High Schooler Objects to ‘Sicko’ Final Exam, Says Teacher Called Her A ‘Teabagger’ in Front of Class
by Bob McCartyThere’s nothing wrong with the fact Debra Blessman kept secret from her students the name of the film she would require them to watch and analyze during finals week at Francis Howell High School. Today, however, the teacher might be wishing she had not kept her superiors in the St. Charles, Mo., school district in the dark about it. She planned to base final exams on the Michael Moore film, “Sicko“.
Judging by the unedited plot summary below which Blessman distributed to students in her Senior Literature and Composition class, one might assume Blessman kept school district administrators in the dark about the controversial 2007 documentary on health care because she knew they might find the film objectionable:
In this documentary, the director/writer Michael Moore exposes the dysfunctional North American health care system, oriented to huge profits and not for their mission of saving lives. Further, he shows the corruption in the political system, with members of government and congress “bought” by the corporations and the situation of the average American citizens, including those that volunteered to work in the rescue mission of the September 11th. Then he travels to Canada, Great Britain and France to compare their systems showing their hospital, doctors, staffs and patients. Last but not least, he shows that the prisoners in Guantanamo have better medical treatment than the common people in USA, and he ends getting free treatment to the Americans that participate along the documentary in Cuba.
Apparently, however, Blessman did not expect any of her students to raise objections about the film. But one did.
On the morning of May 11, soon after learning about the film’s selection as the basis for the final exam in Blessman’s class, 18-year-old senior Celeste Finkenbine went straight to one of the school’s principals to raise her objections. Why? Because, based on her experiences with Blessman this semester and during a class three years earlier, Finkenbine didn’t think she would get very far pleading her case with the teacher she describes as a liberal. More on that later.
Unlike the vast majority of her classmates, Finkenbine is a politically-active conservative who spends many Saturday afternoons attending anti-socialism rallies at the intersection of Highways K and N in nearby O’Fallon, Mo. When she’s not in school or holding a sign on a street corner, you’re likely to find her working at a local nursing home in preparation for what she hopes will be a career as a geriatric physician.
Through a contact at the K and N Patriots, the group that holds the weekly rallies, I learned about Finkenbine’s objections to the film and, specifically, to being required to watch and analyze it as part of an assignment worth 50 percent of her total semester grade for the class. This video is based on two recent interviews, one of which took place in the dining room of their St. Charles home, the other at a rally Saturday.
Finkenbine cited one primary reason behind her unwillingness to bring up points that back up Moore’s contentions.
“My biggest issue with it is my principal said I can argue the conservative viewpoint, but that’s something that I have background with, that I’ve researched myself.
“Every other student in that class was only given the liberal viewpoint of it, and that’s exactly what teachers aren’t supposed to do, is lean toward one side or the other.”
When I contacted Dr. Renee Shuster, superintendent of the Francis Howell School District, she admitted the movie is not part of any district curriculum and that the teacher did not follow the process for having the film approved in advance. She also said that Finkenbine had been offered an alternative assignment that involves reading and analyzing the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 7,000-word essay, “A Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”
Does Finkenbine fear any repercussions for standing up for her conservative ideals?
“I’m hoping that, no matter what assignment I do, I can still get an ‘A’ on it. If I did feel like I was graded unfairly, it wouldn’t stop there.”
It’s somewhat ironic that Finkenbine’s alternative assignment relates to Dr. King, because it was during a recent class discussion that King’s name came up and, according to Finkenbine, her teacher laid her liberal cards out on the table.
Finkenbine said that, after she compared her participation in Tea Party rallies with the civil disobedience in which Dr. King participated, Blessman responded to her by saying, “Well, we all know you’re a ‘teabagger.’”
Afterward, Finkenbine recalled, the teacher started laughing and everyone in the class started laughing about Blessman’s use of the derogatory term, prompting the student to think, “Wow! Did she really just say that?”
