Both people are obviously wrong, but one is the adult in the position of power here.
I think both people should get the appropriate punishment for their situation. The student should be given a nice long suspension. The teacher should be fired at the very least, and prosecuted for child abuse. No idea if he should go to prison or just do a lot of community service, but he definitely shouldn’t work with kids ever again. Part of the deal of dealing with kids is that you have to appropriately deal with them even when they’re doing blatantly terrible shit, because they’re kids.
[edit] On second thought, I don’t condone either expelling the kid or putting the adult in prison - both are life-ruining, and this society already has too easy of a school-to-prison and prison-to-lifelong-criminal pipeline. Whatever a reasonable punishment is for the ex-teacher is that doesn’t involve prison should be appropriate.
Teacher goes to jail, his assets are liquified and given to the kid. If you’re an adult who beats a child you are an absolute waste of humanity and I have no use for you. I don’t care “why”, there’s no excuse why an adult man has to use that kind of force against a child.
I’m sorry the kid said mean words that hurt the teacher’s feelings. Perhaps if the words of 14 year old boys were so triggering, he shouldn’t have become a high school teacher.
Anyone in this thread defending or justifying this teacher’s action can join the teacher in going straight to Hell.
Heh. A friend of mine is a grade school principal. He responded to one of his teacher’s calls for help with a first grader having a tantrum. My friend tried to calm him down, but the kid pulled a Cujo and bit him. The kid’s parents were called, while the kid was left in the room with the lights turned out.
The school nurse cleaned and bandaged the very minor bite wound, but insisted my friend go to the ER for a tetanus update as well as documentation purposes.
When the kid’s mom arrived, she freaked out over a bump on the kid’s head which was self-trauma (the kid had slammed his head into a wall). The principal spoke with her, apologizing for not being there when she arrived, but explaining he was at the Emergency Room having the bite wound addressed. Mom saw the bandage, quieted down, and took the kid home.
I heard the story that night at the bar. My friend removed the impressive looking bandage and after some searching we found the most minor wound ever. I searched “rabies quarantine” and then anxiously documented the quarantine period.
I dont think the teacher should be fired. Unless of course he has had a history of losing his temper. Otherwise he should get a letter in his file and moved to another school.
No, expulsion is exactly what needs to be done. That kid has forfeited his right, and PRIVILEGE, to ever attend a public school again. Most likely this isnt his first bout of troublemaking.
He can still go for his GED.
Is this a pipeline to jail? Well maybe and maybe not. Maybe he will hit a wall and realize he does have to follow the rules and will change his life around. I hope so. He might have a 1 year suspension where I HOPE he realizes how stupid he was, writes a MAJOR letter of apology, and goes back and becomes a model student.
Thing is right now that kid will walk right back into the school and be everyones hero. He will inspire others to do the same behavior. The school will be a zoo. Teachers will just hand out free grades so the troublemakers leave them alone (seen it happen). Everyones education will suffer.
If someone is so easily offended that hearing a word makes them fly into a rage, they are unstable and should not work around children.
The minor in this story is fourteen, that is a child. It doesn’t matter if it’s grade 5 or grade 9, beating a child to the point of hospitalisation is sick. The man who beat him deserves to be in prison. He is not safe to be in society if the words of a child move him to such violence.
It doesn’t matter the race, were the teacher white and the student black, I would have the same opinion. But we live in a society now where violence againt those who disagree with you is celebrated and encouraged; I’m never surprised to see leftists showing their true colours. Every bit as racist and violent as the alt-right.
Violence is not justified against any kind of speech unless there is a clear and imminent physical threat. Which was not the case here.
The hate speech was only one element; it wasn’t just a word thrown out there, the student was generally belligerent and disrespectful. The student was baiting the teacher and the teacher took the bait. He should have followed his school’s policy for discipline, and the kid probably would have been suspended or expelled.
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Ah, this takes me back to the good old days when there was good, bad, and no grey in between. But then I grew up and accepted the fact that sometimes people deserve the beat down their words get them. Then I blew out the candles on my cake and enjoyed my 6th birthday. Seriously, your position completely lacks the nuance or proportionality required to function in the real world. You make it sound like the kid was a straight A student with admirable deportment and this rogue teacher just flipped his lid and was looking to beat some random kid nearly to death. Is there any evidence the kid received so much as a bruise? I would be highly interested in hearing how you would have handled the situation.
I’m 40 years past that 6th birthday and very much want to live in a world where people who react to words with violence are given lenghty time-outs in cages.
I agree with the first part. It seemed to me that more than the specific terms used, it was the disrespect and taunting of the teacher, who had completely lost the class.
I don’t know if the last part is correct or not. My cousin went into teaching in his late 40s, ironically teaching band to middle school and only lasted one year.
The school administration simply didn’t back up the teachers enough, in his opinion.
I’ve seen schools where because there HAD been alot of suspensions and expulsions, the administration basically ordered them all to stop. The teachers hands were tied and they responded by basically giving in and letting the kids do what they wanted. A sort of “strike” you might say. Only when things truly got crazy and their were fires and police calls and such and the media (nothing like a tv reporter outside a school) got involved did the district go back to allowing suspensions.
I dont think most people realize how truly bad a public school can be run.
