# Idiot Teacher Strikes Again **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 24, 2006, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teacher-strikes-again/341449 "2006-01-24T21:31:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teacher-strikes-again/341449/41 "2006-01-25T01:00:21Z")
> [@Casey1505](#): > > Abuse? Serously? Getting hit with a wad of paper, even several wads of paper, is not abuse. My pea brain has a sense of perspective. Had they punched him, or thrown their text books at him, then I’d see it a little differently. They threw crumpled up paper at him. I see it as ribbing, not assault. Read the article. > [@Casey1505](#): > > My pea brain has a sense of perspective. And it all resides within your thick scull. How would you feel if the same thing happened to you when you had a 40 minute deadline at work? Would you stand up and say. “Fun is fun, but stop this shit, I have things to get DONE.” Do you think that the kid in question could tell the TEACHER and the rest of the kids (yes kids/children) in class to stop when the TEACHER(authority/bully) actually eggs them on? Well? Adults don’t do that kind of shit. The teacher is **supposed** to be an adult. A little gentle ribbing is fine. Then it is right to business, and if anything, the teacher should be there to defend the Bronco fan. If the story is true, it is way, way over the line. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Swan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@The\_Swan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Swan)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teacher-strikes-again/341449/42 "2006-01-25T01:16:56Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > I’ve been saying for years that by and large Steeler fans are thugs, looks like it’s because they are raised that way. > > “Now Jethro, yoo dun good wit that little Bruncko faggot, I think ahle let yoo fuck yer sister first tonight, jus’ don be touching my Arn City beeah, y’hear?” > > And people wonder why some cities have to _double_ the police presence at their football stadiums when the Steelers come to town. :rolleyes: Cite? I suspect that this is total bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teacher-strikes-again/341449/43 "2006-01-25T01:47:46Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > I’ve been saying for years that by and large Steeler fans are thugs, looks like it’s because they are raised that way. > > “Now Jethro, yoo dun good wit that little Bruncko faggot, I think ahle let yoo fuck yer sister first tonight, jus’ don be touching my Arn City beeah, y’hear?” > > And people wonder why some cities have to _double_ the police presence at their football stadiums when the Steelers come to town. :rolleyes: **Weirddave** , you might want to use a fine point detail brush, not a paint roller. :rolleyes: Now, I can see some good-natured ribbing from the teacher. The part about, “Hey, now you can’t sit in that desk-that’s my desk!” Then, if the kid does take you seriously, and starts to sit on the floor, the teacher would probably say, “Oh, I was kidding-take your seat.” I had teachers in high school who teased us, but not to the point where they encouraged shit like this. **OtakuLoki** , I had more teachers bully me in private school than at a public high school. In my 7th grade math class, my teacher basically egged the students on because I couldn’t finish my test in time. (She was going to let us have a free period). ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teacher-strikes-again/341449/44 "2006-01-25T01:48:36Z")
> [@FisherQueen](#): > > I’ve got a lot of family in that neck of the woods. ‘Beaver’ shows up in a LOT of place-names. I never really noticed it until a friend driving through said he was nearly crashing into the street signs for Beaver, Big Beaver, Beaver Falls… > > And by the way, while I don’t have a problem with good-natured ribbing regarding The Big Game, if it happened as reported, this teacher went way, way too far. It sounds like we’re hearing the student’s story, though, and I’ve heard enough of those to want to hear the teacher’s story and that of a few students who were there before I decide. How about the all Woman’s college by Philadelphia called Beaver College. ---
**Author:** ![Casey1505](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dc4da7/32.png) [@Casey1505](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casey1505)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teacher-strikes-again/341449/45 "2006-01-25T01:54:56Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > Read the article. I read all the linked ones in this thread. Almost every description of how “horrible” the situation was began with either “Josh said…” or “he (meaning Josh) said.” > [@](#): > > Adults don’t do that kind of shit. The teacher is **supposed** to be an adult. I conceded to there being immaturity in play on the teachers end. > [@](#): > > If the story is true, it is way, way over the line. I have my doubts that this story played out exactly as it is being presented, myself. If you’ll recall in my first post, I said “Seems to me that everything is being blown way out of proportion and probably more than a little exaggerated.” > [@Post-Gazette link](#): > > At one point, a girl refused to do it and he [Mr. Kelly] took the paper off her desk and threw it into the back of my head." Right into his scull, huh? :dubious: He looked basically alright in the subsequent pictures (exaggerated pout notwithstanding) for having such a head wound. So we seem to be in general agreement in around half of the points you made. