A teachable moment is an unplanned opportunity that arises when a teacher has an ideal chance to offer insight to his or her students.
Well, this is a teachable moment for Cathie Black.
There was a bit of a backlash when Mayor Mike Bloomberg announced his appointment of media executive Cathie Black as New York City Schools Chancellor. But she’s a pro and got to work right away visiting pre-selected public schools and learning that the term “lower school” is not used in public schools.
Back in December, Cathie Black said to parents, via her interview with WABC Education Reporter, Art McFarland,:
“I’m a reach out person… It’s like, give me a chance, I want to listen to them. I want to make this, make the experience for their children the best that it can possibly be. So it has to be a dialogue. I mean they shouldn’t shut me out just because they’ve never met me. I mean that’s absurd.”
So when she met with a group of concerned parents in New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s downtown Manhattan office, there was an expectation of dialogue. But, it was Cathie Black herself who shut the others out with her off-color joke.
I watched the video more than once. It’s not just what she said. It’s how she said it.
Not only did she show incredibly poor taste by suggesting that the issue of overcrowded schools would be helped with a little birth control, she interrupted a thoughtful soft-spoken parent speaking from prepared notes in order to do it.
Eric Greenleaf, PS 234 parent and Professor of Marketing at the NYU Stern School of Business was in the middle of saying:
“There is a major overcrowding crisis. There will be shortages, huge shortages of classroom space. In 2013 it’s going to be abut 430 seats. By 2014 it’s going to be abut 700 seats. By 2015 it’s going to be about a thousand seats. These are kids that are already born. This isn’t a projection of what might happen…
At which point Cathie Black jumped in with her comment:
“Could we just have some birth control for a while. It could really help us all out.”
Professor Greenleaf continued:
“This is about an urgent, urgent need for interim space, otherwise hundreds and hundreds of kids who are already born and live downtown won’t be able to go to schools downtown.”
At which point Cathie Black again interrupted him to say:
“Well thank you. What I can just say in conclusion –and I don’t want to start the whole conversation again– is that I could pretty much have this conversation all over the city,” effectively dismissing the concerns of everyone in the room. AND THEN SHE MADE THE SOPHIE’S CHOICE REMARK!
This is not just about her words and her jokes. It’s about the demonstration of her willingness to listen with no intention of hearing what concerned parents have to say. That is the most offensive thing of all.
Cathie Black interrupted him.
Cathie Black cut him off.
How lucky for Cathie Black that she made these offhand remarks about birth control and Sophie’s choices during a meeting with affluent professional parents in the Manhattan office of New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. These are the parents who feel entitled to be heard when they take time out of their own work days, to present the findings of their task force on overcrowding, to the new schools chancellor. They were able to laugh it off. Whoops. She must have been nervous in her new job. These things happen. Ha Ha Ha. Polite society and all that.
Nothing was said about Cathie Black’s blatant display of disrespect.
I can’t imagine what would have happened if she said something that offensive to parents of students at a failing school about to be closed or at a school about to become severely over-crowded due to the closing of a nearby failing school.
When a reporter asked Black about the controversy surrounding her remarks, at a press conference on Tuesday, Mayor Bloomberg leapt to her defense:
“Let me just take that for her.” he said gallantly. The Billionaire mayor then made excuses for her saying it takes time, after a career spent in the private sector to get used to the public sector where; “People tend to take things out of context and maybe, I think, a little bit too seriously.”
Yeah, well…
Let’s keep our eyes and ears open for another teachable moment on disrespecting. Shall we?