I love you. Hello. Thank you. Hardly the sort of words to elicit the wrath of an entire school board, but they did just that at a middle school in Wisconsin.
Miranda Washinawatok -- a 12-year-old student at Sacred Heart Catholic School in Shawno, Wisconsin, a small town just south of an Indian Reservation -- was reprimanded for speaking these words in her native tongue, Menominee.
Teacher Julie Gurta reportedly slammed her hands down on the desk and told Miranda she wasn’t supposed to be speaking Menominee because how would she know if Miranda was saying something bad. She then said, How would you like it if I spoke Polish and you didn’t understand?
The whole exchange escalated when Miranda claimed she was singled out and benched during a school basketball game for having "attitude issues.”
“I was disappointed the faculty wouldn’t give me clear answers and kept passing the blame back and forth,” said Miranda's mom, Tanaes Washinawatok.
Cue a vow to work on cultural sensitivity by school and Diocese of Green Bay officials, which claims natives have had a raw deal for too long. As for Gurta... Instead of a straight apology, Miranda's mom received a letter justifying the teacher's actions.
“In an academic setting," she wrote, "a student must be respectful of all of the other students — language and behaviour that creates a possibility of elitism, or simply excludes other students, can create or increase racial and cultural tensions ... Unfortunately, the actions of your daughter were not brought to your attention as quickly as they should have been, and for this I apologize.”
Tanaes was not impressed, and hopes the school will fire Gurta.
Is the teacher guilty of preaching intolerance, or do you agree that language "creates a possibility of elitism" and exclusion?
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