Readers may recall this item from four months ago:

I was of course referring to Ms Shellyne Rodriguez, an art teacher at Hunter College, New York, and whose activities include menacing students whose views diverge from her own, shouting profanities at said students, vandalising their property, and chasing people down the street armed with a machete.

A liveliness subsequently blamed on “racists, white nationalists, and misogynists.”

In a turn of events unlikely to surprise regulars of this parish, it seems that Ms Rodriguez, our self-styled “black Marxist” and “public intellectual,” has a new position, this time at the Cooper Union School of Art in Manhattan. Where students will apparently be treated to our gentle maiden’s insights on,

Oh, and,

A coexistence achieved, one assumes, via screamed profanities, fits of physical intimidation, and holding machetes to people’s necks.

Readers are invited to speculate as to what it might take for a progressive educator to become unemployable.

Update, via the comments:

Our art instructor’s list of professed woes – supposedly mitigating circumstances – is of course extensive, and the relevance of many items escapes me, even allowing for the usual contrivance. Apparently, if you think a professional educator should behave like an adult, and not, say, threaten to decapitate people who ask questions about her childish and aggressive behaviour, then this is part of an “attack” on “women, trans people, black people, Latinx people, migrants, and beyond.”

A boldness that suggests Ms Rodriguez is very much accustomed to indulgence and being exempt from normal academic proprieties, and indeed civilisational basics. Rather than, as she pretends, being downtrodden at every turn.

Rafi adds, drily,

Indeed. What catches the eye isn’t Ms Rodriguez’s meagre scholarship – in which “critical studies,” i.e., Marxoid question-begging, seems more prominent than any aesthetic discernment – or even her equally meagre artistic abilities, which call to mind the daubing of a B-minus student, aged maybe 15:

Given the progressive chokehold on academia, and the neurotic racial imperatives consequently in play, corruption and rotting standards are to be expected. It’s the standard trajectory of ideological capture. This is the utopian path chosen by our self-imagined betters.

But it is, I think, interesting just how unhinged – and threatening – a progressive educator can be without having to consider an entirely different line of work.

Update 2:

Being a supposedly “marginalised” individual, maybe Ms Rodriguez was merely heeding the deep, deep wisdom of fellow “educator” Ms Shellene Drakes-Tull, mentioned here previously, and who informs us that expectations of workplace professionalism are scandalously racist, and that brown-skinned employees must be allowed to “bring their whole selves to work.” A wholeness of self that includes behaving in ways likely to be “interpreted as violent or aggressive.”

It turns out that a dislike of being bullied by the childish and emotionally incontinent is merely evidence of “deep, inherent bias and deeply inherent systemic racism.”

How terribly convenient.

Should further examples of suboptimal educators be required, see also this and this, and, well, any number of posts here tagged academia. The political leanings of the individuals in question will not be entirely surprising.

Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

One for the totally-balanced-educator files:

Meet DeDe Duffy. A preschool teacher in Cape Coral, FL. She says she teaches her students that if they don’t like their parents, they can find another family.

She also says she teaches them to be gay.

These are the people teaching your kids. pic.twitter.com/e5HJFzMOvD

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) September 11, 2023

Those pre-school children are in good hands, clearly. Ms Duffy’s pronouns, since you ask, are they and them.

Update, via the comments:

Rafi adds,

Well, it would be nice – refreshing, even – if these people worked out their serious mental health issues on their own time. Rather than, as seems to be the fashion, inflicting them on other people’s children.

Chris G offers the following,

Indeed. Ditto TikTok likes. And yet, as we’ve seen many times, the more scrupulously woke a teacher is, the more likely he is to issue the class instructions to remember his birthday, to use his made-up pronouns, to browse his social media accounts, and to tell him, seemingly daily, just how pretty he is.

Ms Duffy has now locked her social media accounts, so further illumination is, sadly, denied us. But it occurs to me that if I were employed to work with small children, I don’t think I would choose to film myself having eye-widening meltdowns – or to then share the recordings with lots of random strangers on TikTok and Instagram.

But maybe that’s just me. Shy soul that I am.

Azi asks,

The supply of bedlamite educators does seem all but inexhaustible. Such that one might wonder whether schools and universities, those fiefdoms of the progressive, are actively favouring the psychologically marginal. Presumably, there are people doing the hiring who think that emotional instability and pretentious “non-binary” pronouns denote an ideal candidate, an exemplar for impressionable children.

