I taught for 15 years and can assure you that some of the most ignorant people can be found at public schools and universities. They can be brilliant in their field but functionally illiterate on most anything else. This sounds like something that could have happened in the district I taught at!!
Thank heaven “brilliant in their field” is a very loosely interpreted, highly, subjective opinion. America’s ranking in math and science is pretty damning evidence. Fortunately, they don’t require tests on any government form other than communism to keep teaching credentials.
I second that. And the higher up you go, the more ignorant they get. I am a former urban school teacher. I found most of my fellow teachers to be sensible folks, just trying to do the best they could under difficult situations.
On the other hand, most of the vice-principals and principals were somewhat divorced from reality.
And the central office folks were, all of them, just clueless, totally ignorant of what was going on.
I'll bet you a dollar that 95% of the teachers in that building welcomed the sight of an armed police officer. But 95% of the central administrators would be horrified by the very thought of it.
My daddy had a saying for that, he called it “book smart” and said he meant people that were dumb as rocks when they got away from their books.