February 2017 Behind the Bubble

Parent Outrage Halts “Hundred Years” Battle In Mt. Lebanon School District

By Jason Margolis

After being made aware of a potentially stereotype-promoting elementary school assignment, planned for Friday, February 3rd, the Mt. Lebanon School District has decided to discontinue this type of activity.

Dr. Timothy Steinhauer, Mt. Lebanon Superintendent, said “I have contacted the principals and this type of activity will not be continuing. It is never our intent to facilitate activities that may be considered to promote stereotypes.”

Several parents who had been deeply disturbed by the “100 days / 100 years old” assignment were relieved.

Initially, when Dr. Rachael Woldoff, Professor of Sociology at West Virginia University and MTL parent, was handed an assignment by her son on the walk home from school, she asked with deep concern, “What is this?”

The assignment asked students at Washington Elementary School to “dress up like they are 100 years old” to celebrate the 100th day of school. Additionally, girls were encouraged to encourage to dress in “pearls” and “purses” and boys in “flannel shirts” and “suspenders.”

“There’s a million things they could do with the number 100. This is the dumbest,” Woldoff commented. “This is an opportunity to do something cool with the number 100 – but who thought of this? Is this educational? What does this have to do with what you are teaching the children?”

Dr. Woldoff, who has authored several books about “aging in place” and the plight of older people trying to keep their homes, said “I feel like I have quite a bit of expertise in the stereotyping of old people … and the challenges they face to be seen as whole people, not as people who can’t make decisions for themselves. They have agency – not just caricatures that we mock.”

The Mt. Lebanon parent also said she was concerned about the “gendered” nature of the assignment. “No one I know dresses like that. My grandmother died looking nothing like that – I have no idea what they are talking about.”

Problematizing stereotypes is particularly important to Dr. Woldoff, who is both Jewish and the parent of an African American child. “As a parent of a black child, you [the school] are undermining everything I am trying to do about not stereotyping,” Woldoff added.

But Dr. Woldoff has experienced some resistance in problematizing issues in Mt. Lebanon in the past, and this has continued in the case of the “100 years” assignment. When bringing up her concerns that the assignment is ageist to other Washington Elementary parents, Woldoff said responses ranged from “I have never thought of that” to “It’s just a fun thing” to “Why do you have to be so yucky and say what you don’t like about the school district?”

However, other Washington Elementary parents agree with Woldoff. Dr. Laura Crothers, Professor of School Psychology at Duquesne University and Washington Elementary parent, said she remembered the same assignment from the previous year as being “offensive.” She added that this was a task asking young people to stereotype “when the diversity of those who live to 100 years old is infinite.”

When asked if she would formally speak out against the assignment, Woldoff said she was hesitant. She added, “I am happy it’s a good school, and I have been made some good friends here [in Mt. Lebanon], but there are problems here and I refuse to be quiet about it. The answer isn’t ‘and you should just move’ which I hear all the time.”

From the School District’s swift response, however, Dr. Woldoff’s concerns as well as those of other parents, were both validated and addressed.

A letter went home with children on Monday, January 30th, saying that students would “not be participating in the previously planned, optional activity to ‘dress as a 100 year old’.” Instead, Washington Elementary had designed “multiple, curriculum-based activities planned for the students which reflect our celebration of the day and the number ‘100’.”