Oakland teacher points finger at rich white parents in reopening debate
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Oakland teacher and Secretary of the Oakland Education Association Bethany Meyer tweeted the above message on Feb. 17, 2021. It was later deleted.Twitter screen capture
An Oakland special education teacher who also serves as the secretary of the Oakland Education Association added fire to the growing school reopening debate with a pointed Tweet criticizing parent concern that distance learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted their children s mental health.
Bethany Meyer tweeted on Feb. 17, All the rich white parents suddenly concerned about mental health can take a seat. Most of them are causing their kids anxiety by pressuring them to complete asynchronous work and feeding into their sense of entitlement. Sorry/not sorry.
Oakland teacher says rich white parents complaining about their children s mental health while schools are closed have made their kids MORE entitled and blames them for the increase in anxiety
Bethany Meyer is a special education teacher at Oakland Unified School District and secretary of the local teachers union All the rich white parents suddenly concerned about mental health can take a seat, she wrote on Twitter on February 17 about parents who were worried about how distance learning was affecting their kids
She said such worries were causing children anxiety and feeding into their sense of entitlement
Some parents accused the teacher, who is white, of speaking for black parents and assuming it is only white parents concerned about schools reopening
Confusion, unrest, fear, uncertainty create your own word cloud of uncomfortable feelings generated by the insurrectionist siege on our nation s Capitol and then try and process them with your family.
It s a lot, so we reached out to L.A.-based therapist, artist and healer Thea Monyeé, and Westside Infant-Family Network clinical psychologist Wendy Sun, for some guidance.
And we re listening. Tell us how you re processing your feelings by emailing the reporter at mdale@scpr.org and we ll update this post with what you share.
IF YOU HAVE YOUNG CHILDREN TURN OFF THE NEWS I can t think of an energetic, or spiritual or emotional plus to [watching the news] because we don t have a plan to give them after that, Monyeé says. If you get more stressed out with every tweet, your kids are going to notice.