Social Studies Teacher Teaches Constitution, Gets In Trouble For Thwarting Busybodies
May 30, 2013 by Sam Rolley
PHOTOS.COM
A high school social studies teacher in Illinois got in hot water with his local school board for… teaching students that they have Constitutional rights.
John Dryden, a 20-year veteran teacher at Batavia High School, not far from Chicago, told his class that they could not be forced to answer questions on an in-class survey about emotional and at-risk behavior. The surveys, which reportedly had students’ names printed on the documents to be filled out, included a series of queries on personal topics and about whether they engaged in drug and alcohol use.
Here’s how the school describes the survey:
Batavia High School will use the BIMAS to monitor students’ progress in the areas of social and emotional development. Results of the BIMAS will be analyzed at a building level to assist staff in planning and implementation of social emotional supports to help all students grow to their fullest potential. It is a systematic process of detecting students who are struggling behaviorally and are at-risk for experiencing a range of negative short- and long-term outcomes. If your child is found to be at risk and is not currently receiving social-emotional supports within the school, a member of the building’s Student Services Team will notify a parent to discuss options for support.
Dryden, who has garnered substantial support from students, parents and some Batavia officials, told his students they had a Constitutional right, per the 5th Amendment, not incriminate themselves with answers to the April 18 school survey. For his efforts to teach his students about their rights, Dryden told the Kane County Chronicle that school officials docked him a day’s pay.
A petition to the school’s administrators expressing disdain over the disciplinary actions had garnered more than 8,000 signatures by the writing of this article.
The petition describes Dryden as follows:
John Dryden is a uncharacteristically engaging educator who sees it his duty to make his students aware of their rights as citizens. He encourages critical thinking, problem solving strategies, and educational stewardship from all of his students. His learning objectives go beyond mandated standards and bring student awareness to real-world concerns.
The school had not previously informed students whether participation was mandatory or optional but an email to parents said their children could choose not to take the survey if they notified the district by April 17.
Per Chicago’s Daily Herald:
“Oh. Well. Ummm, somebody needs to remind them they have the ability not to incriminate themselves,” he recalled thinking. It was particularly on his mind because his classes had recently finished reviewing the Bill of Rights. And the school has a police officer stationed there as a liaison, he pointed out. [A school official] said the results weren’t shared with police.“I made a judgment call. There was no time to ask anyone,” Dryden said. If the survey had been handed out a day or two before, he said, he would have talked to an administrator about his concern.Instead, he gave the warning to his first-, second- and third-block classes. The test was given to all students during third block.He suspects it was a teacher who told the administration about what Dryden had done, after the other teacher had trouble getting all the students to take the survey.
Just to be clear, the National Council for the Social Sciences social studies as “the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence.” One would be forced to conclude that, by giving his students a real-world opportunity to realize the importance of their Constitutional rights, Dryden has proven himself an ideal social studies educator.
Of course, maybe the school’s administrators just wanted to know if they could frame any autistic students for peddling dope, like those fine educators over at Chaparral High School in Temecula, Calif.
How would you have voted on the Supreme Court decision in MARYLAND v. KING? The decision was announced today. Basically, it is a 4th Amendment case. The question is whether the state can force you to give a DNA sample without a warrant if you have been arrested (but not convicted). The purpose is to match your DNA against their database to see if you are guilty of some other crime. For example, you are arrested for DUI and they take your DNA and discover that your DNA matches DNA at a murder scene three years ago. Constitutional or not? It was a 5-4 decision but not entirely on conservative/liberal lines. Breyer voted with the conservative majority opinion, but Scalia joined with the liberal dissenters. I agreed with Scalia's dissent.
ReplyDelete--David
I find the idea of us giving up our rights to the police in an unauthorized search--giving DNA for an unrelated situation, is a violation of the Fourth Amendment. I would agree with Scalia and YOU!!!!! Can you believe it??
ReplyDeleteWhat! You call yourself a conservative. 4/5 of the conservatives voted against you. See, we do agree sometimes. Except for Israel, we agree on the Obama foreign policy, too. We agree on Lois Lerner.
ReplyDeleteThere are 4 big Supreme Court cases coming this month...
>Affirmative action case in Texas (hurts blacks)
> Repealing key part of the Voting Rights Act (hurts blacks)
> two more on gay marriage (hurts homosexuals)
Are you going to allow these cases to count in our Roberts project, or are you going to tell me Obama doesn't care about any of this? I am absolutely counting these cases. If you don't, then we're going to have different scorecards.
--David
Maybe I have been hanging out with you too much!!
ReplyDeleteNone of these cases will bring out the Roberts bomb. Blacks are Democrats by a very large majority so why pull out the big gun, it will make no difference to Blacks regardless of how the Supremes vote. They will not all of a sudden vote Republican because of a court case. Same goes for homosexuals. BTW, Obama does not care one whit about blacks, he is only concerned with what might effect HIM.
You don't understand the purpose of Robert's bomb. It is only used when it is important for Obama to win--i.e. Obamacrapcare. It will not be used for ordinary cases that will not effect Obama.
I didn't realize that Obama and Roberts are such great friends! How do you account for that? There was never any association between them. Had they even ever met each other previously? Why does he care so much about Obama personally? Did you know that, as senator, Obama voted against Roberts confirmation to the Supreme Court? If I were Roberts, that would not personally endear me to Obama. There is no factual evidence for your theory, but that never stops you.
ReplyDeleteRoberts will be on the court for decades after Obama goes in 2016. He will vote with the majority of conservatives on every major case for the rest of the Obama presidency and the 20 years after the Obama presidency, which will confirm the "inoculation theory" of his vote on Obamacare. Anyway, I will report on these cases and count them on the scorecard.
--David
Scalia, who I think is one of the best legal minds on the court agrees with me. I just heard Hannity say he agreed with Scalia.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand the rationale for the other side. You are giving up your rights to self incrimination where fingerprints are an identifier, just like your picture. I can't believe that the liberals on the court and I agree! Guess David is rubbing off on me.
"Scalia, who I think is one of the best legal minds on the court agrees with me."
ReplyDeleteI agree with Scali's opinion in the Heller case, too. Maybe you should reconsider your opposition.
-David
I just re-read Heller. This is the Washington D.C. case where the right to keep and bear arms was re-affirmed. The District had tried to prevent private ownership of arms. I guess I mis-read something about the Heller case as it appears to be exactly what I think.
ReplyDeleteYes, it was re-affirmed but LIMITED under Scalia's opinion. You seem to forget that we had a long exchange about Scalia's opinion. He is a strict constructionist on the Constitution, and based his argument on what kinds of arms were "common in the home" for purposes of forming a militia. He said the 2nd Amendment ONLY protects your right to weapons common in the home. That eliminates nuclear bombs, tanks, fighter jets, etc., etc. and quite possibly that bump-fire assault rifle with a 30-bullet mag (depending on percentile definition of "common" in Scalia's mind). You told me that you interpret the 2nd Amendment differently than Scalia. You think it is absolutely unlimited, and so you said "yes" when I asked you whether the 2nd Amendment guarantees your right to have a nuclear bomb in your garage. Have you now changed your mind on that? I hope so.
ReplyDelete--David