Teacher Placed On Leave For Hanging Foreign Flags

[Cheesesteak]

[QUOTE=silenus]
But the teacher wasn’t standing up for any great moral or ethical issue, because there wasn’t one involved at all.
[/QUOTE]
So you think there’s no ethical problem with the state decreeing that geography teachers who display flags in their classroom are criminals? They’re disloyal, seditionists, anarchists, whatever that stupid law decides to label them.

It’s an idiotic law, one of those things that criminalizes behavior that is completely innocuous. Insubordination? Apparently this guy is a criminal who should have been taken away in cuffs. We can’t have our children permanently damaged by flag viewing. Someone may walk into that classroom and get confused, not realize what country they’re in, who knows what evil may come of this outrageous decor?

When laws are this petty and stupid, I think we’ll manage to survive without private citizens actively attempting to enforce them.

[Otto]

@Frank

Do you consider it part of the principal’s job to patrol the classrooms at all? If so, why not?

“Patrol” is a very loaded word. Do I think it’s a good idea for principals to visit classrooms? Sure. Should they be doing so with the goal of tracking down lawbreakers? I remain unconvinced.

[QUOTE=Frank]
valuable administrative time
[/QUOTE]

I know what all three of these words mean, but not in this order, applied to high school principals.

[Frank]

[QUOTE=Otto]
“Patrol” is a very loaded word. Do I think it’s a good idea for principals to visit classrooms? Sure. Should they be doing so with the goal of tracking down lawbreakers? I remain unconvinced.
[/quote]

You, of course, were the one to use the word “patrol”. Was that his goal? I think he was scoping things out, that’s all. He noticed something that he thought was a violation of the law. The teacher was insubordinate in his response. Your basic everyday clusterfuck. Why jump on anybody about it? Just straighten out the issue and move on.

I know what all three of these words mean, but not in this order, applied to high school principals.

burundi seemed to think that principals have valuable administrative time; in order to work for such things as “Maybe Carmody Middle School has off-the-chart test scores. Maybe none of their students get pregnant or do drugs. Maybe every Carmody alum goes on to graduate from high school and become a productive citizen. Maybe every teacher there is inspiring and brilliant.”

[silenus]

[QUOTE=Cheesesteak]
So you think there’s no ethical problem with the state decreeing that geography teachers who display flags in their classroom are criminals? They’re disloyal, seditionists, anarchists, whatever that stupid law decides to label them.
[/QUOTE]

Did you even bother to read the text of the law? It was quoted up-thread. The law has no bearing on a classroom. None whatsoever. It would, however, apply to a mural at a school, or a permanent display.

Reading…it’s not just for students anymore. :rolleyes:

[Otto]

[QUOTE=Frank]
You, of course, were the one to use the word “patrol”.
[/quote]

Right, and i used it deliberately to apply to how I perceived this principal’s actions. I have my doubts that principals should do anything that could be characterized as “patrolling.”

[silenus]

pa·trol (p-trl)
n.
The act of moving about an area especially by an authorized and trained person or group, for purposes of observation, inspection, or security.
Seems like that’s part of the job description of a principal to me.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

[QUOTE=silenus]
Was he over-zealous? Yes. Did he misinterpret the law? Yes. Was the teacher an idiot for refusing to comply? Yes. Plenty of stupidity here to go around. But the teacher wasn’t standing up for any great moral or ethical issue, because there wasn’t one involved at all.
[/quote]

Actually, I don’t think the teacher was an idiot for refusing to comply: he’s a social studies teacher, and this whole thing has been a fantastic object lesson for students on the way that power structures work. This was a great hill for this teacher to choose, given how everything turned out, I’d say.

Rubystreak, your example is totally irrelevant to this issue.
…
If they are hired to teach a class on English Lit., and they spend the semester teaching Huck Finn, then they will find themselves unemployed the next term.

Physician, heal thyself!

That’s not remotely what happened. A teacher was hired to teach a class, and he brought in some totally appropriate props to aid in his teaching. A principal misunderstood a law and suggested that the law of the land was incredibly stupid, and demanded, based on his lack of understanding, that the teacher remove the helpful props while maintaining the same curriculum.

The teacher would have marginally undermined his pedagogy by complying with the principal. In your Huck Finn example, the teacher would have been doing a terrible job of teaching by not complying with the principal.

