At a Sacramento high school, some ugly racism comes from a teacher and his test | Opinion
America’s lingering racism can raise its ugly head at any time, even in the California high school classroom. But it’s really a problem when the promoter of demeaning stereotypes is the one who should be dispelling them, the teacher.
For a final exam, Sacramento’s Luther Burbank High School teacher Alex Nguyen wanted to include his students’ names in some questions on the test.
But instead of just making a regular test, Nguyen wanted to go all Regina George (a character from the movie Mean Girls) on his students and make a test that looked like a “burn book.”
Just take a look at this question.
“Here at the wonderful school of LBHS, we have certain students who love to sleep in class. I even see students fall asleep during exams! Can you believe that?! I don’t like it when students sleep in class… it’s rude! So, WAKE THE #$%K UP! Well, through much study, I have concluded that the gene for falling asleep is dominant. Not only that some students sleep, they snore in class. This too is a dominant trait. What are the possible offspring if you cross a homozygous sleeping, heterozygous snoring student (student name) with a homozygous attentive, non-snoring (student name) student?”
Really? The teacher goes so far as insinuating curse words on an final exam and uses the names of students without their permission.
But then, apparently Nguyen wanted to sprinkle a little bit of racism into this very odd test.
“For some reason, the African American culture has influenced most of the student body. How? In African Americans, they have a gene for the pimp walk, which is dominant. What is the result if you cross (student name) homozygous dominant Latina with a homozygous recessive Hmong like (student name)?”
Nguyen calls this a test but clearly he doesn’t know a thing about genes. For one, and I can’t believe that I have to say this, but Black people don’t have a gene for a pimp walk. And second, genes are not passed down by race. There is no genetic basis for race. If anything, there’s actually more gene diversity within races than between them.
Hasn’t this so-called “teacher” taken an anthropology class?
Test displayed blatant racism
Just a friendly reminder, spreading foolish stereotypes is something that an ill-informed and ignorant person does, not a molder of young minds.
Using a kid’s full name in a test and then making fun of them is cruel punishment that is the equivalent of bullying.
Teachers are the moral compass for a classroom. They set the standard how an adult should act for these young impressionable students.
How does a teacher with years of experience with kids ignore the impact of hurtful words?
Not only are Nguyen’s words hurtful, they’re just plain ugly. These questions seem to be coming from someone who is done with teaching. Why else would a teacher use such disgusting and inappropriate language for a final exam?
In a story on the incident by the Bee’s Jennah Pendleton, some of Nguyen’s students said they did not want him fired. But this is certainly a serious enough offense to merit the most serious of consequences. No such blatantly disrespectful language should be used by someone who holds such a coveted position as teaching.
This is yet another litmus test of the leadership of the Sacramento City Unified School District. How could a the district place on leave a journalism professor at C.K. McClatchy High School for printing accurate things a student said, even if the words are uncomfortable, and go easy on a teacher making deliberate verbal attacks on students?
A school spokesman told Pendleton that Nguyen was placed on leave as of the last day of the school year. Perhaps that is a start. Some broader district guidelines on teacher conduct and testing protocol seems to be in order.
Whatever made Nguyen come up with this racist exam, he flunked a fundamental test of what an educator is supposed to do.
Teachers are to lift their students up, not break them down.
This story was originally published July 14, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
