Guest opinion: Learning A Good Lesson From A Bad Lesson

Your Feb. 9, 2024 article reprinted from the M-A Chronicle, “Teachers required to release text messages and more amidst ethnic studies controversy” begins with nine paragraphs describing the unprecedented nature of the request for teaching materials, other details of the request, and one teacher’s negative reaction to the request. 

Finally, after a highlighted quote calling the request “crazy,” the reader gets their first glimpse of a reason for the request; unfortunately, this comes in a quote from an advocacy organization, which readers may view as a biased source. Next, the reporters provide some background on the reason for the request, but phrase it this way: “These requests come after multiple alleged issues with antisemitism in SUHSD (Sequoia Union High School District) including months of coordinated advocacy against a slideshow presented by two ethnic studies teachers.” It would be hard to write a vaguer expression than “multiple alleged issues,” and the phrase “coordinated advocacy against” inevitably suggests the advocacy is biased, or somehow suspect. Conspicuously missing is the explanation of why there is “coordinated advocacy;” the slideshow violated two California education codes in disturbing ways. It was outside the appropriate scope of ethnic studies topics (“histories … and contributions to American society of … historically marginalized peoples”), and it presented historically incorrect content likely to promote bias to impressionable students. 

The article then cites one teacher’s contention that she is pushing students to “think critically,” a claim never challenged by citing relevant examples from her lesson. The teacher claims to be “leading with love,” yet there is no mention that her slideshow refers to Hamas using the benign term “group” instead of the more accurate “U.S. State Department designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.” Where, exactly, is the love?

In the next paragraph the teacher expresses her “disappointment” with the records request. The disappointment felt by M-A (Menlo-Atherton High School) parents whose children received the biased and erroneous lesson is never mentioned.

Associate Superintendent Hansen is “saddened” by blanket requests for information from teachers’ “personal phones,” but apparently isn’t saddened by the rule-breaking lessons taught to children in a school under her supervision by public employees. 

The reader is eventually reminded that teachers are government employees who work for the people. The reader gets two more paragraphs of a teacher bemoaning her inability to express her private opinions without fear of reprisal, before the refreshingly sensible statement, “if teachers feel like they need to hide the materials they are teaching, they should not be teaching it.” 

We never hear from other concerned parties: Parents who have been working with the M-A and SUSHD staffs for months on their concerns regarding the biased lessons; Jewish students at M-A who may feel threatened; staff who believe this lesson violated educational standards, and others who object to educators teaching inappropriate material. The preponderance of ink goes to educators’ discomfort about having their teaching scrutinized, without adequate context or counterbalance.

While a reader may be more forgiving of high school reporters, the same allowances cannot be made for professional journalists. 

Not only is the teaching of this particular, inaccurate material about the founding of Israel threatening to your Jewish neighbors, it also points to a bigger issue: when teachers take liberties which violate district policy and state education codes, calling them to account is in everyone’s interest. While some may not be especially bothered by this rogue lesson, there may come a day when some truth close to their hearts will be violated by a teacher who doesn’t follow the rules.

If that day comes, I hope the Almanac will provide more balanced reporting. 

Nicole Kemeny is a Menlo Park resident. She is a former Menlo-Atherton High School parent.

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