The teacher didn’t flip out, the teacher enforced the rules.
The teacher committed assault by snatching the phone out of the student’s hand.
Screw it. I give up. Rules are rules, no matter what. Can’t change the rules, even if they don’t work or don’t apply. Have to enforce the rule even if you don’t know what it says - including any “other special provisions end exceptions” it has. Can’t make exceptions (except to cover the ass of the fuck up who could have been less of a Phone Freak. Authority is always right, even when the fuck up.
It doesn’t matter that:
because:
Which brings us back to rules are rules. And even if there are provisions to break out of that damn lazy, jackbooted mode, it won’t be done (by making sure nobody ever finds out about them).
Then we have the dreaded Lunch Affair, which was aggravated by a teacher who decided to get physical with a student, during a time when there would have been no disruption if she had minded her own business(?).
Then, we have the stubborn refusal to even consider that this might have been the only real time mode of communication at all.
Top that off with the “terrible inconvenience” suffered by teachers everywhere, at the hands of lawless students and those horrible never ending calls from all the Army Moms.
Teachers are gods, they take precedence over everything else. Their petty fucking egoes and their personal convenience is everything. If they ask like assholes, it’s OK becuase they are teachers. Nobody is allowed to call them on it, nobody is allowed to get pissed when they overstep whatever godlike authority they think they have.
I have respect for teachers, I have had a lot of good ones. However, I also noticed the ones who were assholes. I never had one take something out of my hand by force. Ordered to turn it over, yes. Taken by force - never. Whether anyone here has a wife or husband who teaches has nothing to do with it, and I didn’t bring that up. If you didn’t want the comments, all you had to do was not mention it and then take it personal (not that I care).
The teacher overreacted and fucked up. The administration could have done early damage control and then not tried a 10 day suspension - who twisted their arms to reduce it I wonder? They all could have owned up to an error, clarified or modified the rules as a “corrective action”. All they did was issue a bullshit statement.
“Had the student not flipped out” - what do you expect when you get in anyone’s face, and physically grab a phone from them that they were talking on? You get verbal abuse. That is not flipping out, it is a normal reaction.
It was one big power trip, and too many of you not only buy into it and condone it, but get all wound up that anyone would dare to say “you’re wrong”. What a bunch of sheep.
I call bullshit on the whole thing. I hope some of you are never in charge of anything. I think you would never have the courage to do what is right, instead of what some rule says. I pity anyone who would have to submit to your “authority”.
How did it go to from the teacher “tried to take the phone” (per original article) to grabbed to snatched? The student’s own words, according to the article, were “tried to take the phone.” Maybe I missed a later addendum which said the teacher touched the kid (perhaps…PERHAPS but probably not…justifying assault), but from what the article says, there was no grabbing and snatching. And since a couple people here are insisting that all that matters is first impressions from the first article, I think that’s an interesting evolution of the bias of some people towards the teacher. If I’m wrong, I apologize. But if I’m right, let’s put a stop to that “grabbing” nonsense.
I’ve been lurking here for some time, resisting the urge to comment, but this is particularly bothersome to me.
Hey, welcome to the boards. Hope you enjoy yourself here.
(Keep in mind that we’re less contentious outside of the Pit :))
You are out of your fucking mind.
-and SteveG1, thank you for yet another stream of emotion-laden, hysterical, ‘you ain’t the boss of me’, fight-the power, bullshit.
I’m just real tired of repeating the same things over and over for thick headed people who are stuck in their “perfect little worlds”. You never rebutted anything I said, you just repeated the same rhetoric over and over. It isn’t “fight the power” it’s “don’t abuse the power when you have it”. I’ve been in charge of people several times - duty sergeant, head of the repair shop, engineer, occasional filling in for the tech lead, etc etc etc. I didn’t and don’t have to act like a prick to maintain control and get the work done. My people knew what was expected of them. They also knew I looked out for them and would cover for them when it was the right thing to do. Sometimes looking the other way is exactly what should be done.
Not according to the legal definition of “assault.”
You want a rebuttal?
You obviously haven’t been reading the thread (or the vitriol affects your eyesight or reading comprehension). Show that the cellphone rule “doesn’t work.” Why does the cellphone rule not apply? The rule is “Students aren’t allowed to talk on cellphones during school hours,” right? He’s a student, he was talking, he was on a cellphone, it was during school hours. Simple. Show that the administration wasn’t willing to make an exception, had the student either A) approached them before the incident or B) remained calm during the incident.
