Tuesday, February 07, 2006

What Kind of Contract Did She Sign?

Sideshow alerts us to a Colorado music teacher who's in hot water for exposing elementary kids to the opera Faust.

I'm not surprised that parents in the town of 2000 would demand the teacher be fired for showing their kids a "satanic video." What I find shocking is there are still public elementary schools in America that still haven't laid off their music teachers.

3 Comments:

Blogger Chief RZ said...

First and Second Graders are probably too young to understand that this is not something to do (sell your soul). Maybe in an advanced placement High School literature course, or drama. I did see the ende de fauste a few years ago. I did enjoy it and understood it even though it was in German. Not for elementary school students, however. The teacher--maybe a repremand in writing with a second occurance to result in non-renewal.

8:46 AM  
Blogger Charlie Quimby said...

Since this was the kids' first exposure to opera, and the teacher was fast-forwarding through 12 minutes of video to illustrate points about the singing and roles in opera, I doubt they got too deeply into the selling your soul story.

The "Who's Afraid of Opera?" video series is aimed at kids — using puppets, no less! — so the AP high schoolers might do better to read the original.

The teacher happened to pick Volume One of the series off the shelf to illustrate her lesson. It just happened to feature Faust. Too bad they didn't have Woody Woodpecker or Bugs Bunny doing their versions of "The Barber of Seville."

9:10 AM  
Blogger Chief RZ said...

Charlie,
After reading all the links, I would support the parents. It is their children's education. I had to adjust my curriculum just a bit to fit the local community. It is they who hire and pay the salaries of the teachers. There is a lot more to this story than meets the eye.

5:02 PM  

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