A lot of folks are saying, “If the principal had been right, then his actions would have been acceptable.” No, to put it bluntly, duh. If the principal had been right (say, the teacher was hanging up pornographic posters), then nobody would be objecting to his actions. It’s kinda the stupidity of his legal interpretation and his subsequent actions that’s at issue.

A good principal would, on being confronted by the teacher, go double-check with the district attorney to get clarification on the law, and then come back to the teacher. It sounds like this guy is a power-hungry poltroon, so upset that his judgment would be questioned that he’d totally overreact to the situation.

Daniel

[Rubystreak]

[QUOTE=silenus]
He saw the flags, told the teacher to take them down, was told to kiss off, and disciplined the teacher. In other words, he did his job.
[/quote]

This hypervigilance on the part of some administrators is knee-jerk bullshit. I have a feeling this incident has its roots in post 9/11 wackiness, but I can’t prove that.

The principal showed ZERO respect for the teacher as a professional. I wonder if he asked him, “Are these flags a permanent display? Because they have to come down after 6 weeks, by law.” I bet you dollars to donuts the teacher would have gone along with that. Or how about consulting one of the bazillion lawyers that every district employs about the exact nature of the law before suspending a teacher? I mean, how can you defend an administrator going off half-cocked like that?

Was he over-zealous? Yes. Did he misinterpret the law? Yes. Was the teacher an idiot for refusing to comply? Yes. Plenty of stupidity here to go around. But the teacher wasn’t standing up for any great moral or ethical issue, because there wasn’t one involved at all.

First of all, you don’t know how the thing went down. The principal might have been diplomatic and the teacher might have been stubborn. OR the principal might have said, “Take those down! We don’t allow foreign flags.” Then the teacher would have had curricular grounds to disagree. Your siding with the principal based on assumptions seems a bit wrong-headed to me. I never side with the administration unless I have to.

Rubystreak, your example is totally irrelevant to this issue.

No, it’s not. I was insubordinate. I refused to change a grade. According to you, I should be disciplined for that.

In asking you to change a grade, your administrator was violating the law (at least the law in California, where the teacher’s grade stands no matter what.)

Honestly, I don’t know if it’s actually illegal in NY. I do know it’s wrong and the principal was giving me a direct order to do it. Actually, it was more involved than that, but that was the bottom line for me.

And I don’t care where or what you teach…you teach what you are told to or you go somewhere else. It isn’t the job of the teacher to set curriculum.

Maybe where you are, and I’m ever so fucking glad I don’t work there. In my district, we have committees that set curriculum. Also, I have TOTAL autonomy in creating many of my units. I choose the short stories. I choose the poems. I write original workbooks for each unit. I create the writing assignments, grammar lessons, spelling and vocab lists. All from scratch, nothing pre-generated, no traditional textbooks at all. There are at least 5 novels to choose from for each of the longer units. The only thing I have to teach is Twelfth Night, which is a pleasure. Note, I work in a public school.

You have absolutely zero ethical ground to stand on if you refuse.

This is simply not true here. There was a complaint about another book being taught 2 years ago because a parent was offended by the word “nigger” being used in it. The isse became very divisive; some teachers said it was censorship, others took the side of racism, the principal got involved, and it got crazy. In the end, the teacher did not stop teaching the book. She finished it and continued to teach it last year. That blows your whole “you’re in the Army now” contention to shit.

You were hired to do “A.” If you want to do “B” and they don’t want you to, then your ass is fired, and quite rightly.

What kind of fucked up wimpy union are you in? They cannot just fire a tenured teacher for going off-curriculum, esp. if it can be justified in the curriculum map the district and/or the state created created. Around here, they WANT us to be involved in choosing what we teach, and I have a lot of freedom. Thank god.

You will also find that the union can’t do diddly about it either.

I have found that they can do plenty, and do. Obviously our experiences have been very different. I would not want to work where you work, if it’s as rigid as you say it is. Fuck that. I didn’t get 2 Masters and bust my ass to get and stay certified to be disciplined for insubordination by an administrator who has no idea what he’s talking about and who is clearly out of line.

[Zoe]

So much of what is wrong with public schools these days comes from principals who misinterpret laws and teachers who are afraid of standing up to these idiot administrators.

Every time I have had to take an issue over a principal’s head, I have won. They are not the authorities on the curriculum or on school board or state law.

