Considering the underwear wasn’t visible until she made 'em lift up their skirts and show her…
Yes, racinchikki, again,she was wrong to do that to girls who had not already broken the rule. I’ve stated that already.
How can one really say what’s right or wrong?
I sorta can see how all this freaking and flashing could offend people. But then again, just because you’re offended means you can rid people of their personal rights? Can I walk up to a lady with panties down to her knees and be outraged and cause a big public scandal? Its really none of my damn buisness what she wears. And who has the right to decide what is moral or not? On the other hand, why the hell should I stand some kids doin it on the dance floor if I don’t want to say it? Can we really have a free country that has no tolerance of all people?
Its all part of the great contradiction that is life, I guess. Who can say?
I meant STAND it, instead of SAY it.
So if you admit she’s wrong, shrew, what is the issue? I am genuinely confused now.
This is an excellent point, Jass. Where does one’s right end and another’s begin?
At the moment, I’m being kept from sleep by my noisy upstairs neighbor who works at night in his bedroom directly above mine. He stomps around all damn night. Now technically, he has the right to do this. He’s doing nothing in breach of his lease. Of course, his behavior is interrupting my sleep schedule. Too bad for me. My rights don’t override his. Will that keep me from banging on the wall when he’s playing craptastic music at 3:00 AM? We all see things from our own perspective, and stepping outside the box requires great effort.
Now, the question I have to consider as a teacher is, whose rights are more important to me, the students or the parents? Parents expect us to provide a safe, healthy environment for their children. As taxpayers, that is their right. The students’ rights, however important, are secondary to their parents. Now, the argument can be made that the parents buy these thongs for their daughters, so they must approve. Well, maybe. But parents buy lots of things for their children that I think the children shouldn’t have (hardcore rap, Harry Johnson t-shirts, Grab-a-Bootie-and-Pinch t-shirts, confederate flag t-shirts, sportscars, pagers, alcohol, marijuana), and that’s when I have to shift my loyalty. Every dilemma like this must be dealt with on a case by case basis. There is no blanket of correctness with which a school administrator can shield him/herself. It’s a messy business, and the more you delve into it, the messier it gets.
shrew, who’s about to pop in the earplugs and try to get some sleep
I admit that she made a poor decision. She should not have checked the girls who had not already broken a posted rule.
I do not think, however, that she should be villified. I do not think that she should lose her job, her career, her livelihood over one mistake. I genuinely believe she had good intentions. She made a huge mistake, but people are acting as if she’s a pariah. She made a friggin’ mistake. I don’t think people realize how big of a problem the freak dancing is (not to mention the thongs), but she obviously did. She tried to do something about it (admittedly she did the wrong thing), but I don’t think she should be strung up by her pinky toes for it.
Wow. Could I use the word mistake a few more times?
Goodnight.
I understand your point. “Cast ye first without sin” and all that, right? I just happen to disagree. This is just your average f***-up, this is a royal f-up. Yes, this one poor decision does make me question the judgment if not sanity of this administrator. good intentions or not. Really, in what world do we live in that we would accept a teacher asking pupils to lift their skirts up? I don’t care if you have the purest intentions this is just plain stupid and wrong. You pretty much have to be living in a hole under a rock to think you could get away with this or that this is somehow societally or morally acceptable. (Just to be clear, I am referring to the teacher, not you, shrew.)
You see, good intentions doesn’t always cut it with society. Argument ad absurdum -> Why don’t we just strip search every student in inner city schools, since there’s a drug/weapon/whatever problem? Good intentions, terrible enforcement. What about “spare the rod and spoil the child?” Good intentions, but no longer societally acceptable. Crap, you’ll get thrown into the slammer for that, regardless whether you thought it was in your child’s best interest. The end does not justify the means.
Shrew, I hope you finally got some sleep. I just want to let you know you’re not fighting this argument alone. I absolutely agree with your point of view on this…she made a huge, huge mistake, but she was trying to control something that was even worse.
