents can "opt out" of the classes for their kids. This all makes sense from a liability and standardization standpoint. No teacher here would try to teach this subject unless they were certified and teaching the county-approved course; at least they would not if they wished to remain employed...

To be honest, the topic sounds inappropriate for 4th graders, IMPO as a teacher...

edited to add: ...if parents wish to go into this subject at that age, they can feel free to do it at home. Nothing stopping them, but I don't think schools should be going into that subject so early, and I am indeed pro choice....

[novalib]

25. If The Teacher Told the Kids that Abortion is Killing a "baby",

then the teacher deserves to be FIRED!

If for no other reason than that she has her facts wrong -- WRONG! WRONG!

[Solly Mack]

27. I'm more offended by the fallacious information than I am the topic

being discussed. Though talking to a 4th grade class about abortion is well beyond the teacher's job description and any teacher that does so should be disciplined.

Granted, I think it's my place and my place only to have that discussion with my young child, but if some nitwit teacher is going to bring the topic up to my kid then at least get the facts straight.

I can deal with my child's concerns stemming from factual information better than I can a fallacious thought embedded into my kid's head from an agenda driven right winger.