Teacher says contract wasn't renewed because he wouldn't use trans students' preferred names
The Wisconsin English teacher, Jordan Cernek, argues in the suit that the district violated his freedom of religion and free speech in mandating the use of the students' preferred names and pronouns.
A high school English teacher is suing a Wisconsin school district, alleging it did not renew his contract last year because he refused to use the preferred names of two transgender students.
Jordan Cernek's federal lawsuit alleges the Argyle School District violated his constitutional and civil rights to be free of religious discrimination and to be able to express himself according to his religious beliefs when it did not renew his contract because he refused to abide by a requirement that teachers use the names or pronouns requested by students.
As an employee of the school, the only names he should be using are those registered in its official documents. Personal desires should not matter for either side.
Every teacher I ever had in public school throughout the 90s and early 00s asked students to tell them if they had a nickname or a name they preferred to be called on the first day of class. And then they would do their best to adhere to it.
Every single one. Nobody gave a shit. There were more important things going on like, I dunno, educating children?
Most of my teachers in the schools i went to never used a nickname for their students. Those that used nicknames were the exception, not the rule. And guess what happened to them. Parents complained of favouritism and the grades they gave were questioned.
Every single time. People do give a shit about the non-educating part and it's an issue schools have to deal with when they'd rather not.
Confirmation bias. Got it
Every teacher, instructor, professor I've had from kindergarten through graduate school across three states and as many decades has asked every class I've been in if a student has a preferred name over the name they're officially registered with. Every one made a note in their register to call them as such. Refusing to call a student by their preferred name is a new level of pettiness at best and discrimination at worst. A teacher's job is to make their classroom a place where children feel welcome and safe. Regardless of whatever their personal views are. So, I say with all sincerity and with no irony, fuck your feelings.
Is that why you're such a delightful and happy person?
Bullshit
Thank you for the manure. It will fertilize the crops nicely.
Are you an annoying PTA parent that tried to ban Harry Potter? That would explain so much
Hey! Shut up! Harry Potter was an international treasure before Rowling went crazy.
But I would be an annoying PTA parent.
Are you telling me that if a kid named Timmy wants me to call him Tim, I should only be calling him Timmy? Fuck that noise.
If you call him Tim bad things could happen. It's a slippery slope to child abuse
Edit: /s
If you're the teacher of a classroom and it's not part of your contract to call Timmy as Tim, then little Timmy can go legally change his name to Tim.
Do you realize how disconnected from reality you sound? Kids' legal names aren't as important as you think they are. Honestly, neither are adults' legal names.
If someone comes up to you (outside of a school) and says their name is Will, do you say you're only going to call them William? If yes, wow, you are so weird. If not, why does it matter inside of a school and not outside?
Your teachers seem to have failed you as your reading comprehension is lacking.
In school, a teacher is an employee. It's their job. Outside of working hours, they're not an employee. It's their personal time. Job, personal time, very different things. If you expect them not to be this way, you're kinda being an asshole towards them as a person.
To take the IT guy as an example. Do you expect to call them outside of their working hours to come fix your internet and call you pet names in the process? If so, wow do I have news for you!
Edit: Talk about disconnected....
A reading comprehension insult from someone who didn't even answer my actual question?
Thank Christ you're just working at a school and not an actual teacher.
I did answer it, you simply failed to recognize it as such.
A school is an organization with a specific purpose. A teacher is an employee of that organization working there under a contract within a set of rules. The students are the beneficiaries of the services that organization offers. The teachers obligation is to provide those services as specified in their contract. Beyond that and other than the laws of the city and country they reside in, they are not obligated to provide any other service that is requested of them.
Demanding something that is beyond their obligations and expecting them to accomplish it unconditionally is an assholeish thing to do.
Ps: You presume too much. Just stuck to the written words and refrain the imagination that flows far beyond them. It will serve you better in the long run.
My guy, your writing and communication skills clearly just suck if you need to keep clarifying with pretentious drivel. "It will serve you better in the long run," as if you know how anything in the real world works.
Teachers who don't respect their students' human dignity shouldn't get their contracts renewed. They're not obligated to be a swollen dickhole since that service was not requested of them. You've simply failed to recognize that as such, I suppose.
Uh huh. So calling students by their actual name is not respecting their human dignity now.
You seem lovely as well, so I'll explain it more clearly, because you seem to have fallen into a hole. This little thing you seem so fond of is a fun thing called entitlement. And it's fun because it need no explanation, it's all there in the word itself. En-title-ment. Or in other words, pretentious drivel.
You have a name and it is being used in its exact form. That is in fact respecting your dignity as a human being. Anything beyond that is s privilege, not an obligation. And anyone can choose not to provide that privilege as that is their right just as it is yours in return.
You're not wrong though. You don't have to like it or the person who does that and the teacher's contract doesn't have to be renewed if they don't fit in. But any expectations that aren't included in the contract can and should be challenged.
The fact that you think a pet name and a preferred name are the same thing shows how much you understand what you're talking about.
For both the beauty of understanding and its ugliness is that the more you think you understand something, the less you understand it.
The metaphor was bad, just take the L.
I see. You understand it perfectly then.
So the name on your birth certificate is "lath"?
On Lemmy, I have registered with that nickname and as such I expect it to be used.
Is that so hard to comprehend?
Im so glad you have insight on this. You see, I get a lot of international students in my class and I’ve had to deal with this type of thing a lot. Maybe you can help me out.
