Print This Post Print This Post

Nov

29

British teacher & teddy bear: sentenced to 15 days in jail, deportation


Read all about it.

I’m speechless, but here are some reactions.

What about you?

Bookmark and Share

By Jill Miller Zimon at 5:21 pm November 29th, 2007 in Courts, Crime, Foreign Affairs, Politics, Religion 

Comments

8 Responses to “British teacher & teddy bear: sentenced to 15 days in jail, deportation”

  1. 1 Keith on November 29th, 2007 6:08 pm

    Why any Westerner would want to work in the Sudan after this is an open question. The problem with this story is it will give the Central Ohioans Against Terrorism crowd more ammunition to paint all of Islam like this. And the more stories like this that reach the public, the more the public will be willing to believe them.

    I fear for the future.

  2. 2 Joe Amschlinger on November 29th, 2007 7:18 pm

    Coming soon to a Public School District near you…

  3. 3 Jill Miller Zimon on November 29th, 2007 11:29 pm

    Well – you know, this topic needs a lot of discussion and deserves a lot of debate. Moving to, living in and working with a culture or religion completely distinct from what you know requires training and oversight – as a general proposition. It’s very easy to make a mistake.

    The problem here is the response by those who worked at the school where Gibbons worked. I want to know more about why they didn’t just approach her and try and make a change as soon as there was a problem. Why didn’t the students parents say something?

    I don’t know – I wish we knew more.

  4. 4 Carole Cohen on November 30th, 2007 12:18 am

    It made me sad to read the article; I agree that it seems as if information is missing. The quickness to react, especially after the school admn said she was ‘such a good teacher’ and yet…. I look forward to more debate on this. I would not do well teaching there.

  5. 5 Craig on November 30th, 2007 9:03 am

    She’s lucky to get out of there unharmed. It’s a shame that this one small incident has been so tragically mishandled. This will only hurt the Sudanese people even more in the long run.

  6. 6 Joe Amschlinger on November 30th, 2007 10:52 am

    Shows how lucky we are to have the freedom and liberty that we do, and that it should not be taken for granted.

  7. 7 Jill Miller Zimon on November 30th, 2007 11:21 pm

    Carole – Seeking out and accepting a position to work with members of another culture sounds adventurous and often is. But to know that it could be difficult, that you wouldn’t do well there – that’s something, unfortunately, a lot of folks who do that don’t realize. During my year in Israel, we met regularly with social workers, as a group, to talk about what we would encounter in the towns we’d live in and the places we’d work. We faced a lot of adversity – I’ve written before about how I had rocks thrown at me in my own town and was shouted down as “Americayim.” That’s the more extreme.

    I don’t know how she was prepared for her stint, but some investigation into that is probably necessary.

    The other piece that’s been missing from these stories is the parents – what about the parents of the kids who attend the school? Who exactly is upset, and who isn’t?

  8. 8 Jill Miller Zimon on November 30th, 2007 11:29 pm

    Joe – I’m going to disagree with you a little bit there. I do think we are lucky – but not because of whether we take things for granted or not.

    As a society, we maintain a very, very delicate balance so that such disproportionate reactions don’t occur. But we are not always successful and there are many people in this country who would say that they sure don’t feel so lucky.

    That’s not to say that they still, even so, aren’t lucky.

    But Joe – I wrote about the violent radicalization bill on this blog. I now have documentation that the US State Department visited that post twice and one time, clicked on the link to print out the post and then moved on to the Wide Open category of posts on this blog.

    Now – does anyone who has ever read this blog, spoken to me, seen or heard me honestly believe that I am someone who needs to be targeted by the homegrown terrorism and violent radicalization folks?

    Yeah – I don’t think so either.

    But there you are.

    So – while I’m being lucky, I’m also aware that I’m not quite as free as I believe I should be able to be – I should be able to write about a piece of legislation I don’t like and not have to think, hmm – if I say I don’t like a piece of legislation, that’s going to subject me to surveillance. That expressing the fact that I might not like a piece of legislation subjects me to a US State Dept. surveillance is very much not what I believe in in this country, my innocence not withstanding.

  • Writes Like She Tumbls

  • Voted into Top 25 Political Mom Blogs

  • Now on sale-WLST essay included!

  • Find Me On

  • RSS Posts About Pepper Pike City Council

  • 2010 WE Magazine 101 Women Bloggers to Watch

    Jill Miller Zimon,Blogging,WE Magazine

  • Category Specific RSS

    Pepper Pike
    Cleveland+
    Politics
    Women
    Ohio
    Elections
    Law
    Jewish
    by Tips and Tricks

  • BlogHer Guide to Political Blogging

  • Calendar

    November 2007
    S M T W T F S
    « Oct   Dec »
     123
    45678910
    11121314151617
    18192021222324
    252627282930  

  • Archives

  • Categories

  • Meta

  • Search Ohio Blogs

    BlogNetNews.com

    media_bloggers.bmp

    BlogBurst.com


    Visit The White House Project

  • Notorious Women through History


  • Our Bodies, Our Blog


  • Spam Blocked

"));