It sounds like a situation that just got completely out of control, and we’ve probably only heard half the story, some of it exaggerated by kids who have no respect for rules or common decency, who know that they can eliminate an administrator who wants them to be better than they are. Yes, she made a mistake. Yes, she has to face some consequences. But don’t lose sight of the original problem…that the behavior of these children caused the problem in the first place.
Yeah, we probably are hearing half the story…but it still doesn’t wash. “The behavior of these children caused the problem in the first place.” Fine. Accepted. OK.
But there’s a responsible, societally acceptable way of dealing with the problem, as been stated before (e.g. ejecting students from the dance if they exhibit lewd behavior, cancelling the dance, whatever) and then there’s an irresponsible, societally unacceptable way of doing this: having each student flash her knickers.
I don’t care who started it. I am not arguing about the morality of "freak"dancing (and I don’t particularly care.) There’s other, better ways of dealing with this. Exposing yourself is not one of them, and I certainly wouldn’t want this teacher as a “moral compass” for my children. Her actions, on my moral barometer, are far baser than any simulated sex the kids may have been having on the dancefloor.
shrew, you and I are the same age. Trust me, when we were teenagers, no normal heterosexual teenage boy would cringe in disgust at the thought of two lesbians/bisexual girls going at it.
Admittedly, I wasn’t a normal heterosexual teenage boy then any more than I’m a normal heterosexual man now, but, trust me, I know porn of the era, and comments from my friends and aquaintances re: sex…and lesbianism was always a turn on.
(Oh and this part:
had me thinking ‘My, oh my, how times have changed!’ ;))
And this idiot woman has no place in education. Making the girls flash to prove they weren’t wearing thongs because SOME of them MIGHT flash while wearing thongs is…mindboggling. The logic behind it is absurd and it’s punishing the innocent girls and having little to no effect on the ones she was supposedly controlling. This is not a little mistake, easily taken back, like say, an overharsh suspension/expulsion, this is a monumental error in judgement, with the damage to the girls’ dignity done.
What pulykamell just said. They could ban the “freak dance” itself, kick out the offending girls (and their willing male partners in “crime” may I add), videotape the offenders dance then call in the parents to discuss their kids’ behavior, etc.
And if the situation is such that the adults cannot control the kids, well, then it’s time to reconsider having the dances at the school. Let them “freak dance” on their own time and dime.
(And may I say that as a Class of '79 HS grad, reading about the freak-dance at HS parties REALLY makes me feel like an antique.)
I am sympathetic to that (my mother was a teacher, principal and deputy superintendent over a career spanning 1961-1997). The parents will, of course, love it if their kids’ social activities are in the “safe, healthy” school, rather than at some friend’s house, a club, or a rave. However the taxpayers should not expect you to have to provide a safe, healthy environment for every aspect of the young people’s lives, relieving parents, churches, other public and non-public institutions and the general society from the duty. Schools must first provide a safe, healthy environment for their education. Social activities? It’s nice if the school can handle it, but it’s not its primary mandate. Can’t control the environment (i.e. can’t keep the kids from putting on a porno show on the gym floor)? Then don’t sponsor the activity.
If the VP had just kicked out the offending students, or cancelled the dances altogether, I’d be on her side vs. any whiny parents. (And my answer to the whiny parents would be: “OK. I will assume ALL of you ARE volunteering to chaperone every dance next year?”)
This IS the kind of mess-up that kills a career. Holding a position of authority requires a minimal skill at judgement and “thinking through” the consequences of your decisions. Provoking a scandal means you flunked the skill test.
I was talking to my boyfriend about the situation, and was trying to describe this strange freak dancing to him. I got about as far as “um, well, I think they bend over and grind -” when he said “oh! You mean they were freaking!”
I looked at him with some surprise since I didn’t know that freaking had made it to Australia. “Oh? You know what it is?”
Apparently he’s seen it quite often on V and MTV. “All the rappers do it.”
And then, oh dear God, he started prancing around the room and waving his bum around, singing in a falsetto voice “look at me! I’m freaking! I’m freaking! Oh yeah.”
Please excuse me while I go and put my head in a bucket.
