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Last summer we told you about a Pleasant Valley High School teacher called Ann Berger. Berger, who is a social studies teacher, used a number of expletives to share her frustrations with Gov. Kim Reynolds, Republicans and others.

There was also this video of Berger speaking out about gun violence in which she blames Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst for shootings.

“To Senators (Chuck) Grassley and (Joni) Ernst, I say to you, while not in nice but precise language, look at the carnage you have caused through the repeal of restrictions on gun ownership. You and your murderous colleagues should be forced to take a field trip to the war-torn hallways and sidewalks of every mass shooting in the United States.

“You have blood on your hands shed from the children and teachers that you have murdered. And you cannot hide them by putting them in your pockets, pockets lined with money from the NRA, money you used to abort the lives of our children and teenagers and the adults in our public schools across this country.”

Berger is the subject of yet another controversy, this time for a discussion she held in her American Lit class about the American Dream.

Berger shared these six pictures for the students to see, digest and discuss.

A Pleasant Valley parent took immediate exception to “station five.” That image depicts a white person and a black person. The white person’s path to the American Dream is a short straight line with just two stops:

Free land from Indians. Free labor from slaves.

Meanwhile, the black person has a number of twists and turns that include slavery, Jim Crow laws, denial of voting rights, the KKK, the gang culture and other issues.

The white person is asking if the black person is just slow or what.

Here is that image again:

Darren Erickson, principal of Pleasant Valley High School, told a concerned parent that the editorial cartoons lead students to reflect on what the American Dream means to them and what obstacles or barriers they may have to overcome in their lives to achieve it.

“It also stokes great conversation to see the range of answers to what the ‘American Dream’ is to each person,” he said in defense of the assignment.

Author: Jacob Hall

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