native student suspended for not speaking english

[BlaqueKatt]

and the resulting from the teacher is a hypocritical non-apology.

for once I agree with the parents that the teacher should be fired.

"Language and behavior that creates a possibility of elitism, or simply excludes other students, can create or increase racial and cultural tensions"

Like say calling them out for translating and demanding they speak english and calling it a "behavior problem".

[Andara Bledin]

An article for those who want more details:

Native girl punished for speaking her language

The best part about the whole thing, particularly the letter sent home by the teacher, is that the girl in question was actually introducing fellow students to her native tongue. How sharing your language could possibly be considered "elitism" is beyond me.

Methinks the woman was being a bitch because she didn't like the idea that she might be left out of a conversation. As if that didn't happen constantly, anyway. >_>

Apparently, the Diocese, the principal, the basketball coach, and another staff-member all wrote sincere letters of apology about how the incident was handled, but the teacher doubled-down on how it was all the student's fault and the teacher's only fault was not informing the parent of the issue sooner.

[Panacea]

It doesn't help that there is a history of trying to suppress Native languages here in the United States. Native American children were forced from their homes to live in boarding houses on the East Coast (mostly in Pennsylvania) and punished if they spoke anything but English.

As a result, Native languages are dead or dying.

The tribes from Wisconsin were a great part of those affected by those policies in the late 19th through mid 20th centuries.

The teacher's actions are completely unacceptable. There was no harm in what the girl did, and saying she might be saying "bad words" is just an excuse to bully this girl.

The teacher needs to go. If she can't handle a bilingual student, she doesn't belong in education.

[XCashier]

Gurta wrote: “In an academic setting, a student must be respectful of all of the other students — language and behaviour that creates a possibility of elitism, or simply excludes other students, can create or increase racial and cultural tensions ... My firm reactions to the behaviours of Miranda and the other two girls were not to single out Miranda or her Native language. Rather, disciplinary actions were taken in response to the disrespectful comments and behaviours exhibited by Miranda over the course of the entire day. Unfortunately, the actions of your daughter were not brought to your attention as quickly as they should have been, and for this I apologize.”

She should've been a politician.

And there's certainly nothing wrong with a bilingual student sharing a few phrases from a different language. That happened frequently at my school; lots of Spanish-speaking kids. It's good to expand one's knowledge and it's always useful to know another language.