Having heard this account of life in Blessman’s classroom, I contacted Dr. Shuster again.
In addition to wanting to find out how district officials would deal with the teacher for using a film that was not approved in advance, I wanted to know how they would address Finkenbine’s allegation that the teacher called her a “teabagger” in front of the class.
Schuster responded by e-mail, saying, “We would address this through the teacher evaluation process which hopefully leads to improvement but can lead to termination.”
Unfortunately, it appears all of the other students in Blessman’s class ended up having to watch and analyze “Sicko”.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Multiple attempts to reach Blessman since Friday afternoon have, thusfar, been unsuccessful, and her home phone number is unlisted. If, after publishing this post, she contacts me and consents to an interview, I will publish an update.
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467 Comments
Michael Moore is a sicko who thinks that can just give away healthcare, food, clothing, and luxury goods to poor people just because we can afford it!
Well, we can't and even if we did, we shouldn't!
Let the poor work their way into prosperity instead of taking the shortcut!
what? this article is about school room indoctrination.
I guess this is what we get when we let trolls teach school. Here is another shining example of our problem:
http://www.santeefalcons.org/apps/contact/
Some great advice,don't waste your time sitting by the phone.lol
Teabagger is a derogatory term, and anyone who uses it to describe me, does it at their peril.
Fire that THING disguised as a teacher!
I feel sorry for the student and can relate. Currently my grad school career is in danger because I will not fall into the indoctrination mode that teachers force on students. Recently, I did a paper on U.S. foreign policy at the turn of the 20th century. I took the position that the U.S. did not pursue an imperialist policy, but rather expanded and fought the Spanish American War out of a concern for RealPolitik. I got a scathing assessment from the professor, who said I did not cite the right books (only socialist ones are allowed) and that Cuba was not an independent country until 1959 with the Revolution under "the beloved Fidel Castro" (his words, not mine). The educational system is only an indoctrination system now. I love History, but lately I am questioning the need or desire to get the "official" blessing from the lords of the Academia. My family tells me to shut up and get with the program, but if someone tries to sell me a turd pie by telling me its apple pie, I cant buy it. I hope the girl gets to realize her dreams, Lord knows the Progressive/Socialist education system will put many road blocks in her way.
i am surprised an alternate assignment wasn't mein kampf? or perhaps algores flick. i am glad i never had a senior year of high school, i got out after three years.
Does anyone remember the term "Melting Pot" of America?
Forget classroom indoctrination……….when, exactly, did Michael Moore become LITERATURE?
The school district is just giving lip service to the problem and hoping the controversy goes away, It is nothing new. Liberals have been doing garbage like this for decades in the public indoctrination centers across this country.
She should have insisted the movie be immediately followed by Orwell's 1984
Call my kid a Teabagger or ANY OTHER NAME FOR THAT MATTER and you won't forget the experience.
These are the morons who need more of my TAXES to TEACH kids? Not in this life. Bring back teachers, not collective bargainers and blackmailers! Get the UNIONS OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS!
Aside from pushing her execrable political views on students under the guise of "teaching" them, Blessman should be fired as a teacher of literature because she can't seem to write two coherent sentences in the English language. That plot summary reads like it someone who had struggled through 6th grade composition wrote it. The two pronged problem with our education system: political propaganda pushed by ignorant (literally) teachers.
Or a book report on Atlas Shrugged
What a great kid…I'm sure she makes her parents proud. Though, she will be getting lots of C from liberal teachers.
I never saw any of Moore's films but I saw this clip and thought it was pretty good: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKQJx3L_CDQ
Do you think this is a non-issue? If not, who else is addressing this?
Feel free to state your disgust with this piece of dirt and the high school that presently employs her, make their lives miserable until she is fired…
7001 Hwy 94 North Outer Rd
St Charles, Missouri 63304
(636) 851-4700
ENJOY!
Please don't quit. Keep fighting. We have to fight our way back into the educational system if we are ever to end the cycle of indoctrination.
