With a month of school left to go, a longtime and sometimes controversial East High School social studies teacher is retiring.
MARGARET REIST / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Monday, May 7, 2007 7:00 pm
With a month of school left to go, a longtime and sometimes controversial East High School social studies teacher is retiring.
Michael Baker, who made news last year when district officials told him he couldn’t teach history from the present backwards, has not been in classrooms since April 18.
His abrupt departure apparently came on the heels of a video he showed to a geography class called “Baghdad ER.”
The documentary film chronicles life in the emergency room of a combat support hospital in Baghdad and includes graphic footage.
Nancy Biggs, Lincoln Public Schools assistant superintendent for human resources, said Baker had decided to retire but said she couldn’t comment on why he hadn’t been in class for two weeks because it is a personnel matter.
Baker declined comment.
But a Facebook page on the Internet started by an East student and titled “Bring Michael Baker Back” says Baker was suspended and students want him back.
The Facebook page had 122 members Monday. Many were East or former East students.
Jacques Tallichet, a junior at East who is taking Baker’s peace studies class, said he e-mailed Baker after he went missing and Baker responded that he’d been suspended on the day of the documentary.
“I started one of those (Facebook pages) just to let kids know what was happening,” Tallichet said.
Students in Baker’s fifth-period peace studies class were concerned enough that they staged a “sit-in” after the class until school administrators came to talk to them.
Molly Pope, a senior in the class, said even then, administrators didn’t offer many answers.
“We tried to talk to the administration about it,” she said. “They weren’t confronting the issue directly.”
Baker, a 27-year veteran of Lincoln Public Schools, was recently honored by district officials for achieving National Board Certification in 2006, becoming among just 47 teachers in the state to earn it.
Michael Anderson, a former LPS teacher who taught with Baker and is now director of the school of education at the University of Wisconsin at Platteville, said he is angered by what’s happened.
“I’m going to do whatever it takes to expose the public schools for the bad judgement in this decision,” he said Monday. “It’s a huge loss to the schools and to the children of Lincoln,” he said.
He described Baker as a “progressive educator” who understands curriculum is important but who works hard to teach children to be critical thinkers.
“He’s an intellectually sound teacher teaching kids to be intellectually sound,” Anderson said.
In 2005, district officials told Baker he couldn’t use his “yo-yo” approach to teaching history, which starts with the present and moves backward in 20- to 30-year chunks.
He’d been teaching history that way since 2001 and agreed to go back to the traditional method for a year, though he hoped to subsequently take a “thematic approach.” And he appeared before the Lincoln Board of Education to offer his views on the subject.
Baker also has his own radio program on KZUM called “Room 101” with guests and discussions on issues from standardized testing to Class I school consolidation.
Tallichet said Baker didn’t tell him much about what’s been happening in the ensuing two weeks.
But on Monday, students said, all his things were cleared out.
Anderson said he thinks whatever happened recently was just an excuse for LPS to get rid of Baker.
“It’s just a matter of getting rid of someone who’s a thorn in your side,” he said. If the issue was the video, the district’s actions smack of censorship, he said. “When you walk someone out the door for showing what the war’s about, it reminds me of Vietnam,” he said.
Sam Scott, a senior who took history from Baker and is in his peace studies class this year, said speculation about the movie aside, it is just wrong to take Baker out of the classroom.
“Honestly, (the movie) was probably the school’s call anyway,” he said. “My concern is that they took our teacher out of the classroom and he’s the most unique teacher ever.”
Tallichet said he liked Baker’s style and the perspective he brings to the history he’s lived through. It’s ridiculous this happened with so little time left in the school year, he said.
“I really liked Mr. Baker as a teacher. He brings more to the table than other teachers do,” he said. “He makes you think. That’s what he wants you to do. . . he allows you to voice your opinion in class, you learn lots of different viewpoints.”
Reach Margaret Reist at 473-7226 or mreist@journalstar.com