Show that a student asked permission to use a cellphone for a parent in Iraq to contact them.
Yeah, man. If that teacher had just ignored what was (at the time) a blatant rule violation, we wouldn’t have a problem here! It’s all the teacher’s fault. :rolleyes: How stupid can you get?
And damn those policemen for arresting me after they saw me shoot a guy, otherwise I wouldn’t have been dragged through a trial and later acquitted on self-defense, the fuckers! I better verbally assault them, because surely that will get my case heard and prove I’m the upstanding citizen!
No stubborn refusal here. That might have been the only real-time mode of communication. Doesn’t make it automatically ok to violate the rules.
I don’t even know what that means. This case is this case. The student clearly violated the rule against not using a cellphone during school hours, then threw a temper-tantrum when called on it.
Sounds like somebody had some problems with teachers…if your reading comprehension was this bad in school, I’m not surprised.
Heck, I never had one order me to turn anything over. That means it must never be appropriate, right? Since it didn’t happen to me?
Kneejerk reactionaries like you, perhaps? You know, as opposed to the people who would rather wait to get something other than just the student’s story.
They don’t believe they committed an error. Therefore, why would they own up to one? Because you think they should?
I’ll refer this to the new guy’s (or gal’s) post, since he (or she) handled it quite nicely. I’ll add that no, you don’t have to get “verbal abuse.” Maybe YOU would react that way (and based on your posts I have no doubt of that) but that doesn’t make it an automatic reaction for everyone.
You haven’t proved any part of that statement.
Ditto.
Ditto? OBVIOUSLY you aren’t reading. Try again, I have been in charge. It’s just a little ways up. There. See it?
I had none of these immense “problems” because I was reasonable, and wasn’t interested in any unnecessary “muscle flexing”.
Your quote:
Quote relating to why it should have never even been an issue, IF it was a true statement and not just happy talk:
Quote relating to exactly what didn’t get done, which would have nipped it in the bud before it even happened:
Which still doesn’t rebut the point that the student was talking on his phone during school hours without an exception to the rule, thus violating it. Are you dense?
Read your quote. The GUIDANCE DEPARTMENT made the arrangements. Not random teachers monitoring the lunch room. Unless and until arrangements are made, talking on a cellphone during school hours is against the rules. Here’s a question: Did the student have a guidance counselor make those arrangements?
Go on, I’ll wait.
(hint: the answer has two letters, begins with “n” and ends with “o”)
For the learning impaired, if you do a Root Cause Analysis, “what we have here is a failure to communicate”.
If the District had this provision in place, then the school failed to flow it down and make it available. They didn’t tell anyone about it. In short, from the get-go, it is the school that was in the wrong. They shortstopped the very policy that would have prevented the situation.
Rules are to be obeyed? The school then was In Violation Of The Rules.
Apparently , you believe that exceptions to policies are determined in advance and communicated to those who are to follow the policy. They are not. If the policy contained a provision that cell phone calls would be permitted under certain circumstances, that would be part of the policy, not an exception. And it would have to be specific about which circumstances. It’s very unlikely that such a policy would include “unless it’s your mother calling from Iraq during your lunch period” Here, the policy simply states “no cell phone calls”. An exception to that policy would be if a student were to receive permission to get calls on the cell phone. The fact that it wasn’t publicized in advance doesn’t mean the permission wouldn’t be granted if it were requested.
The District is saying just such a provision was already in place in the District policy. This is different from the apparent school policy of “no calls at all”. Shouldn’t the information have been conveyed, so people would know to make the request? Or was it never brought up? If it had been made clear and communicated, it would not have been so “interesting”. The whole situation would have been avoided. So either it was poor planning, poor communication, or poor what? Someone dropped the ball.
Really? Where does the district say that? I read “that the guidance department has arranged for a number of students to get calls from their parents.”
At least according to the quote you posted earlier.
That’s also what it says on the school district’s web site http://www.mcsdga.net/news/SpencerStatement06-May051_2_.pdf
The second page of these minutes show the policy as it was revised in 4/04.
www.mcsdga.net/board/minutes/4-04.pdf
The policy allows students to possess cell phones which are not visible, not turned on and not used during the school day and on the school bus. Use is limited to afterschool and outside the building. He was in violation of the policy simply by having the phone turned on.
