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| ASU professor Sharon Bramlett-Solomon calls on high school media advisers to increase diversity awareness and action. |
The culture of education has really reached a point where we are tip-toeing around a lot of different things. Political correctness is necessary, but from what Dr. Solomon was saying, this can be to a fault. In my group, we talked about one of these situations where protecting and supporting student privacy (with the intention of ensuring they are not alienated) can actually have the opposite effect.
A lot of us seemed to agree that, at our corresponding schools, we cannot publish that a student is in a special education class. Dr. Solomon (as you may be right now) immediately questioned why this would ever be a valid detail to include in a story.
My example of this was when our newspaper wanted to do a profile on one of the special education teachers at my school. For the article, we were not allowed to interview students about his work because of privacy issues and the disclosure that they had this teacher as a special education instructor.
As a result, special education students were left out of the conversation altogether. They were alienated.
Something similar happened with one of our students in the English Language Development class. We wanted to do a story on the program, but students were not allowed to disclose the names of students in the class. The idea propagated by this was that the ELD students were "handicapped," which is obviously wrong and inaccurate.
I don't know how this is supposed to be fixed. These kids should have their privacy protected. At the same time, however, they are being forced out of conversations of which they should be the biggest part.
Bobby Oliver
San Pasqual High SchoolSan Diego, California
What an appropriately awesome video!
ReplyDeleteLisa Biber
Brodhead High School
Brodhead, Wis.
I'm glad you shared this, Bobby. Bureaucratic constraints aside, diversity can be addressed as an ethical issue by applying the SPJ principles. The answers still don't come easily, but this can provide a process. Perhaps Mike Hiestand will have some perspective on your students' rights in the face of PC-obsessed administrators.
ReplyDeleteSteve Elliott
Arizona State University
Phoenix
This is probably going to be an issue for me next year. I'm the campus Best Buddies adviser. Best Buddies is a national organization that administers programs and activities for special ed students. On campus, my group tries to make connections between CLS students and the regular population. CLS students are an excluded population. They absolutely glow when they get noticed by the other students and teachers. I would love to have these students and the program highlighted in an article, but how do I approach that?
ReplyDeleteJerry L. Miller
Sparks High School
Sparks, Nevada
I would like to know how to address this as well. My school has a Daily Living Skills class that teaches special needs students how to bake, cook, clean, etc. Administration allowed us to write about the program and photograph the students, but we couldn't identify their status. In the name of protection, these students were being excluded. I look forward to hearing Mike Hiestand's perspective.
ReplyDeleteGinny Miller
Tupelo High School
Tupelo, Mississippi