Shaming the Proud Huntress

[XLFD]

We all hate school bullies.  They prey on the fragile bodies or egos of their fellow students and physically or mentally damage their victim, with scars that can last a lifetime.  In recent years, emotional shaming has become all too common leaving our educators with the difficult task of keeping all forms of bullying out of the classroom.

But sometimes in our lower grades, our teachers, who wield a lot of power and prestige among their students, can sometimes use their pulpit to be worse than playground bullies.  If a girl comes into a classroom with a t-shirt proclaiming they have two loving mommies, then most of us would agree that it would be a bad thing for her teacher to proclaim that such an arrangement is unnatural and sick, that women shouldn't be that way, and thereby encourage the girl's fellow classmates to ridicule her and her mommies.  It could make the girl go home and be angry with the mommies she boasted of on her shirt.

But what about when the t-shirt doesn't promote the progressive viewpoint that most prominent educator's seem to agree on nowadays?   What if a young girl came into her classroom with a t-shirt showing herself with her first hunting trophy in a totally non-gory photo reproduction? 

Domonique Yatsko (pictured left) was a 9 year old girl who proudly wore that t-shirt, showing the eight-point buck she was fortunate enough to have bagged on the special youth hunt she took part in down in Ohio.  The hunt is sponsored by the state to encourage youth participation in the age-old sport of hunting. 

A tradition in her family is to celebrate the occasion of the first successful kill, so they made a special sweatshirt for her shortly thereafter and she thought nothing untoward about wearing it to Hinckley Elementary School after Christmas break.

Her teacher, seeing the smiling girl with the massive rack (no innuendo intended) cupped in her hands on her shirt, was taken aback.  She allegedly said "killing animals is not what we do", making the point to teach other students that lesson, undoubtedly leading to playground disdain from her fellow students, shaming Domonique so much that when she came home she promptly threw the t-shirt away. 

“We’re a farming family, and (ancestors) have lived in this area since 1827,” said Domonique’s mother, Heidi. “So, she’s used to raising livestock, planting crops, and planting fields for wildlife as well as hunting.  She scouted the deer.  She didn’t just shoot the first thing she saw.  She practiced. She did everything right.”

Heidi took up the matter with school officials, hoping to get an apology for a perfectly legal activity enjoyed by thousands of Ohioans. Nothing more. One was not forthcoming, however.

“The principal’s quote to me was ‘we don’t have dead animals in school,’” Heidi said. “So, I asked her what they serve in the cafeteria?”

Indeed, it was noted that in the same week Domonique was shamed for being a successful hunter, the Hinckley Elementary School had another visitor bring in an actual dead animal to school.  Looks like they used it as a teaching moment that day:

It's too bad that in our supposedly enlightened schools of today that their teachers and administrators cannot admit to, or apologize for, bullying and shaming when they are caught doing so.  Perhaps it's because they don't consider it such when they do it to kids brought up with different values than they're indoctrinated into.  The last person to recognize a bully, is the bully themselves.

[Willy]

That bonehead teacher should apologize to the student and to the class for being rude and crude. If that teacher had any sense of what being a teacher is all about she would have recognized that the girl's shirt presented a good teachable moment. The teacher could have given a lesson on the history and need for hunting by prehistoric man until present days. She neither had to approve or disapprove of hunting but could have provided an important lesson on the evolution of the human species.

By the way, anyone who sends their kid to school wearing a "I have two mommies" T-shirt is not helping the child or her classmates understand the situation that poor kid is involved with. The "mommies" are trying to promote their own agenda's at the kids expense. There are many people, because of Religious, ethical, moral, historical or biological beliefs who will not and should not be forced to agree with or condone the "2 mommies" life style.