I’ll take your word for it, but I’m not sure I would use porn as the standard for what’s normal in society (after all, not every woman craves being “decorated”, but they sure do in porn). But then, I was raised on the buckle of the Bible Belt. Very few boys would have had the audacity to admit such. 
I couldn’t agree more.
That’s understandable, but I’d still like to hear her side of the story (more than we have).
Well some more thoughts.
The account of the ‘freak dancing’ is only by the accused and not backed up by another source. We do not know if the kids at that school did that sort of dancing. We know what the she did. The whole freak dancing defense may just be a dodge to try and cast the kids as villians rather than victims. This is a common defense strategy.
Shrew not to pick a fight but let me get this straight.
You are a HS teacher.
At your HS the kids freak dance.
Only about 10% of the student body attends dances.
You believe that many kids (90%) stay home because of the freak dancing.
If all that is correct why do you still have dances?
Why don’t you ban freak dancing at your school?
Plus
How is thong underwear inappopriate?
Is it only when it is visible? Or do you think it is inappropriate for young girls ingeneral?
Is this some rule at your school or is it your feeling and why?
Thank you
I forgot to say Thank You to kittenblue.
Excellent point. But technically, we don’t know what she did. We only have the testimony of teenagers, and if we’re willing to accept their word as proof of what she did, then we should be willing to accept her word of what they do.
Banning a certain type of dancing is such a drastic measure. It seems so counterintuitive to everything we believe in as educators, not to mention as children of the 60’s and 70’s. Our gut instinct tells us that the kids are just acting out, and that eventually they will grow out of it and find a better way to express themselves. I mean, who wants to be the school that bans dancing?
The visibility causes class disruption. Any clothing that disrupts class is considered inappropriate (that is a school rule). Even when not in class, visible thong underwear on a female student in the hall can cause quite a stir. The behavior during break often reminds me of behavior at a club or strip club, and the girls eat up the attention. Certainly, there are girls who wear thong underwear without ever causing a disruption. They keep their undies to themselves, and no one’s the wiser. But for most of the girls, exhibitionism is the whole point.
Do I think thong underwear is inappropriate for teenage girls in general? Yes, I do. IMHO, the sexualization of teenage girls has reached an abominable high. Blame it on Britney or whoever, but why in God’s name should teenage girls wear pubic-pushers ever??? Wonder-bras? Thong underwear? The new fad of wearing visible bras under tight shirts (black bras under white see through tanks)? Capri pants so tight that the texture of pubic hair is visible? It’s all just ludicrous (no pun on the rapper’s name intended).
The desire to look and be sexy should, in my opinion, not be a concern of teenage girls. Seventeen/Eighteen is truly the earliest they need to be concerned with that sort of thing, or with sex in general. I think the clothing and behavior are manifestations of the pressure they feel to look like supermodels and behave like vixens.
And it’s not just clothing. The sexual contact taking place would shock most adults, I would think. When the sex ring in Rockdale County here in Georgia became the focus of a major documentary a few years back, everyone was soooo shocked. Not me. Group orgies? Casual sex with strangers? Parents who claimed they either had no idea or couldn’t stop him/her? Didn’t surprise me one bit.
Corporal punishment and child abuse are two separate things. But that’s for another thread…another day.
Actually, there’s also the testimony of a police officer who was at the scene. From this link:
Shrew, once again I agree with a lot of your points, but I think perhaps another point of view might be called for on the whole ‘thong’ issue. While you seem to see thongs as ‘sexual’ underwear, others just see them as underwear. I only wear thongs because of comfort… they feel more natural, normal, and comfortable than any other type of underwear. I do understand that some girls will wear thongs for the express purpose of showing them off, but that means those girls are exhibitionists (or other things), not that thong underwear in and of itself is ‘bad’ or ’ sexual’. There is nothing ‘sexual’ about a thong, than there is about wearing no underwear, or big granny-style panties. It becomes sexual if the wearer makes a big deal about the underwear and flaunts it. The underwear (or lack of) is privateand just functional, until the wearer sexualises it. Can you see this other point of view ? I know you said the above was your opinion, I’m just sharing another opinion. What do you think ?