If the principal thought that the teacher might be violating state law, she or he should have consulted with the Supervisors for Social Studies at the Board of Education on both the local and state levels and with the attorneys for the local Board of Education before making such a drastic move as putting a teacher on suspension.

For the sake of the students, a teacher needs to be in the classroom at the beginning of the year! The action of removing the teacher was enormously disruptive.

Jodi: You seem to posit some unwritten rule that if something is not “clearly” illegal, the teacher is entitled to a presumption that it’s okay, even if his principal disagrees. I don’t see that.

Actually, there has been much written about it. It’s called academic freedom.

I agree with you that when a teacher is insubordinate to a principal, she or he should expect consequences and decide beforehand if the action is worth the trouble.

silenus: Teachers are hired guns, and must do and teach what they are told to. Period. If you don’t like the fact that the school board told you to teach Subject A, then quit.

Or work/fight to make the system better – as this teacher did. Those flags are back up in the classroom for the rest of the six weeks. And I’m sure they will be back up again later in the year.

Bosda, this wasn’t likely a union busting measure. Only the American Federation of Teachers is a union – not the National Education Association or the Colorado Education Association. Principals are often, if not usually, members of the organization and not considered part of “management” anyway.

I suspect that all evidence of the teacher’s being placed on leave will be removed from her or his file and that no reprimand will be placed in the principal’s file either. (Reprimands are considered very serious professionally.)

[Rubystreak]

[QUOTE=Zoe]
For the sake of the students, a teacher needs to be in the classroom at the beginning of the year! The action of removing the teacher was enormously disruptive.
[/quote]

Yes, I agree. It undermines the teacher right at the beginning of the year. Not good. I’m glad the teacher was reinstated without penalty.

I agree with you that when a teacher is insubordinate to a principal, she or he should expect consequences and decide beforehand if the action is worth the trouble.

This is also true. If you openly defy an administrator, whether he’s right or wrong, you will probably receive consequences, whether formal or informal. You have to choose your battles. That’s why I suspect that the administrator came on hard and the teacher felt he had to take a stand. Either that or they had some ongoing animosity. Who knows? The teacher was in the right, that’s the bottom line, so why are we arguing about him doing something wrong? He didn’t, and he was vindicated.

I suspect that all evidence of the teacher’s being placed on leave will be removed from her or his file and that no reprimand will be placed in the principal’s file either. (Reprimands are considered very serious professionally.)

Yep-- such things are the road administrators have to take in order to get a tenured teacher fired.

[Nava]

[QUOTE=Guinastasia]
You’re not kidding. Holy shit, when I took World History in tenth grade, my teacher had his class COVERED in foreign flags-one of our assignments was to make a fabric flag for a nation assigned to us.

[/QUOTE]

In the only classroom where we got a world map, it had the flags of every country down at the bottom. One of our assignments was making a poster about a country that we’d been assigned at random; these posters stayed on the wall until the end of the year.

I hated poster assignments, but loved the map… scratches her head in confusion

I can see a bit where this kind of law comes from: my part of Spain gets its occasional ruckus about some moron displaying the flag of a different part on a City Hall balcony. But the law doesn’t say that a councilor who thinks we should part of that neighboring area can’t display the flag in his office - just that it can’t be part of the “official” row of flags. The flag in the councilor’s office is unofficial decor indicating his political leanings, so whatever floats his boat so long as it’s not otherwise illegal.

[Cheesesteak]

[QUOTE=silenus]
Did you even bother to read the text of the law? It was quoted up-thread. The law has no bearing on a classroom. None whatsoever. It would, however, apply to a mural at a school, or a permanent display.

Reading…it’s not just for students anymore. :rolleyes:
[/QUOTE]
Oh, so it WOULD apply to a permanent display of flags in a classroom, yes? The teacher who wants to avoid being a criminal needs to display his flags in the approved temporary fashion. Want to pay tribute to the 50 states by putting a mural with all the state flags on it? Criminal. Want to promote world peace with a mural of national flags? Criminal. While you may or may not approve of painting these sorts of murals, the idea of criminalizing the act goes way beyond reason.

They also seem to have the right to dictate what I can hang in front of my own home, as long as the mouthbreathing xenophobes next door would get riled up by a foreign flag*.

Any person who displays any flag other than the flag of the United States of America or the state of Colorado or any of its subdivisions, agencies, or institutions in any place where it is likely to be viewed by the public or a substantial portion thereof, knowing that under the circumstances then existing such display is likely to cause a breach of the peace, commits a class 1 petty offense.

