Teacher Suspended Over Jibe
The Age
Wednesday September 5, 2007
WHO leads this country? Any John, Dick or Kevin could answer, but one citizenship teacher may be wishing she had refrained.
One eager student, Erez Sharabani, shot up his hand to answer "Mr John Howard", but before he could get the words out, he says, the teacher wrote "dick" on the board. The 12 students in her citizenship class at Sydney's Surry Hills Australian Multicultural English Studies school saw it before she rubbed it out.Calling the Prime Minister a four-letter word has sparked a complaint from Mr Sharabani and an investigation by the NSW Department of Education.The teacher, who has not been named, has been suspended on pay pending an investigation."I understood what (the teacher) meant," said Mr Sharabani, 40, of Bondi Beach, who emigrated from Israel in 2000.Education Department spokesman Mark Davis said policy was to keep partisan politics out of the classroom.
© 2007 The Age