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Originally Posted by willravel
Would you really expect the kids to do absolutely nothing at this? You've been in a highschool before, right? The kids are there to have fun with friends, and maybe learn in the process. The fact that this teacher thinks he can act in this way scares me. My little brother, currently enrolled in highschool, actually was protesting the pledge of aleigence by non violent protest. He didn't stand and didn't recite the pledge. Why? My little brother does not beleive in pledging alleigence to a flag. The constitution and freedom is where our alleigence should lie. My little brother's teacher got mad at him, too. Guess what? The teacher was asked very nicely by the principal to back off. What would I have done if my little brothers teacher would have pulled out the seat and yelled at my little brother? I would have had him fired and forced him to have therapy in order to ever teach again.
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Maybe I should have highlighted the text in bold. This is twice I've been lumped in with defending the teacher with direct posts. Let me type this again with some 'bold' action for you.
I'm not trying to defend the guy as he was obviously out of line.
The anecdotal evidence you've provided does nothing for me. I comprehend the reasons why someone would choose to sit during the pledge or during the anthem. In fact, I agree wholeheartedly that the idea of being forced to pledge your allegiance to anything is pretty distasteful.
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How does that excuse the teachers actions?
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One more time, if you please....
I'm not trying to defend the guy as he was obviously out of line.
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If you were in the teachers shoes, would you have yelled and pulled out the seat? If yes, then you shouldn't teach. If no, then you can't excuse his bahavior.
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There are lots of folks who shouldn't teach, but that's beside the point as apparently you missed this again....
I'm not trying to defend the guy as he was obviously out of line.
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You understand physical violence from a teacher towards a student over something as petty as standing for the flag salute?
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Now we come to the second half of that little pithy line I have to keep bringing up.
I understand (or rather I should say I empathize with) the reasoning behind his actions. I understand why he did what he did. He lost his temper. Have you never, ever, lost your temper? Have you never, ever, over reacted to a situation?
I have. When I did, I was wrong. There seems to always be a better way to handle things, but in the heat of the moment it's sometimes hard to find them. There was no violence towards the student that I could see. Some violence towards the chair as he jerked it out, but it's not like he beat the kid senseless with it. I'm not trying to make light of the situation, but let's try to stay this side of the extreme as to what 'physical violence' pertains to.
Standing for the flag salute wasn't petty to this guy. It obviously
was important to the teacher that the kid stand for the pledge. I infer this from the videotape as he seemed quite worked up about it, even to the point of using profanity. This obviously affected his reasoning and it subsequently colored his actions.
Does it excuse it? Absolutely not. He over reacted, plain and simple. He stepped over the line. He reacted poorly. I could go on....
The point is, and sadly, the one I've failed to get across for whatever reason, I've been in situations like that before. I've been in the teacher's shoes (as I'm sure we all have) and when faced with the calm, sensible course of action, I have, for the most part, followed it, even when it was difficult to do. Because of my experiences, I understand and empathize with how he was feeling, but condone the course of action he took.
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Originally Posted by willravel
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Originally Posted by guthmund
Was it wrong? No doubt about it, but before we all get up on our high horses and remember fondly the days when we staged our first protests and stood up for what's right simply because it was right, we should at least try to see the whole story, no?
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This wasn't a protest. It was not intended as a protest. Those kids wanted to mess around, and inadvertantly showed how dangerous their teacher is. |
This was an off handed reply to a few members, who I felt were all up arms about this and specifically trying to directly connect the act of respectable protesting with what these particular kids were doing.
I thought I was quite clear in my proclaiming that these kids weren't protesting at all, but rather fucking around for fucking around's sake.
Dangerous? It's hard for anyone to make that kind of judgement based solely on this one, very public snippet of his teaching career. I don't know if he has a history of this. I don't know the problems he's had in the past. As it stands, I'll simply call it a mistake. A very public and 'potentially' dangerous mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. That isn't to say that he shouldn't be punished, but I think the severity of the punishment should certainly take into account his entire teaching career and not just this one particular instance.