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teacher-strikes-again/341449/46 "2006-01-25T02:06:07Z")
> [@Gangster Octopus](#): > > But Anne, he wore a Broncos jersey in Steelers country!!! Yes, and I wore my Broncos hat in Steelers country, especially when they were playing each other. Yeah, there was a little crap back and forth at times with my friends, but it was all friendly. Now, it sometimes got uglier between me, the lone Broncos fan in Steelers country, and the lone Chargers fan in Steelers country, but that’s a divisional thing. And yes, we were on good terms. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teacher-strikes-again/341449/47 "2006-01-25T02:14:04Z")
> [@Casey1505](#): > > Abuse? Serously? Getting hit with a wad of paper, even several wads of paper, is not abuse. My pea brain has a sense of perspective. Had they punched him, or thrown their text books at him, then I’d see it a little differently. They threw crumpled up paper at him. I see it as ribbing, not assault. It’s still assault, and still public humiliation. Personally, I think the teacher should be forbidden any employment involving/contact with children. The students who cooperated should be expelled. I was bullied by both teachers and students, and frankly, I think that’s fairly mild punishment. Emotionally, what I’d _like_ to do is have them all shot. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teacher-strikes-again/341449/48 "2006-01-25T02:52:03Z")
> [@George Orwell](#): > > The next moment a hideous, grinding speech, as of some monstrous machine running without oil, burst from the big telescreen at the end of the room. It was a noise that set one’s teeth on edge and bristled the hair at the back of one’s neck. The Hate had started. > > As usual, the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of the People, had flashed on to the screen. There were hisses here and there among the audience. The little sandy-haired woman gave a squeak of mingled fear and disgust. Goldstein was the renegade and backslider who once, long ago (how long ago, nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading figures of the Party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and then had engaged in counter-revolutionary activities, had been condemned to death, and had mysteriously escaped and disappeared. The programmes of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party’s purity. All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching. Somewhere or other he was still alive and hatching his conspiracies: perhaps somewhere beyond the sea, under the protection of his foreign paymasters, perhaps even — so it was occasionally rumoured — in some hiding-place in Oceania itself. > > Winston’s diaphragm was constricted. He could never see the face of Goldstein without a painful mixture of emotions. It was a lean Jewish face, with a great fuzzy aureole of white hair and a small goatee beard — a clever face, and yet somehow inherently despicable, with a kind of senile silliness in the long thin nose, near the end of which a pair of spectacles was perched. It resembled the face of a sheep, and the voice, too, had a sheep-like quality. Goldstein was delivering his usual venomous attack upon the doctrines of the Party — an attack so exaggerated and perverse that a child should have been able to see through it, and yet just plausible enough to fill one with an alarmed feeling that other people, less level-headed than oneself, might be taken in by it. He was abusing Big Brother, he was denouncing the dictatorship of the Party, he was demanding the immediate conclusion of peace with Eurasia, he was advocating freedom of speech, freedom of the Press, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought, he was crying hysterically that the revolution had been betrayed — and all this in rapid polysyllabic speech which was a sort of parody of the habitual style of the orators of the Party, and even contained Newspeak words: more Newspeak words, indeed, than any Party member would normally use in real life. And all the while, lest one should be in any doubt as to the reality which Goldstein’s specious claptrap covered, behind his head on the telescreen there marched the endless columns of the Eurasian army — row after row of solid-looking men with expressionless Asiatic faces, who swam up to the surface of the screen and vanished, to be replaced by others exactly similar. The dull rhythmic tramp of the soldiers” boots formed the background to Goldstein’s bleating voice. > > Before the Hate had proceeded for thirty seconds, uncontrollable exclamations of rage were breaking out from half the people in the room. The self-satisfied sheep-like face on the screen, and the terrifying power of the Eurasian army behind it, were too much to be borne: besides, the sight or even the thought of Goldstein produced fear and anger automatically. He was an object of hatred more constant than either Eurasia or Eastasia, since when Oceania was at war with one of these Powers it was generally at peace with the other. But what was strange was that although Goldstein was hated and despised by everybody, although every day and a thousand times a day, on platforms, on the telescreen, in newspapers, in books, his theories were refuted, smashed, ridiculed, held up to