Goooood Morning, Mr. Nam! Portland Occupier and Teacher Calls for Freedom to Invite Occupiers to Classrooms

December 29, 2011

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An Occupy Portland member and high school social studies teacher is leading the charge for more classroom  freedom after fellow Occupiers were booted recently from a Portland elementary school* “Teach In.” [Eds note: I previously identified the school as a middle school. The presentation was before middle school aged children at an elementary school. Sorry for the mistake.]

We learn from a socialist website that a band of Portland teachers is fighting for carte blanche after Occupy Portland was given an early boot at a middle school “teach in” earlier this month. Occupiers inveighed against “the man” and “brainstormed” on issues ranging from social justice, foreclosures, women’s rights, war to poverty for 20 minutes before the Principal showed up and shooed them away. See my post about it here.

Mr. Nam’s Facebook picture

The “World Socialist Web Site” operated by a group called the “International Committee of the Fourth International,” a Trotskyite organization, apparently keeps tabs on the dealings of the Occupy campaign and teachers union members… but then I repeat myself.

Leading the charge to give freedom to have anyone they want in their classrooms is Wilson High Social Studies teacher Hyung Nam who gave an exclusive to the socialist website:

Speaking to the World Socialist Web Site, Nam said that the petition is bound up with efforts to impose a single curriculum that prevents teachers from raising broader issues. “They have us just deliver the standardized material rather than teach. Teachers are no longer allowed to create our own syllabi; we are provided a template. It is not just about the Occupy thing, but all these developments facing teachers,” he said.

 In fact Mr. Nam wishes for more than that. Here’s part of his online petition:

We reject the idea that teachers would need to notify parents or obtain principal approval before bringing Occupy speakers to their classrooms. This is a violation of the professional discretion and academic freedom of teachers. …Can the school district cite any occasion when a principal required a teacher to notify parents prior to a presentation from a representative of a Portland area business, a government agency, or the U.S. military? Are parents notified when teachers use Junior Achievement curriculum materials, funded by large corporations like UPS, ExxonMobil, and Goldman Sachs? …As educators, we object to this attack on academic freedom and the discriminatory enforcement of school district policies.

He ends with:

…[W]e should be encouraging all teachers to invite Occupy activists into their classroom to discuss issues of inequality and social justice.

Several commenters have given Mr. Nam an atta boy including:

12 days ago
1 person likes this reason

As a Jefferson High School social studies teacher, I find the selective enforcement of this policy outrageous. Furthermore, Occupy is the social movement of our time—it should be discussed in classrooms across the United States. We are the 99%.

Mr. Nam is an interesting fellow. He attended Portland’s Reed College where the unofficial motto is: Communism, Atheism, Free Love. He plays guitar in a band and, of course, is a big fan of Occupy Portland. He lists his job on Linked In as “education managment.” I have no doubt that’s true.

Mr. Nam seems to be fairly consistent in his teaching according to Rate My Teacher, an anonymous online rating website. Consistently middling, that is. He appears to “hate America”, doesn’t tolerate disagreement and, well you read these comments ranging from 2003 to as late as last August:

2003: After he started out the year proclaiming that he was going to omit the Civil War from our sophomore curriculum, class just went downhill.
2004:  when you teach us history A at wilson you need to teach to ap standerds, or at least try to. bottom line.
2006: Mr. Nam is one of the coolest teachers i have ever had. I recommend him 100% percent to the people that actualy want to learn something.
2008: He is very biased with everything he teaches, don’t expect to get the whole story on world issues. Switch out!
2009: He is good at being a teacher but grades based on opinion, so just agree with him on everything and you will pass his class.
2010: Only teaches the class about the bad things that happened. Didn’t go over the civil war because there was nothing controversal about it. Switch out NOW.
2010: I dont understand why he hates america
2011: Too biased, didn’t actually teach the material meant for the class. Disagrees with students with different opinions. Unclear in assignments

The Civil War wasn’t controversial? This is a history teacher?! He sounds like a polemicist, not a teacher.

Nam is an activist who’s made the news before while fighting for the right to create his own curricula instead of the one the district uses. 

Hyung Nam has used his Portland Public Schools-issued textbook only once this year, and that was to critique it. 

Nam is one of the growing force of Portland teachers and parents who oppose Superintendent Vicki Phillips’ proposal to standardize much of the high school and other grade-level curriculum and materials, a process that will be drawing to a fever pitch in the next month or so.

He’s been called out recently by an anonymous blogger who proclaimed him, “Occupy Portland’s Useful Idiot of Today!” 

HYUNG NAM WE SALUTE YOU! Professionals like you are just what Occupy Portland needs! You clearly aren’t a very good teacher, and it is also very clear that you aren’t very well liked! In other words, you are just what we need to sustain Occupy Portland, and right now YOU ARE OUR USEFUL IDIOT!

Mr. Nam is, in short, an activist who brings his activism into the classroom and calls it education.

I yanked my kid out of public school and put her into a private school in 7th grade. I loved her teachers but didn’t like the environment for my child. It was the best move I ever made. Her new social studies teacher was a Reedie and wrote his own curricula. He liked to preach but not too much. When he had guests he made sure there was a counterpart to balance them. He asked permission and informed parents. Opting out was an option. I never did.

Academic freedom isn’t the issue here. Using an obviously one sided, union based, political movement to advance your agenda in the classroom is. And it’s wrong. Teachers take far too much advantage of that in the classroom already. Was there someone counter balancing the socialists in that middle school classroom that day? No. Why did the teacher believe it was appropriate to have four union activists doing a “teach in” for a third of their class day? Isn’t that what the teacher’s for? Maybe he just didn’t feel like prepping his classroom material that day and thought turning over his classroom to uneducated hotheads was an easy way out.

Last year when a Tea Party dad wanted to present to his daughter’s senior level social studies class he had to declare what he was going to say, show his materials (which included the Constitution) and receive permission from the school’s brass.

They also needed to see his ID because they wanted to know who was in their school with other people’s children.

When it came to that middle school earlier this month, the Principal didn’t know who those Occupy Portland people were.

Occupy Portland was responsible for more law breaking, vandalism, civil disobedience, stealing, defrauding, and arrests than any other protest in the city’s–and state’s–history. More bad actors (rapists who push cops into buses for instance, registered sex offenders, drug dealers) embedded themselves along with the usual It’s-Friday-at-4-Time-for-a-Protest crowd. This is the same bunch who at one of their meetings (on tape) urged Occupiers not to tell cops if someone was sexually attacked so as not to besmirch the movement.

Inviting Occupiers into the classroom is tantamount to going to the street corner and inviting local gang members inside for a talk on marketing crack–except that would be too pro capitalist for them.

When it comes to the Occupy political campaign, Mr. Nam wants you to trust him and let him do what he wants.

The district should just say no.

Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com