Stephen K. Jones, 34, is a graduate student at the University of Maine at Orono, where he's getting his teaching degree. As part of his program, he was required to do a 12-week internship. The administrators placed him at Old Town High School and Middle School, though he never did get to the middle school.
For his tenth-grade high school class on world history, Jones developed a lesson plan on Islam and Islamic civilization. He says that the university approved it ("I got an A on that"), as did the principal and the tenth-grade world history teacher, Marty Clark, whose class he would instruct.
March 1 was Jones's first full class. "The very first thing I did was ask, 'What do you think Islam is?' " he says. And his students responded, he says, with the following words: "crazy, terrorist, uneducated, poor, dirty, oppresses women."
"I wrote all those things on the board, and I said we're going to take a look at these depictions, and we're going to see what are some other ways to look at Islam, Muslims, and Islamic civilizations," he says he told the class, which "seemed to go OK."
But at the second class, "people began to get worked up when I said let's look at the various monotheisms--Judaism, Christianity, Islam." Jones provided excerpts from the Torah, the Gospel of Matthew, and the Koran, and he asked the students, in a handout, to consider the following questions: "Who is God?" "What happens to those who are not faithful to God and who break the rules?" "What is the purpose of life?" "How does God wish to be worshipped?" "How are family and society valued?"
The next day, Clark told Jones he had gotten a call from a parent, who said Jones was trying to convert her kid to Islam, Jones recalls. "A couple days after that, the principal wanted to see me because of a few more calls from parents," Jones says.
At the end of the day on Friday, March 8, Jones met with the principal, Terry Kenniston, and offered to meet with the parents. "Don't worry about it," Kenniston said, according to Jones. "I don't see a problem. A few phone calls does not put this on the top of our agenda here." Jones says Kenniston's "feet were up on the desk, he was leaning back, and he didn't seem all that concerned."
Then on Monday, March 11, after teaching a class and overseeing a study hall, Jones saw his adviser, Ruth Townsend from the University of Maine, approach. "You are in deep do-do," she told him, he recalls. "Well, what does this mean?"
"The problem is, your physical presence in the school," she said.
"I joked and said, 'I showered.' And then I said, 'Can you tell me about the problem?'
"She said, "Basically, they don't want you here." Jones says he was shocked. "I expected something, like, 'You're going to have to meet with the parents, or with the superintendent,' or, 'We're going to have to change your teaching plan,' or, 'Marty is going to have to teach it with you.' Not, 'You're going to have to leave the building.' That's what really blew my mind."
The next morning, "I stopped by my office to collect my stuff, and Marty said the superintendent doesn't want me to teach anywhere in Old Town," Jones says.
Later that morning, Jones had a meeting with the superintendent, the principal, Townsend, and Anne Pooler, associate dean for teacher instruction at the college. "They wanted me out, and that was that," recalls Jones. "But they would put nothing in writing, and they wouldn't spell out the exact reasons why I was not tenable there."
At that point, Jones notified the local newspapers. Once he did that, the dean of the College of Education and Human Development, Robert Cobb, met with him and told him he would not authorize another student-teaching placement for him, and informed Jones he has no legal rights in this matter, according to Jones.
Jones was kicked out of the Master's of Arts in Teaching program and now is in the Master of Education program. "It's going to work out for me," Jones says, adding that he wants to teach in Boston or New York.
As to whether he might pursue legal action, he says, "I'm keeping my options open in that regard, but I don't have the emotional or financial wherewithal, and that's how these folks usually win. It takes so much energy to fight." Marty Clark and the principal at Old Town High School refused to return several phone calls.
The superintendent of the Old Town School District, Owen P. Maurais, told The Progressive, "I'm going to refer you with any question you have to the University of Maine. That's all I'm going to say. He's a student at the University of Maine, and they have jurisdiction to talk about this matter."
Dean Robert Cobb told The Progressive, "I regret to tell you that it's against our policy to comment on individual students and their performances. You can operate on the basis of what he said about the matter, but I can't comment on that."
Dean Cobb later faxed over a March 15 statement. It said, "Issues surrounding a University of Maine student internship are unfortunately causing perception problems for one of the University's most valued educational partners. While confidentiality regulations restrict academic institutions from revealing individual information about students, the UMaine College of Education and Human Development states, without reservation, that the Old Town School Department is an integral link in our shared goal to constantly improve teaching and learning in K-12 classrooms and the field experiences of aspiring teachers."
Jones is concerned about what his students are drawing from his experience. "If you're not popular, or say something that not everyone approves of, you can be out of a job, which is one of the major issues in McCarthyism. So the lesson they learn is obey. It's sick," he says.