Wednesday, June 13, 2007
The Eagle-Tribune has a few more details on the resignation of Andover's Ron Francis: Controversial teacher quits Andover High School
Ron Francis said he is leaving his job for personal reasons, but also said he is unsure whether he will continue his teaching career.
"I want to be closer to my family on the other side of the country," he said yesterday. "It's a personal situation."
Francis has defended the militant Islamic resistance group Hamas and was instrumental in getting Wheels of Justice, a Palestinian human rights organization [Ha! -S], to come to high-school social studies classes. The move angered the local Jewish community, who called the group "viciously anti-Israel." [And anti-American, and it wasn't just the Jewish community, but the press always leaves that part out.]
Francis would not say how much the backlash from the Wheels of Justice visit had to do with his leaving.
"I've looked over a variety of features," Francis said. "It was a totality of different things. I wanted to move on to a different situation."
Pam Lebowitz, a local lawyer who led the opposition to the group, said she was happy to see Francis leave.
"He clearly had an agenda that he was trying to push on the students," she said. "Teachers are there to teach, not to pursue their own agenda in the classroom."...
..."I applaud teachers who get students to think, and I respect that everyone has their own political beliefs," Lebowitz said. "But I don't like when teachers try to recruit kids to a cause. He was very manipulative."
That's putting it mildly.
I was a student of Dr. Francis' for two years at Andover High School and still regard him as the single most important teacher and advisor of my entire academic career to date. He is the reason that I stayed in engineering and was a contributing factor in my pursuit of a PhD in the same area.
I spoke with him many times in and outside of class (as many students did) and heard some of his political beliefs, but never once felt he was pressuring those beliefs on me. In fact, I would argue that many other teachers did promote their political beliefs, but were never shunned or chastised as their principles fell in line with those of many Andover citizens. If I was ever meant to believe that Andover as a town values freedom of speech and thought, this has surely changed my mind.
Andover High School as a community has undoubtedly suffered a great loss as a result of his (what appears to be forced) resignation and the students will suffer directly as a result. I wish Dr. Francis luck in whatever he chooses to pursue next. However, I do hope that he does not give up teaching physics as it would be a great waste of talent.