the general gaze for the pitiful rubbish that they were — in spite of all this, his influence never seemed to grow less. Always there were fresh dupes waiting to be seduced by him. A day never passed when spies and saboteurs acting under his directions were not unmasked by the Thought Police. He was the commander of a vast shadowy army, an underground network of conspirators dedicated to the overthrow of the State. The Brotherhood, its name was supposed to be. There were also whispered stories of a terrible book, a compendium of all the heresies, of which Goldstein was the author and which circulated clandestinely here and there. It was a book without a title. People referred to it, if at all, simply as the book. But one knew of such things only through vague rumours. Neither the Brotherhood nor the book was a subject that any ordinary Party member would mention if there was a way of avoiding it. > > In its second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. People were leaping up and down in their places and shouting at the tops of their voices in an effort to drown the maddening bleating voice that came from the screen. The little sandy-haired woman had turned bright pink, and her mouth was opening and shutting like that of a landed fish. Even O’Brien’s heavy face was flushed. He was sitting very straight in his chair, his powerful chest swelling and quivering as though he were standing up to the assault of a wave. The dark-haired girl behind Winston had begun crying out ‘Swine! Swine! Swine!’ and suddenly she picked up a heavy Newspeak dictionary and flung it at the screen. It struck Goldstein’s nose and bounced off; the voice continued inexorably. In a lucid moment Winston found that he was shouting with the others and kicking his heel violently against the rung of his chair. The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp. Thus, at one moment Winston’s hatred was not turned against Goldstein at all, but, on the contrary, against Big Brother, the Party, and the Thought Police; and at such moments his heart went out to the lonely, derided heretic on the screen, sole guardian of truth and sanity in a world of lies. And yet the very next instant he was at one with the people about him, and all that was said of Goldstein seemed to him to be true. At those moments his secret loathing of Big Brother changed into adoration, and Big Brother seemed to tower up, an invincible, fearless protector, standing like a rock against the hordes of Asia, and Goldstein, in spite of his isolation, his helplessness, and the doubt that hung about his very existence, seemed like some sinister enchanter, capable by the mere power of his voice of wrecking the structure of civilization. > > It was even possible, at moments, to switch one’s hatred this way or that by a voluntary act. Suddenly, by the sort of violent effort with which one wrenches one’s head away from the pillow in a nightmare, Winston succeeded in transferring his hatred from the face on the screen to the dark-haired girl behind him. Vivid, beautiful hallucinations flashed through his mind. He would flog her to death with a rubber truncheon. He would tie her naked to a stake and shoot her full of arrows like Saint Sebastian. He would ravish her and cut her throat at the moment of climax. Better than before, moreover, he realized why it was that he hated her. He hated her because she was young and pretty and sexless, because he wanted to go to bed with her and would never do so, because round her sweet supple waist, which seemed to ask you to encircle it with your arm, there was only the odious scarlet sash, aggressive symbol of chastity. > > The Hate rose to its climax. The voice of Goldstein had become an actual sheep’s bleat, and for an instant the face changed into that of a sheep. Then the sheep-face melted into the figure of a Eurasian soldier who seemed to be advancing, huge and terrible, his sub-machine gun roaring, and seeming to spring out of the surface of the screen, so that some of the people in the front row actually flinched backwards in their seats. But in the same moment, drawing a deep sigh of relief from everybody, the hostile figure melted into the face of Big Brother, black-haired, black-moustachio’d, full of power and mysterious calm, and so vast that it almost filled up the screen. Nobody heard what Big Brother was saying. It was merely a few words of encouragement, the sort of words that are uttered in the din of battle, not distinguishable individually but restoring confidence by the fact of being spoken. Then the face of Big Brother faded away again, and instead the three slogans of the Party stood out in bold capitals: > > WAR IS PEACE > FREEDOM IS SLAVERY > IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH (Long, but from a much longer work. Probably still fair use.) This is what the teacher did. To an emotional teenager. Is it right, is it just to commit a ‘hate crime’? As an example? This is what it was. It may not have been to a protected class, but even the teacher’s own excuse says that this is what he did. Certainly, it would be best if the young man had gutted it out. But he didn’t. And he shouldn’t have to. Abuse is still abuse, no matter where it comes from. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teacher-strikes-again/341449/49 "2006-01-25T03:02:59Z")
Casey1505- Who is responsible for keeping control of a classroom? Or, a seminar with adults? Or a group of octogenarians, that need to take blood tests? ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teacher-strikes-again/341449/50 "2006-01-25T03:07:33Z")