Sheesh, if that's the unedited plot syonpsis that the teacher wrote and distributed to the students, those kids are not only getting indoctrinated, they're being robbed of a decent education in Literature and Composition–especially the Composition part. That's one crappy write-up from an educator expected to teach how to write a proper composition.
Perhaps the superintendent can also address the teacher's woeful lack of qualifications to teach her class through that "teacher evaluation process" which will — it is to be hoped — lead totermination.
It's a shame how so many educators these days believe it's acceptable to promote their political viewpoints in the classroom. If the schools administration does not take action it should then be taken before the school board and beyond. This teacher needs to be reprimanded. Worse is that she had the nerve to call the student a "teabagger" in an attempt to mock the students own personal political viewpoints.
My thoughts exactly… When did Michael "Hypocrisy" Moore become literature? The man is off his rocker!
Another reason to homeschool! Public education = marxist education.
'nuff said
Great story. BigEducation gets a spark of life!
Pretty sure this is the Principle's email address. Mail away!
chris.greiner@fhsdschools.org
I find the ending statement of the narration to be singularly ironic…making profit off the situation. Uhhh…does the name Michael Moore come to mind?
Keep all records of your assignments. You are obviously being strong-armed by your professor. Keep up the good fight. you'll feel better about yourself.
This is the modern liberal teaching philosophy:
"Give me your children for eight years and they will be communists for life…" ~ Vladimir Illyich Lenin
What part of Michael Moore is a Communist don't people understand?
Finish! Even if the Ph.D doesn't result in a professorship. It would be nice to have the option of reading history that is not packaged crap that barely coincides with primary sources.
It would have been wonderful if the student had asked the teacher to explain to the rest of the class exactly what teabagging is. Whenever I hear that term, I make the speaker define it exactly. Then I ask: do all those protestors do that? Is that what that's all about? It's lots of fun watching their arrogance turn into discomfort! You have to remember that they are not very confident about anything. That's why they're liberals.
If that's the case, you can and should nail him on a grievance. The prof will be forced to publicly defend what he did. You might be surprised just how stupid, lazy and, ill-informed some instructors actually are and how easy they are to take down. I once embarrassed a too-cool-for- school lefty prof in front of his cohorts by demonstrating that he didn't know the difference between Karl Marx and Harpo. A lot of them don't really read the books on the shelves in their offices, they just put them on display because it gives them "revolutionary cred."
There is a great documentary out there called "Indoctrinate U". You should check it out. It was well done and hit on exactly what you are going through.
It's ok for me to voice my view point and call you names but, you better not think about doing the same. This so called teacher, should be put on the street. Terminated, dismissed and fired. "This has got to stop in our society".
Maybe the teachers punishment should be having the students use this as their next subject for a paper.
http://indoctrinate-u.com/pages/welcome.html
After all, if documentaries are her thing, she will LOOOOVE this on! Or not!
The continued dumbing down of America. This is where parents come into the picture, and bust a little teacher ass.
School politics ain't it fun. Been there done that original though and original ideas (choosing a different perspective on history for example) are not encouraged and in fairness never were. Teachers (not all but most)have always trended to indoctrination and totalitarianism in the classroom. It is how they maintain control assure rap attention and massage their egos. Beginning in the seventies with the mainstreaming of the anti-war movement teachers moved left and found a much more compliant audience. It is much easier to teach young people to "rebel against the machine" since rebellion is their natural state. The problem is they haven't woke up yet to realize they now are "the machine". Kristine I doubt you are alone nor is the girl in the article most around you are going along to get along as much as that may disgust you. In their Walter Mitty world they are independent thinkers ready to toss wrenches into the machine.
God forbid the student may watch this film and learn something which may contradict her preconceived notions. Better she live in a bubble.
Yeah the progressives declared it Jingoism and we just went along.
Amen!
