Patrick Basset is the president of the National Association of Independent Schools. He kicked off his talk by playing this Youtube clip. Awesome Answer Machine Message From Maroochydore High School In Queensland, Australia. (Wikipedia entry) I thought it sounded familiar, and indeed an earlier version circulated as an email, according to Snopes.
Even though it's a hoax, it's so popular because it captures the frustrations many teachers and school officials feel from "my child is a special snowflake" parents -- you know, the turbo-jet attack helicopter kind.
Liz,
Very nice blog. I must might need to subscribe! As I'm sure you can read from my second post on J.J.'S blog, I am not thrilled about this youtube piece.
It may speak to the frustrations, but it has a net corrosive effect on a teaching staff.
I see you are from Southern California, so my guess is that you can imagine the possibility for our US-native teachers to struggle with immigrants. I bet you can also imagine people finding videos like this as a means to justify their position, rather then looking to become more empathetic. You seem to have buckets full of thoughtful, empathetic, insightful work about learning disabilities. In the same vain, those from other places want to be understood too.
Posted by: Jim Ellis | Wednesday, December 22, 2010 at 11:55 PM