Unless, of course, you mean the school district has a general practice of making exceptions to all sorts of rules and requirements when the circumstances warrant an exception. I’m sure they do. I’m also sure that people who feel unfairly burdened by the rules don’t generally wait to be told that exceptions are possible before asking for them.
The student’s 17, he’s nearly an adult, he no doubt wants to be treated as an adult. Why is it so unreasonable for the school to expect him (or his mother or his guardian- who after all, could have advised him to ask for an exception ) to act like an adult rather than take it upon himself to simply break the rule, refuse to hang up and apparently have a tantrum?
If that indeed is the case, then there are no provisions at all, despite what Phillips claimed differently. See the 6 May document.
From the second (earlier) cited document dated 4 April, it states
So, where was the arrangement that Phillips claims to have made? I don’t see it. If the policy still says the phone must be off and concealed, and can not be used at all until after school and off of school property, and it stands as is, then where is the “arrangements” that were made? Where is the sensitivity “to the needs of students whose parents serve our country"?
I quote from that first cited document, dated 6 May, the incident report:
I see no arrangements. Where are these arrangements? Can’t policy be updated and revised to include this arrangement? Considering this school is very close to a military base, during a war, couldn’t anyone foresee the possibility that there might be an “incident”? If we expect the student to plan for every contingency, then we should exect the same from ourselves.
If the Guidance Department was supposed to make arrangements then why didn’t they?
Did the student have a guidance counselor make those arrangements? Would he know he was supposed to? Did anyone bother to tell him?
The school is run by adults. Why is it so unreasonable to expect the school system that has this regulation, to advise him that there was an exception to request? He’s an Army brat. Did nobody in the entire system know this? He wants to be treated like an adult. OK. Adults don’t get punished for taking a call, except in certain situations – security reasons, flagrant abuse, etc. Usually an adult is given a warning first. But then, adults are allowed to talk back too (within limits), or at least given a chance to justify their action.
Yeah, adults love having a phone ripped from their hands and disconnected when they are talking to their mother who is fighting in a war and calls once a month.
In fact, doreen, I suggest that you go around commanding adults to hand over their cell phones, and then grab them when they refuse.
That way you can come back and tell us how all of them remained polite and calm, and certainly didn’t throw a “tantrum.” Have fun!
Meanwhile, back in the real world, the school didn’t let the students know about their policy of allowing calls from deployed family members with permission (which would have prevented the problem), the teacher flipped out and grabbed the phone (turning the innocuous offense of talking during lunch break into a national story), and the officials were out of line when they refused to let the student answer the phone when his mom called back to scold him for “hanging up” and not answering her.
And what if the school phones are down, and it is an emergency?
Don’t say it can’t happen. In fact, it happened in this very case - so many calls were made to the school about their bad behavior that the school unplugged the phones.
So, the school phones are down, you can only reach your wife by cell phone, it is an emergency… and you are fine with the principal grabbing the cell phone from your wife. Right.
I seem to be missing some straw…anyone know where it could be?
No matter what, it keeps coming back to that basic question. Why didn’t the student or his guardian ask for an exception to the rule instead of breaking the rule and throwing a tantrum? It appears that the student did not do anything right in handling this situation.
Everything else that has been said that is negative about the teacher and the administrator is biased speculative or exaggeration: They had to have been on a power trip. They had to have refused to let him take the second call. They had to have been lying about letting other students take calls under exceptional circumstances. The teacher had to have assaulted the student to have taken the phone. And there is no evidence to support any of this.
Apparently what some of you want are schools where your kids are allowed to make calls, in violation of the rules, to their drug dealers (or whomever since the calls are unverified) during lunch breaks – without any interference from those power hungry teachers. If the teacher interferes with that call, you want your chldren to be able to verbally assault the school authorities and to refuse to leave the premises when ordered to. There shall be no penalty to the student. If the drug connection results in your child’s being arrested or harmed by the drug, you want to be able to sue the teacher or the school for negligence.
You can’t have it both ways.
Of course there are different standards for students and teachers! We are employees with specific responsibilities and liabilities. There are different standards for doctors and patients, lawyers and clients. You may be stuck in high school for four years while man of us volunteer to be there for thirty. How’s that for a different standard?