If you write about the truth, good or bad,……at least,…………….
you will not feel compelled to hide your works from the public…………
Good luck to you Kristine
Been there, done that. Here's the trick that will get you through. Accept their assumptions as you write but use those very arguments to undercut their assertions. OK…they say that Cuba was not independent until after Castro. Start there. Use their arguments for why it was not independent before to attack Castro's regime. Thanks to deconstruction and "new historicism" (not so new anymore, I know). You can almost always turn their own gun against them. Most are not bright enough to realize what you've done (but dumb enough to realize you've opened "new" ground and think you are brilliant). It is hard and gut wrenching work, but it will get you through and often with top grades. And while you may look like one of them, you are actually taking them down, bit by bit.
Now that would be a great topic for the kids!
Go to thefire.org. You're not alone, and there is help for students like you!
Take it from a former grad student who ran screaming from a deconstructionist PC graduate English program more than 25 years ago. I only wish FIRE were in existence then!
Don't you know, since the advent of identity politics, we're supposed to be the MOSAIC of America
why don't you provide us with a list of who you believe should be the,……….
."…….who else is addressing this?…"
Upon graduation this young lady should start a campaign to fill the first open position on the local School Board. She has the savy and the politcal sense to make a difference. If she can't get on the School Board she should run for a city council seat……the way to change things we don't like is at the local level. Start petition drives to have this teacher admonished for failure to comply with standards, submit the petition to the School Board, and above all else keep your cell phone camera handy.
will call,.thanks there Missy
Wow !!!!! Thank you all for your kind words and support!!! Talk about putting some wind in my sails. I said I was questioning the need to get the "paper", but I am to stubborn to quit. If they are gonna stop me, I will pull a Charleston Heston on them, they "can pull my laptop, with my work, from my cold dead hands!!!!" LOL….
Seriously though, thanks for the kind words, it has given me hope and lets me know I am not alone in the fight.
Because I've had the same experience as Finkenbine, I make it a point NOT to tell my students my political opinions. My class policy is absolute academic freedom.
Thank God that Google is useful for a few things!
The entire film is nothing but a preconceived notion. If the film was factual, which it is not, then maybe it would be fine to show an opposing position, but the film is not based on truth. Dig deeper into hospitals in Cuba and you would be disgusted.
The fun thing about this whole story is that we are actually employing teachers that FORCE our children to watch this work of fiction in the classroom when a simple cursory viewing can completely discredit the whole MOVIE.
I watch it and did exactly that, too.
http://liberalsmash.blogspot.com/2008/03/universa...
Mein Kampf is vastly superior to Sicko. At least Herr Schikelgruber was up front about his plans and politics.
The "Show Me State" is sure showing us how,…." sicko " our educational system has become.
So what's wrong with Sicko as subject for film or literary analysis and critique? One of the finest agitprop films ever made!
This film is shown in all the highschools in Northwest Ohio. My students that are informed hate it and those that are not (majority ) don't express an opinion. I expose the lies and misinformation in the film with my students and give them the research to back it up.
I would suggest Celeste Finkenbine's parents take this to court to expose the outrageous abuse of not only this student but the classroom as a platform for any "teachers'" radical ideology. Nothing will change until more parents take a stand and push back, hard!
Remember Al Gore's film was banned from use in schools by the High Court of England for its blatant errors/untruths.
Kristine – Never, ever give up! What you are doing takes courage. As a parent of a 5th grader, a young person such as yourself gives me hope for my child's future!!
michael moore is nothing more than a hypocrite. A friend of mine whose brother was in the hospital had as room mates two different Canadians! That right Canadians! They are capping their pants over the recent passage of our health care bill because now they don't know where they are going to get health care that they don't have to wait months or years to receive. This piece of crap goes around crying about capitalism yet look at all the money he has made off his crappie movies. If capitalism is so bad in his eyes then why doesn't he show these movies for free?
