Gearing Up

Today you get an old pen sketch I did when I was bored and looking at different types of armor, because I'm tired and cranky.

--- Rant Ahead ---

I've been working on the 45 hours of observing teachers in action for my discussion forum. This has, so far, been a pretty positive experience. The two teachers I'm observing are very cordial, helpful and informative. The teacher I had observed today was animated and the kids liked her sort of quirky way of lecturing and involving them. I found her kind of funny and amusing and set aside my notes for a while to just listen to her lesson and get a feel for her. Then, she said something that set every educational alarm bell screeching in my head.

We were talking about the pre-civil war immigration, when massive amounts of Irish came over the Pacific after their crops were destroyed by the Potato Famine (1845-1852). Now a lot of people weren't too happy about the hundreds of thousands of people pouring in from Ireland. The Irish immigrants were poor, desperate for work and willing to work for low pay, undercutting the workers who were already in the U.S. Also, a lot of the Puritan Anglo Saxon Mayflower descendents in cities like Boston were none too happy about the sudden boom in Catholic population.

So the class went over that. Then the teacher asked the students as part of the discussion why wouldn't the current U.S. citizens wouldn't like the Irish. Why would they refuse to hire Irish? Why would they refuse to even sell to the Irish? The students gave some guesses. They don't know a lot so there were some out of left field: "Because they had a different colored skin?" was one response. The teacher looked at him and said "Uh, they're all white. Irish were as white as anyone else." She explained that Catholicism was a big reason for their issues. "So, why didn't they like that the Irish were Catholic?"

A girl raised her hand and was called on. "Because England was Catholic?"

"YES! Exactly! England was Catholic!"

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait a minute! England's state religion has been the Church of England (aka Anglican) since the late 1600's. Henry VIII anyone? Elizabeth I? Sure there were a few English monarchs that were closet Catholics, but the English monarch has always been the head of the Church of England.

I began to think that maybe she had a mind block - a simple mistake of thinking the wrong thing for about an hour. But she went on: "Since England was Catholic, the colonists didn't want any part of that, and that's why they came ot America! George III had tried to force the Catholics to be Catholic and they didn't like it! So when the Irish came in, they did not want anyone Catholic!"

I was just flabbergasted at that point. When she repeated the faulty information to the next period, I knew this wasn't a mistake. This woman was just..pulling stuff out of memory or something. No one tried to make the colonists Catholic. There was a colony made a French Huguenots (French Catholics), and that was Maryland. But...that was pretty much it. The king had tried to keep the colonies from squabbling by consolidating them into the Dominion of New England at one time, but that did not mean they had to be Catholic, or even Anglican. Let's not forget the Quakers.

So...I don't know. I feel bothered about that. What am I getting myself into? I would not want this teacher teaching my kids history. Seriously.

Urgh...so I'm ready to finish these hours out.

Okay, enough complaining. I'm gonna chill, maybe draw up something.

Good night.