Sep 6, 2007 1:39 PM
PRESIDENT’S NOTE — I am glad Lenny Brown was willing to speak about this case. He is a very courageous man willing to stand up and tell his story. This is one of the most outrageous incidents I have seen — a good teacher who taught a lesson the way he has traditionally done it, is sent to a Teacher Reassignment Center because of a student’s allegation that has never been substantiated. Lenny will get his day in court, and I believe he will be vindicated, but hundreds of students have lost out because he still sits in a TRC. What does this say about the school system’s commitment to children about having good teachers and respect for teachers?
These are stormy times for me. I am the classroom equivalent of a highly decorated field soldier. The dark skies opened up for me and the heavy rains starting falling last November when I was pulled from Benjamin Cardozo HS in Queens and socked away in a Temporary Reassignment Center, better known by its gallows humor designation as a “rubber room.”
I have been a physics instructor for 18 years, but am no longer teaching Regents physics, chemistry or mathematics. Today my only duty — although I hold a doctorate in materials science and engineering, am listed in “Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers,” have won the American Society for Metals Award for Excellence in Research, am a board member of numerous prestigious professional societies, and “Most Popular Science Teacher” (as voted by the Cardozo HS Students Council) — is to clock in at the TRC. Why is that?
I have been charged with having made physical contact with a student during a science demonstration because I asked her to push her hands up against mine with all her weight.
“Did you feel that?” I asked.
“Feel what?” the student replied.
“Well, you’re pushing against me with a force. Did you feel any opposition to that force?”
“I think so,” the student said.
“How is that possible? After all, I wasn’t pushing back on you. Or was I?” I asked.
Why did I do this?I was demonstrating to 34 students one of the fundamental axioms of Newton’s Third Law of Motion, which states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. How can we teach “forces” without giving students a chance to experience what a ‘force’ feels like, I wonder?
When teaching about electrical circuits, for example, I explained the properties of a circuit by having the students make a “human” circuit, changing their “resistance” by having the students move closer together, and then examining how the motion of an electron (the student) is affected by pushing the student through the circuit. And, yes, I played the battery.
For a generation I’ve gotten the lesson across the same way, without a hitch, much less a catastrophe. I never changed my M.O. You don’t fix what’s not broken. Physics is an intimidating and dry subject for many students, and my hands-on and sometimes whimsical approach has been fruitful in raising both students’ confidence and academic performance.
But now I, the author of a 450-page thesis on “The Dielectric Behavior of Plasma-Sprayed Coatings,” grant writer and advisor to a Westinghouse Science Talent Search winner, languish in the TRC and yearn to get back to my students.
I’m afraid for the day when teachers will fear to do or say anything in the classroom that might be taken the wrong way, even though their unencumbered teaching will always spur students toward greater achievement and a true love of learning.If this occurs, education in our classrooms will be no more inspiring a challenge than memorizing the penal code and will be retained in our students’ minds for about the same length of time as a good sneeze.
I demanded that I be given a lie detector test to help establish my right to return to the profession I love. Although the test did not bear out the allegations, I have stayed put in a pernicious limbo.
Being denied the privilege to teach is almost as terrible as not being able to breathe. It took two months after I was sent away before I found out, through the rumor mill, the reason I was exiled. The respect for due process, which is becoming a rogue institution, is lost on the Department of Education.
The stakes are high. The road to justice should be clear, untainted and unencumbered. A charade of justice is just another disguise for tyranny. How can there be a turf war between an employer and the U.S. Constitution? I demand to know.
I will always love teaching, but I’m struggling against feeling jaded by the school system, and I don’t want it to be a losing battle for me as I have seen it to be for many others. There are major abuses of power.
Naturally, there are some teachers who do not belong in a classroom. Of course, we must keep predators away from children. But there’s a huge difference between zero tolerance and beyond zero tolerance. Sometimes where there’s smoke there is no fire but conspiracy instead.
Some of the DOE’s targets are whistle-blowers who had earlier exposed their current accusers. Others may have refused to knuckle under to irate or manipulative parents. Still others may have been the victims of kids who ganged up against them.
It may have been a spontaneous prank or a premeditated vendetta. Whether the intention was frivolous or malicious, the students may have been unaware of the consequences. Senior teachers may feel at worse risk because principals may want to rid their budgets of less cost-effective staff.
I have heard that several other teachers from Cardozo have been “removed” to TRCs also. The spike is mysterious. The truth would vindicate me and no doubt many others in the TRCs, but tragically the DOE has no genuine interest in discovering it. It could care less about timeliness or burden of proof. It picks and chooses witnesses with the same spirit as corrupt politicians who stuff ballot boxes. These unidentified witnesses can sink you but you can’t cross examine them. Their statements often sound coached.
There’s got to be fairness and proportion. If a law is distorted and then used against you, it’s just another kind of foul play. This is a witch-hunt atmosphere. A thick volume of letters of support comforts and keeps me company as I fight for the truth to set me free. Here’s one: “We are all pulling for you. You have a great weight on your shoulders. You did not deserve the treatment you received. It will take divine guidance to forgive those who made this happen.”
I now face charges against me pursuant to the 3020a State Education Law. It is widely perceived, and the statistics suggest it is a fact, that the odds are stacked against teachers in these proceedings. If I do not prevail, I will likely lose my teaching license. The cost would be devastating to me, my family, my students, and do incalculable violence to the truth and the much cited honor of the law.
If I were aggrieved by the outcome I could appeal to the commissioner of education. This can be a drawn-out, rocky and dire process and it is taking an astounding toll on me. I am an upright man. All I want is to be reunited with my destiny: the joy of teaching children.