Man oh man am I glad that I am not in HS today. It was bad enough when I got humiliated in school, sometimes with the help of the teacher, but to have it become part of the national discussion would have been more than I could bear. ---
**Author:** ![Frostillicus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teacher-strikes-again/341449/51 "2006-01-25T03:28:41Z")
Speaking as a teacher, this teacher is an asshole. He is supposed to be the adult in the room, not the leader of the pack. Grow up, frat boy. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teacher-strikes-again/341449/52 "2006-01-25T04:09:29Z")
> [@Casey1505](#): > > I read all the linked ones in this thread. Almost every description of how “horrible” the situation was began with either “Josh said…” or “he (meaning Josh) said.” > > I conceded to there being immaturity in play on the teachers end. > > I have my doubts that this story played out exactly as it is being presented, myself. If you’ll recall in my first post, I said “Seems to me that everything is being blown way out of proportion and probably more than a little exaggerated.” Right into his scull, huh? :dubious: He looked basically alright in the subsequent pictures (exaggerated pout notwithstanding) for having such a head wound. > > So we seem to be in general agreement in around half of the points you made. You’ve obviously never been bullied. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teacher-strikes-again/341449/53 "2006-01-25T04:17:27Z")
If the events took place as described… Anyone else appalled that the teacher was allegedly teaching a class in _ethnic relations_? :eek: Demonisation of the Other, yep. That’s the kind of teaching that starts wars. And wars are just as easily started over stupid stuff, too, as in this case. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_MuD\_PhuD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/2bfe46/32.png) [@Elmer\_MuD\_PhuD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_MuD_PhuD)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teacher-strikes-again/341449/54 "2006-01-25T04:33:27Z")
They’re both tools. People who are calling what the teacher did abuse are playing pretty fast and loose with that definition, in my opinion. Embarrassing maybe, immature definitely, abusive not by a long shot. He does sound like your typical pathetic fanatic though. And the kid’s story doesnt add up. The teacher wouldn’t let him sit in his seat and forced him to sit in the middle of the circle? How, by telling him he’ll get a zero if he doesn’t? “Sure thing teach, here’s my test, I have to go have a nice chat with the principal now.” Would that have been so hard. But surely, after the test he marched right down to the principals office and reported this traumatizing, dehumanizing event. Well, right after lunch anyway. The kid also sounds painfully immature. “I’m going to have to deal with him for two more nine-weeks (school quarters), **and he’s going to want revenge somehow** ” - Self-described honor student Josh. You bet Josh, I bet he’s in his secret hideout now scheming. Seriously, would anyone over the age of 12 use the word revenge in a context like this. I’d like to hear one of students tell the story, since I don’t really take either side at their word. If I had to guess, there was probably some playoff banter going on for a few weeks. Each side getting their barbs in. Josh wears Bronco jersey. Teacher teases him, says something like, “Seems like Josh likes to be the center of attention, so let’s make him center of attention.” ---
**Author:** ![Talon\_Karrde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Talon\_Karrde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Talon_Karrde)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teacher-strikes-again/341449/55 "2006-01-25T05:00:58Z")
> [@Der Trihs](#): > > It’s still assault, and still public humiliation. > > Personally, I think the teacher should be forbidden any employment involving/contact with children. The students who cooperated should be expelled. I was bullied by both teachers and students, and frankly, I think that’s fairly mild punishment. Emotionally, what I’d _like_ to do is have them all shot. :eek: I’m mostly in agreement with **Der Trihs** about something! Well, I don’t think the students who cooperated should be expelled. They aren’t as responsible as the teacher, and I think they should get off fairly easy. If they continue to give him crap about it, then they should get a more serious punishment. I also wouldn’t want them to be shot, but that would be my immediate thought before I calmed down. ---
**Author:** ![cerberus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@cerberus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cerberus)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teacher-strikes-again/341449/56 "2006-01-25T05:11:28Z")
That nonsense is, or should be, a fire-able offense. Period. As for who “owned the desk”, _the taxpayers own the desk_. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teacher-strikes-again/341449/57 "2006-01-25T06:31:24Z")
