Last Updated on: 20th October 2014, 03:03 pm
Wow. This story is another example of schools going to, well, hell.
An English teacher at Fillmore Central High School told her class to do travel brochures on places they’d like to visit. Michael Sattler decided he’d like to visit Hell. that’s right, Hell, Michigan. There is a town called Hell, and he did his research and wrote a fine brochure all about it. He got a 0 and the teacher deemed it inappropriate because it mentioned hell all over it. Well, duh!
Disagreeing with this mark, Sattler’s parents sent his brochure straight to Hell, where the unofficial mayor thought it was awesome. In return, he sent a box of Hell souvenirs and a “grumpier than hell” coffee mug for the teacher.
Now, in the world I wish we lived in, the teacher would have said, “Ok, you proved me wrong, there is a Hell on Earth, and it seems you did a good job. So I’ll give you the mark I think you deserve.” Then the class would have learned all about Hell and it would have been educational. Unfortunately, that’s not where we live, because the principal of the school intercepted the box from Hell and said he’d send it back from whence it came. Why? because handing out the stuff would undermine the teacher’s authority! I know this is getting old, but what the hell? It would show that teachers make mistakes and are human and it would show fairness. But that would be the wrong set of values to instill in our children, I guess.
So now, as agesture of good faith, the teacher is willing to give him a grade if he does another brochure on another town. That does not sound like good faith to me. That sounds like punishment. He did it, and got a perfect grade, but nothing in this story seems fair. It just goes to show that schools seem to be more about control and less about learning. What did they teach Michael Sattler? It’ll be a cold day in hell, not Hell, before his school will show open-mindedness.