Let’s say I have a polish student whose name is “Żółć”, which is somewhat difficult to pronounce in English. After a few failed attempts, he just tells me he prefers “George” because it sounds close enough, he likes that it sounds like English, and is easier for everyone to pronounce. His English-speaking friends call him George as well.
Do I…
I could really use some help with this since it happens all the time. Please let me know what you think.
Learn to pronounce their name. Duh.
OR, just bear with me…
Call them the name they’d prefer to be called because it’s easier than making a scene and nobody actually gaf.
Never give up, never surrender!
You could use more time outside, and less watching movies
They aint surrendering bro, just on the other side lmfaooo
That counts as one.
It really doesnt. People dont necessarily default to your side
So they have to default on yours instead?
They didnt default to it, they specifically advocated that stance
You're talking of specific people then, not "People" in general.
Uh no. Not that hard to call a person by the name they prefer. Don't be a bigot.
Bigotry has nothing to do with it. The name registered is the one that should be used. If your registered name with the school is Richard, but you wanna be called Private Dick, then register it. If you can't, then that's another issue entirely.
I'm sure he would have no problem calling a, let's just say, James David JD if that is what James David preferred. This is just bigotry for the sake of hate
I'd rather they didn't. As an official, fraternizing individually only creates problems overall. A teacher should teach a class objectively.
However, any other extracurricular activities should be separate from regular classes and the relationship is more tight knit, so in that circumstance, nicknames wouldn't be an issue.
Ir you don't separate work from personal life, you're going to have a bad time.
As a fucking educator, you should be connecting to every single student in your classroom on a personal level, or you're unredeemably shit at your job.
Bro sounds like he was part of Hitler's Youth
A good chunk of a teacher's job is to build appropriate relationships with your students. Students don't want to learn from someone they dislike, and you have significantly better learning outcomes when the students feel safe, accepted, and cared about. Appropriate nicknames, like Tim for Timothy, help in that relationship building. I don't know what your position is at that school, but Wisconsin teachers are literally taught stuff like this in college so that we know how to manage a classroom with the best learning outcomes and the fewest number of behavioral disruptions. We are taught how to keep those relationships appropriate and healthy, although much of that is just common sense.
Yes, you should separate work and home life for both your own sanity and for modeling good boundaries and work-life balance. But that doesn't mean you have to drop your decency at the door. At the end of the day, the goal is learning, and not being a douche is one of the easiest ways to get to that goal.
Extracurricular activities are an extension of these same principles, not an exception or something with a different set of standards. I think you might be mixing up appropriate relationship building with inappropriate fraternizing, and I'm concerned that you are having difficulty finding that line.
Your expectations of teachers and the resources actually given to them are so far apart from each other that you need to take a step back and actually provide them what is needed, not just your expectations of their personalized behavior in regards to how they should treat their students.
Teachers, parents and the school need to work together and give the support kids need. But what it's actually like is that both school and parents dump on teachers with their own expectations on how students should be handled, which often contradict each other.
Teachers don't actually have to do all of that though. Their job is to impart their knowledge of the subject they were hired for. Everything else is just extra, an option they should be allowed to refuse.
If you want them to do more, then pay them appropriately. Give them the equipment, the training and the support.
I definitely agree that there aren't enough resources given to teachers, but the expectation of using common decency to reach the goal of educating our students is not too high of an expectation. Focus on the end goal. How you get there can vary (assuming it's appropriate), but you are still trying to reach the goal of educating the students. If your teaching style is prohibiting people from reaching that goal, why wouldn't you change it?
It's nice to think that as an English teacher, I only have to worry about how well they can interpret the modern applications of the lessons in Macbeth, or whatever literature we're studying, but in reality, teachers are teaching a whole heck of a lot more than their specific subject area. We're simultaneously modeling how to behave appropriately, teaching how to navigate complex social situations, and mentoring students on how to achieve their goals and deal with set backs. Teachers have always worn more than one hat. It's not only an expectation for the job; it's an absolute requirement for success.
Should they earn more money for having to do all of that? YES! That's why we've been complaining about the low pay and lack of resources for at least 40 years. The effort and skills are non-negotiable. Kids shouldn't get a crappy education just because some politicians are using their teachers' wages as political leverage. People go into education knowing that the pay sucks, but they actually care about other people and future generations. They don't go into just for the paycheck, and I don't know a single educator who wouldn't put in some extra effort to help a student succeed.
You're basing a lot of your opinion on the assumption that kids come to school ready to learn and healthy. The reality is that parents and home lives come in a wide variety of flavors. Some parents do exactly what you said: dump on teachers with their own expectations on how students should be handled. But others don't get involved at all. Some don't care about their child's life beyond how it affects them. Some are so busy working to make ends meet that they don't have time to be much more than an absent parent. No matter what life the student has, it's still my job to give them a quality education, so of that means giving them a granola bar or calling Joe Suzie, then that's what it takes.
We're basically fighting for the same thing here: better pay, better resources, and support for teachers so that students can get a better education. The difference is that I don't think students should get the short end of the stick for something they can't change (i.e. low pay), whereas you'd rather a teacher not do extra because they aren't getting paid to do extra. But my method reaches the end goal of educating students well, and yours instead basically says, "Reach the goal or don't. I don't really care since I did my part."
You are right.
But that's a choice each teacher has to have. Because just like everyone else involved, teachers are only human. Each has their own motivation for teaching and doing more than what's needed because it's the right thing to do simply isn't good enough a reason to force them. Not everyone wants to be a hero.
What is your government name so I don't accidentally call you the wrong thing?
I don't work for the government and neither am I here as an employee, so have fun with that thought for a while and see what you can learn from it.
That's what I figured