> [@Elmer MuD/PhuD](#): > > And the kid’s story doesnt add up. The teacher wouldn’t let him sit in his seat and forced him to sit in the middle of the circle? How, by telling him he’ll get a zero if he doesn’t? “Sure thing teach, here’s my test, I have to go have a nice chat with the principal now.” Would that have been so hard. You’re kidding, right? People around here are always complaining that kids don’t do what they’re told. But the fact is, most kids and teenagers are conditioned to do what they’re told. This kid did what he was told. He took the test under duress because an adult was telling him what to do. The kids who threw the paper wads were doubtless doing so because an adult was telling them to do it. > [@](#): > > But surely, after the test he marched right down to the principals office and reported this traumatizing, dehumanizing event. Well, right after lunch anyway. > The kid also sounds painfully immature. “I’m going to have to deal with him for two more nine-weeks (school quarters), **and he’s going to want revenge somehow** ” - Self-described honor student Josh. You bet Josh, I bet he’s in his secret hideout now scheming. Seriously, would anyone over the age of 12 use the word revenge in a context like this. You’ve never had a teacher who had it in for you? Or a classmate in that situation? For that matter, you’ve never been jerked around by a supervisor? I can’t count how many Dopers have told of crap they’ve taken from a supervisor because they needed the paycheck. For a high school kid, grades are their paycheck. If a teacher decides to dish out crap, the kid puts up with it because the teacher has the final say over his grade. There are allllll kinds of ways for a teacher to mess with a student. Adults report workplace friction to HR; Josh reported this **abuse** to the principal. Has anyone on the Dope ever been criticized for complaining to HR? ---
**Author:** ![Grelby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a5b964/32.png) [@Grelby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grelby)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teacher-strikes-again/341449/58 "2006-01-25T06:51:07Z")
> [@OtakuLoki](#): > > What’s more disgusting is that the school district is circling wagons around this filth. Tell me again why school vouchers, as a means of punishing school districts that can defend this kind of filth, are such a bad idea? Because, in addition to not doing anything to actually solve this sort of problem, the people who end up being punished are the students attending in that district. The retraction of funding for schools has never been a good option for galvanizing reform. In the end, the students only suffer more, and that doesn’t strike me as a solution to any kind of problem. To **casey1505** : may I sincerely say as one who was tormented and bullied from elementary through middle school: **FUCK YOU.** You clearly have not the least capacity to understand how painful wadded-up balls of paper and the verbal abuse that comes with them can be. They may as well be bricks for how harmless they are. And on top of that, to have a figure of authority condoning, nay _encouraging_ this bullying? And participating in it himself? That is the ultimate betrayal of trust and responsibility as an educator, as an adult, and as a human being. Bullying does NOT build character, it is NOT an acceptable part of growing up, it does not a whit except inflict misery and even psychological harm to those children who must suffer it. That teacher, for instructing the other students to partake in such abuse (yes, it IS abuse - what kid has perspective, asshole?) is of the lowest, most despicable kind of person you can find. Fuck your stone-age “suck it up” attitude, and while your at it, fuck you, too. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teacher-strikes-again/341449/59 "2006-01-25T08:54:54Z")
> [@Elmer MuD/PhuD](#): > > The kid also sounds painfully immature. “I’m going to have to deal with him for two more nine-weeks (school quarters), **and he’s going to want revenge somehow** ” - Self-described honor student Josh. You bet Josh, I bet he’s in his secret hideout now scheming. Seriously, would anyone over the age of 12 use the word revenge in a context like this. I would. I had several teachers/schoolworkers devolp vendettas against me. For example, I recall one elementary school yard duty who got in trouble for abandoning her assigned area so she could follow me around and harass me. IMHO, a fair number of teachers are bullies who specifically went into education to hurt children; this teacher is likely one of them. I’d be very surprised if he _wasn’t_ planning revenge. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teacher-strikes-again/341449/60 "2006-01-25T09:21:53Z")
> [@Casey1505](#): > > I’ve had teachers bust my ass all the time. But if the kid is so damn sensitive that he can’t let it go, and loses concentration to the point where he failed to answer 1/3 of the test, then there are some maturity issues at play. Yeah, for the teacher as well, but mostly Little Josh. I wonder how many of the mean rotten students who were throwing all that nasty hard paper at him completed the test. Where could they possibly have found the time? There’s a difference between a teacher giving you shit and a teacher telling you that he’ll give you a 0 on your exam if you don’t sit on the floor in a circle surrounded by your classmates. I’m not sure why it seems you think something like that is just normal “teachers busting your ass.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teacher-strikes-again/341449.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-teacher-strikes-again/341449.md?page=4)