Naked City
Don't Ask, Don't Know at Fulmore
By Michael King, Fri., Sept. 21, 2001
How Forgione's statement was interpreted at various AISD schools varied widely. Most administrators took it at face value -- that reporters refrain from disrupting classes -- while others decided to turn off the TVs but allow discussion of the attacks, at least among middle and high school students. AISD spokesman Andy Welch said, "I'm not aware of any secondary school principals who tried to curtail television. To the contrary, television sets abound in secondary schools, not to mention access to the Internet in school libraries and classrooms."
Indeed, the faculty and students of the Westside's O. Henry Middle School were applauded in the Statesman for coming together to discuss the possible meanings of the attacks. Not so at Fulmore Middle School on South Congress, at least within the new Government/Law Magnet program. Fulmore students said that not only were the televisions turned off (unlike, for example, at Kealing), but teachers told them that AISD had directed that the attacks not be discussed in the schools -- even in government classrooms. A few days after Sept. 11, administrators differed on whether that had been the case throughout the school, or only at the discretion of individual teachers.
By the Tuesday following, Magnet Program Director Juanita Simmons told the Chronicle, "Some parents had called early on, worried about the television coverage, and we monitored classrooms to make certain the discussion was handled with sensitivity. In the program, we're now trying to help the students imagine an 'ideal community,' and how that might actually work in the world."
For the record, we believe Plato put it something like this: "The unexamined life is not worth living."
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