alienation news

2/1/03 -- Hide your books, the principal is coming

"To Ms. Ehrenfeld: This morning I observed that during the morning news program, you and your students were engaged in activities other than watching television."
So began the official letter of reprimand placed in my personnel folder by the principal at the elementary school in Maryland where I was teaching 3rd grade at the time. Odd as the accusation was, it was made even odder by the fact that my students were reading when the principal caught them not watching television. She had walked in, and there they were, sitting as silently as a group of 3rd graders can, every one of them absorbed in a book. What they were supposed to be doing was watching our school's morning news show, an exercise in terminal boredom.