Linkin’ Log (for 05-13-07)

• Top Teacher Shown the Door After Showing “Baghdad ER�—A discouraging news story in The Progressive that relates how an innovative educator in Nebraska was recently forced out of his job for daring to challenge his students with something more than the usual pablum.

• Taking the War Out of a Child Soldier—From the New York Times, the tale of Salifou Yankene, a former child soldier from the Ivory Coast who fled to America and is now struggling to both gain asylum in this country and come to terms with the horrors he has witnessed and experienced.

• The Millions Left Out—Via the Common Dreams News Center, a piece by Bob Herbert of the New York Times that discusses the “more than 90 million Americans, close to a third of the entire population, [who] are struggling to make ends meet on incomes that are less than twice the official poverty line.”

• Sea lion joins walk-a-thon; he’ll need new home—A cute story (to break things up) from the Marin Independent Journal about Astro the sea lion, who recently “got curious and waddled ashore” from San Francisco Bay to join a group of schoolchildren on a walk-a-thon.

One thought on “Linkin’ Log (for 05-13-07)”

  1. Something to consider: the documentary Baghdad ER is rated TV-MA. According to the rating system TV-MA is “specifically designed to be viewed by adults and therefore may be unsuitable for children under 17.” Without school administration or parent consent, showing a film with such a rating—programming that wouldn’t even appear on prime time network television—should get a teacher in hot water.

    There’s more to this story. Read the Lincoln Journal Star article at
    http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2007/05/08/news/local/doc463ff8cadb767119770317.txt
    Notice the Che Guevara pic in the teacher’s photo.

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