Explain to me how this does not apply to my front yard.

Maybe I’m alone in this, but I think the government should only criminalize acts that harm people. I don’t see the point in criminalizing flag flying, it takes away a bit of our freedom, and for WHAT positive purpose? I’m not one of your libertarian types, but if I’m going to have my freedoms restricted, I want there to at least be some sort of conceivable benefit to it.

*I believe this would also apply to mouthbreathing homophobes getting riled up over a rainbow flag.

[silenus]

Cheesesteak, you missed the key clause: (2) Any person who displays any flag other than the flag of the United States of America or the state of Colorado or any of its subdivisions, agencies, or institutions in any place where it is likely to be viewed by the public or a substantial portion thereof, knowing that under the circumstances then existing such display is likely to cause a breach of the peace, commits a class 1 petty offense.

Disturbing the Peace is still a crime. If you want to fly an Aryan Nations banner in the middle of a black neighborhood, expect to be arrested, just like you would be for yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater. Is the display justified and proper? That is for the courts to decide. If you display a rainbow flag in your front yard and the Neanderthals in your neighborhood riot over it, then a judge will decide who gets whacked.

Is the law badly written and overly-restrictive? Probably. But it doesn’t infringe on anybody’s rights any more than any other “breach of the peace” law. I’ll bet that a judge would not consider any teacher display, however constructed, to be anything other than “temporary.” The law is directed towards murals on the walls of the school, not the walls of a classroom.

[Hypnagogic_Jerk]

[QUOTE=Nava]
I can see a bit where this kind of law comes from: my part of Spain gets its occasional ruckus about some moron displaying the flag of a different part on a City Hall balcony. But the law doesn’t say that a councilor who thinks we should part of that neighboring area can’t display the flag in his office - just that it can’t be part of the “official” row of flags. The flag in the councilor’s office is unofficial decor indicating his political leanings, so whatever floats his boat so long as it’s not otherwise illegal.
[/QUOTE]

This intrigues me. Which part of Spain do you live in, again, and which other part does this person want your city to join instead? Is this movement well-organized and does it have a lot of support in the population? What are the reasons they give to support this change?

[Cheesesteak]

[QUOTE=silenus]
Disturbing the Peace is still a crime. If you want to fly an Aryan Nations banner in the middle of a black neighborhood, expect to be arrested, just like you would be for yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater.
[/quote]
Then why is this law necessary? It singles out flag displaying as being illegal under specific conditions. If this is merely causing a disturbance, then we have plenty of laws to cover it. If those laws are insufficient, make the change to those laws.

Anyway, the law is not about disturbing the peace, it’s about “ARTICLE 11 OFFENSES INVOLVING DISLOYALTY : PART 2 ANARCHY - SEDITION :” That doesn’t sound a bit like a law intended to keep neighborhoods peaceful. It’s in the section of the CO Criminal Code that deals with Treason, Insurrection, Sedition, Anarchy and (surprise) flag burning. Article 9 deals with breaches of the peace.

Is the law badly written and overly-restrictive? Probably. But it doesn’t infringe on anybody’s rights any more than any other “breach of the peace” law. I’ll bet that a judge would not consider any teacher display, however constructed, to be anything other than “temporary.” The law is directed towards murals on the walls of the school, not the walls of a classroom.

I ask again, why does the government feel the need to criminalize painting flags on school walls? Who is so harmed by this practice that we need to protect ourselves by making it a crime? Make it a rule, make it a ticketable violation, but making it a crime?

For the record, the punishment for committing a Class 1 Petty Offence is :

18-1.3-503. Petty offenses classified - penalties.
Statute text

(1) A violation of a statute of this state is a “petty offense” if specifically classified as a class 1 or class 2 petty offense. The penalty for commission of a class 1 petty offense, upon conviction, is a fine of not more than five hundred dollars, or imprisonment for not more than six months other than in state correctional facilities, or both. The penalty for commission of a class 2 petty offense is a fine specified in the section defining the offense. The penalty assessment procedure of section 16-2-201, C.R.S., is available for the payment of fines in class 2 petty offense cases.

6 months in jail, you can actually do jail time for painting the wrong kind of mural, one with flags on it. They couldn’t make it a Class 2 where the punishment is just a fine, oh no, those flag displayers have to risk being sent up the river for their disloyalty.