Rather than… well, you know.

Variations in human ability continue to frustrate those who would perfect us:

You see, if a problem can’t be solved, the next-best thing is to hide it:

The genius of the “equity-focussed” policies, also being advanced in California and elsewhere, is that they are likely to have negative consequences for both ends of the ability spectrum. The cognitively untalented will be spared the normal incentives to master at least the basics, even the basics of behaviour, while the gifted will be denied access to advanced material more suited to their abilities, resulting in boredom and demoralisation.

Again, hiding that bothersome unevenness in effort and ability.

Readers will note that the retreat from clear metrics into euphemism and pernicious fuzzwords – chief among which, “equity” – not only makes it difficult to determine pupils’ academic progress and actual competence, but also has a secondary effect of making it more difficult to identify the shortcomings of progressive educators and administrators. A coincidence, I’m sure.

The pernicious woo named “equity” – which roughly translates as equality of outcome regardless of inputs – has of course been mentioned here before.

If the examples linked above aren’t sufficiently striking, I do have more.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

A tale of a girls’ tennis team, a locker room, and a high-school hiring dispute.

First, the view from afar, all rather fragrant and elevated:

And,

The words “transphobia” and “hate” were of course deployed.

And now the view from close quarters:

See? All totally innocent and above-board. Not weird or creepy at all. Oh, and then there was the time Mr Yates followed a sixteen-year-old girl – a girl he wasn’t coaching – into the girls’ bathroom, otherwise unoccupied, and attempted to strike up a random conversation, resulting in the girl’s alarm and some hurried texting.

The reprimand mentioned above – or rather, reprimands, because, well, what’s behaviour without a pattern? – did not seem to deter Mr Yates. Nor did the provision of private bathroom and changing facilities, typically used by sports officials, including coaches. Direct appeals from the girls also failed to discourage him from parading around their locker room in a bra-and-panties ensemble and various states of undress. Such that the girls were left in little doubt that their cross-dressing coach was, as one board member put it, “still fully a man.” And all while seeking out details of the girls’ menstruation cycles and their preferences in underwear.

Indeed, when subsequently challenged, Mr Yates, seen here, invoked “discrimination” and insisted that he is entitled to use “any bathroom.” The school is currently weighing the views of parents against the prospect of legal action and accusations of “transphobia,” with another meeting on the matter scheduled for September. Mr Yates is, he says, “completely overwhelmed with how the community is coming out and supporting me.”

At which point, readers may wonder whether such overwhelming support, largely from progressive women, is actually part of the problem.

Above, Mr Yates, being supported.

Update, via the comments, where Nikw211 adds,

Well, one might think so. And yet here we are.

Still, it’s interesting to see how Mr Yates’ supporters – again, largely progressive women – will merrily elevate themselves with the airing of modish views, their displays of compassion and inclusivity, while in effect screwing over the girls. Girls, who, by disapproving, even politely, become low-status.

Update 2:

A decision has been reached regarding the future of Mr Yates’ teaching career. And by extension, his workplace interest in the panties of young girls. See if you can guess which way it went.

Update 3:

The further adventures of our strapping madam.

Update 4:

Our strapping madam invokes victimhood.

I’d suggest that this is precisely what raises doubts as to Ms Ashley Markham’s fitness to be a school principal in charge of 12-year-olds.

This is a school principal. These are the people in charge of your children’s education. pic.twitter.com/kJOZtPhmal

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 21, 2023

To boast of abandoning reality at the drop of a hat – and by extension, coercing others to be unrealistic too – and to boast of creating an environment in which manipulative pretension and mental illness thrive – is an odd moral flex.

Readers are welcome to ponder exactly how “safe” an environment is in which such practised affectations are dominant or mandatory, and in which one can expect to be scolded and punished for not wishing to pretend, for not wishing to become dishonest and absurd.

Oh, and by the way, should you ask Ms Markham about the implications of her position – say, as touched on above – she may make a smug and dismissive TikTok video in which she expects you to pay her $100 an hour, plus an extra $250, for an expert “consultation” on why she is right.

Lifted from the comments, which you’re reading of course.