Good point followers are rarely well rooted in their beliefs just well indoctrinated. That is one of the strengths (often described as weakness) of the Tea Party Movement. There is no national leader, there is no checklist of beliefs, one acts out of personal resentment of dishonest government and its breach of faith. We as Americans intuitively know that “government cannot rule without the consent of the governed ’ We stand together to put the political class on notice, you are operating without our consent and we are angry.
Agreed! Why is it so acceptable for anyone on the left to use a term with degrading sexual implications when describing a fellow American who is standing for their conservative and small government beliefs? Why is this more acceptable than the fictitious use of the "N" word by the Tea Party attendees protesting in Washington? Why can the SEIU show up at a Bank of America employees home without outrage from the MSM? Did you see anything about it on MSNBC? I seriously doubt it. Show up on my lawn… I triple dog dare you!
School vouchers would solve a lot of this. If you don't agree with how teaching is done, just spend your money elsewhere.
Good catch. They're analyzing a movie instead of a written work? In a literature and composition class? WTF?
Two words: Home School.
That and the word racist. I find both akin to calling an African American the N word which, as we all know, means all bets are off and what happens happens.
Teabagger.
That speaks for itself.
That just shows how racist you are. Seriously? Teabagger is on the same level as the N word?
The teacher is a pervert and should be FIRED now. Actually, she should have been fired on the spot.
We all know her union buddies will defend her with a bunch of union hack lawyers if she is fired.
Notice how she has to READ a 7000 word article and the rest get TO WATCH a movie.
Ironic that someone with the Christ4Life would say something like that.
Teabagger has a sexual connotation. That's why the left uses it. Considering that, shouldn't the teacher be facing sexual harassment charges?
Martini Teabagee
Here's a suggestion. Let's pay the teacher of little visit. I doubt very much that she had a problem with this event. Let's all go over and ask her personally. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsf-XsC18IQ
While I agree that the situation with pilot pay is a national disgrace, I also see Moore's logical fallacies in putting his talking points together. It is an interesting fact that Michael makes millions of dollars in the same capital system that he is consistently bashing in his movies.
View the clip again with a more critical eye. Where it starts is cosy interviews of personal accounts followed by this very short and glassed over part where the there is a little bit of what could be seen as liberal bashing which transitions quickly into the heavily dubbed over congressional hearing that could possibly lead to a different conclusion from the one Michael Moore's is attempting to convey.
Why doesn't he talk about all the taxes that cities bleed from their local airports? Have you bought a meal at the airport lately? Meals are small and expensive for a reason. The company providing the meal pay huge sums of money to the city government. They rent the space at a huge premium.
Why doesn't he talk about insurance? Our over litigious society has driven costs sky high as each passenger is a potential plaintiff.
Why doesn't he talk about the biggest expense to airlines — fuel? The airline business started in an age of stable energy prices and have been squeezed by the current unstable fuel costs. Airlines now have to stockpile fuel and perform large elaborate contracts which reach far into the future in order to stabilize their own supplies. This costs money and exposes the company to unusual risks.
Airlines are in the current state they're in because of liberalism not capitalism. The airlines don't have bags of money and operate in the doorway of bankruptcy. Pilot pay is an indication of the industry's state of health, but Michael won't speak to the problems of higher taxes, trial law, domestic oil supply and limited refinement. They don't weave well into a liberal hit piece on capitalism.
There is no reasonable justification to allowing this movie to be viewed in an educational setting. Michael's essay skills are rudimentary at best and his films are shoddy works of opinion without substance. Even if the teacher wanted to present the film as a collection of literary "what not to do's", I would still object because educational resources are limited and face time with the students are limited. Why waste it on what not to do rather than focus on items of real educational value which will enhance the lives of the students?
This instructor was very self serving in a occupation where the focus should be placed in the seats in front of her rather than the one she sits in.
Now enter the teachers union…….5,4,3,2,1. Let the hysteria begin.
ha ha.