[silenus]

[QUOTE=Cheesesteak]
I ask again, why does the government feel the need to criminalize painting flags on school walls? Who is so harmed by this practice that we need to protect ourselves by making it a crime? Make it a rule, make it a ticketable violation, but making it a crime?
[/QUOTE]

I can see their reasoning for banning such representations. Doesn’t mean I agree with this reasoning, but I can see where they are coming from. It prevents the politicalization of school walls. I know I’d be pissed if my tax dollars were supporting a school with Aztlan banners on the walls. I’d like to know the makeup of the Colorado Legislature when this bill was passed. It had to be Republican, but by what majority, and how recently.

[mhendo]

[QUOTE=silenus]
Disturbing the Peace is still a crime. If you want to fly an Aryan Nations banner in the middle of a black neighborhood, expect to be arrested, just like you would be for yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater. Is the display justified and proper? That is for the courts to decide. If you display a rainbow flag in your front yard and the Neanderthals in your neighborhood riot over it, then a judge will decide who gets whacked.
[/QUOTE]
Well, i’m glad we’ve managed drag the old “yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theater” chestnut out again. And, once again, it’s irrelevant to the discussion because it’s not the same thing as flying a flag. Panicking at the sound of someone yelling “fire” in a crowded space is a reasonable reaction, so someone who induces this reaction should be punished. Going on violent rampages because someone flies a piece of cloth with words or symbols that you don’t like is not a reasonable reaction, and the consequences of such behaviour should be borne by the people who commit the violent acts, not those who fly the banners.

While it may be considered to be disturbing the peace in some jurisdictions, i don’t believe that the mere flying of a flag (any flag) is, in fact, disturbing the peace. If people get their noses bent out of shape by a flag to the extent that they commit acts of violence or vandalism or whatever, then they are the ones who deserve to be locked up. Period. I don’t care if the flag is an Aryan Nations flag or a rainbow flag or any other type of flag.

Also, as Cheesesteak has already pointed out, you are in error regarding this particular incident. The “disturbing the peace” subsection of the law was not the one which was invoked in deciding to remove the flag. Not even the moron principal or the morons at the school district claimed that the issue was one of disturbing the peace.
[QUOTE=silenus]
I can see their reasoning for banning such representations. Doesn’t mean I agree with this reasoning, but I can see where they are coming from. It prevents the politicalization of school walls. I know I’d be pissed if my tax dollars were supporting a school with Aztlan banners on the walls. I’d like to know the makeup of the Colorado Legislature when this bill was passed. It had to be Republican, but by what majority, and how recently.
[/QUOTE]
You’re joking, right?

The very decision not to allow other flags is, in itself, political. When a geography teacher can’t place images of foreign flags on the walls of his classroom without worrying about how long they can stay there before breaking the law, then, my friend, the classroom walls have been well and truly politicized.

[silenus]

[QUOTE=mhendo]
The very decision not to allow other flags is, in itself, political. When a geography teacher can’t place images of foreign flags on the walls of his classroom without worrying about how long they can stay there before breaking the law, then, my friend, the classroom walls have been well and truly politicized.
[/QUOTE]

But the law says nothing about a classroom. The principal was wrong in his reading of the law, as is everybody else who thinks it involves a classroom display of any sort. Teachers change rooms, they retire…it ain’t nohow permanent. “On the wall” = temporary. “Part of the wall” = permanent.

[mhendo]

[QUOTE=silenus]
But the law says nothing about a classroom.
[/QUOTE]
Huh?

The law says:

Any person who displays any flag other than the flag of the United States of America or the state of Colorado or any of its subdivisions, agencies, or institutions upon any state, county, municipal, or other public building or adjacent grounds within this state commits a class 1 petty offense.

I was under the impression that we are talking about a public school here. I was also under the impression that the buildings that make up a public school would qualify under the list of properties presented here. Am i incorrect?

[Gangster_Octopus]

Even if the teacher was breaking the letter of the law it was hardly worthy of concern, it would be like going 66 in a 65 MPH zone. And on top of that, it is not violating the intent of the law, I am quite certain.

Of course if a law was written such that it wsa illegal for a geography teacher to hang flags in the classroom the the law is de facto idiotic.

Was the principal extremely concerned about law and order or was genuinely reacting to what he thought might be some sort of legal brouhaha if he didn’t do something?