This is why so many parents home school there kids, or send them to private schools, public schools have so many of these kinds of teachers, Union thugs are teaching our kids.
How much are you getting paid to look like a fool here ?
Also, and I've said this in replies before, the use of this word shows how the left is obsessed with sex. Just look at how Bill Clinton desecrated the highest Office in the land.
Now that's the way it should be done.
FIRE THE TEACHER…….OH wait its a teacher union, oh wait the parents are the ignorant ones, oh wait the government is coming to help. This stuff happens everyday in the GOVERNMENT school system! It isn't a public school system it is the government schools just like the re-education centers for the COMMIES. IF you have a kid going to GOVERNMENT school you should be asshamed of yourself for allowing your kids to be brain washed! Pull your kids out of Government schools, don't support them, don't send the kids there(they lose money when your child leaves a school). Put in extra hours at work, cut your food budget, but PLEASE PLEASE don't send your kids to GOVERNMENT schools, they are enslaving you!
Oh man, you really got him there. I had no idea you were so quick on your feet. You should have held back though, "ha ha" is way too scathing a comment for a public blog. Children may be reading.
Not banned…. but it does have to come with a warning label for all of it's dishonesty.
I'd go with effectively banned since it cannot be shown without first telling the students that the film is a pile of crap.
You are an idiot VOR
Amen. I've very proud of us. We have to remember to stay on the issues with these folks–that's where they're the weakest. They WANT us to be confrontational because they have the media itching for a soundbite and all those protesting organizations that can come make scarey sounds. We've been very restrained and, uh, conservative that way.
It really is a lot of fun to make them explain themselves. It's like a movie robot not computing and having smoke come out of his ears.
the scariest part of this story is that she was evidently THE ONLY STUDENT to
a) object
b) do something about it.
we are lost as a nation. the cancer of public education has metastasized.
Scrotum breath.
This goes hand in hand with the liberal view of the world. Liberals always expect the government to take care of all their responsibilities, including raising their children and teaching them values. Whereas, conservative feel that this is their own responsibility as parents. The continued liberal influence in the already dramtically left-leaning educational institutions will result in more frequent and more brazen incidents of this type. I, like any other conservative, am perfectly content to take on the responsibility of raising my children myself.
Puh-lease….
The teacher's goals were hardly to help the students "contradict their preconceived notions." It is to get them to agree with the teacher's political perspective via the brain-dead medium of propaganda films.
Most of these students' "preconceived notions" these days come from the Leftists brainwashing that permeates television, news, movies, and academia. If the teacher REALLY wanted to get them to "contradict their preconceived notions," she would have them reading Friedman, Hayek, de Tocqueville, the Bible, the US Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and dozens of other works of Western thinking that have uplifted the world.
The fact that the student was willing to challenge the teacher's indoctrination demonstrates that she was ALREADY challenging preconceived notions.
That teacher knows NOTHING. Teaching a MOVIE???? She could be easily exposed for the parrot she is.
Right! Thanks for the clarification (I was going by memory, and too steamed to look it up again first lol)
Yes.
The last, best hope of saving the Republic from the Left disease.
You are one Great teacher, this is what this film should be used for in our schools
)
But 'teaching' the fairy tale of creationism is A-OK, right?
I just had to do a Power point presentation for my histoery class….The 1980's and the the decade of corporate greed.
and we did 2 weeks on how nixn was the devil, and hwe "learned" how reagan's economic policies favorded some over others…
don't let them get you down
Celeste, you are a brave kid. America needs many more like you. It's not easy to confront a teacher. Debra Blessman should be fired and I called the school (636 851-4700) to express this to superintendent Renee Shuster. This is outragious.
Great job, Bob McCarty, shedding light on the very real problem of liberal intimidation and indoctrination at our schools. Please follow-up to let us know the outcome.
One more compelling reason not to vote for Prop 100 in Arizona. You don't reward that sort of stuff.
Excellent! Thank you for the ammo.
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