If you’re joking, and it’s accurately perceived as a joke, then you’re not really harassing, threatening, or intimidating, so your rejoinder wouldn’t be possible. But that’s not even an issue because unless the student was the source of the anonymous rumor (which would make an interesting plot twist that would flip the scenario on its head), he wasn’t the source of the issue. The rumor could have been something else like “Did [student] really murder Jimmy Hoffa?” Jokingly confirming that doesn’t start a murder investigation.
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Simple question: Is that even close to what happened?
Yes. Discipline in schools is a conundrum. Good thing he wasn’t in school.
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No, in this case the administration actually backed the teacher. Overzealously and unfairly, obviously.
But that’s not immediately relevant to my objection to your comment. I was responding to this:
Yes, teachers are powerless when it comes to students and students have all the advantages and rights in a school setting.
In which you implied that teachers have a great deal of power over students in a school setting. Which, in my experience, is simply false. Do you have anything to say about that?
Edit: Or, if you insist, we can talk about what happened here. Do you really think it’s reasonable for the student to imply that the teacher engaged in an inappropriate relationship with the student given the potential consequences for the teacher disregarding for a moment the actual outcome? We can talk about the ethics of the student’s actions without reference to the actual consequences, which are obviously contingent on more than the rightness or wrongness of those actions.
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On one hand, I applaud the school for standing behind the teacher in this case, rather than automatically assume improper conduct and destroy the teacher’s career instantly (as has happened to people I know under similar circumstances).
On the other, local law enforcement is overstepping wildly.
I feel like this is a case where to know the student personally is to want him kicked out of school.
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Yeah, not to judge a person by the twitter-cover, but he did use his obviously questionable judgement to chose both of these images…
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Heaven forbid we consider the possibility that the school administration and local law enforcement acted like shitheads and that the student also acted like a shithead. If we admit that the student also acted like a shithead, then it’s like we don’t have as much license to be mad about overreach by the school and police department.
And obviously the teacher is in cahoots with those nasty authority figures so we should probably just ignore her interests entirely, or at most sarcastically dismiss them as unimportant.
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Quality dadding, that. Kudos to him.
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So this student was not subjected to the power that the school system demonstrated? What is that? Nothing? It’s different in different jurisdictions, but it’s not like students aren’t suspended or arrested on a regular basis.
I think it’s reasonable for a student to say stupid shit not calculated to be believed, that no one with half a brain believes, and walk away scot-free. I think it’s reasonable for schools to limit discipline to what happens in schools. I think it’s reasonable that a criteria for defamation is the preponderance of evidence that it has caused harm. It’s not like he made a formal complaint, or like there was any remote intention or possibility to create career havoc.
Heaven forbid we hold one set of parties to a higher standard.
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Actually, if anything, it sounds more like a civil litigation matter between the teacher and the student as the student may have defamed the teacher with his potentially libelous tweet.
At this point, she would have to disprove the validity of his statement. Proving that she did not “make out” with him. I am actually surprised that the parents didn’t just move to have the teacher charged with interfering with a minor and statutory rape. As, if the student’s tweet was accurate then she was guilty and should be on suspension and facing criminal charges.
Just saying… It cut both ways.
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I’m sorry, but the student didn’t trash the teacher’s rep by saying “Actually yes.” the teacher trashed their own rep by ACTUALLY MAKING OUT WITH THE STUDENT!
Sheesh. ADULT…CHILD…who is the mature responsible one here?!
My kid’s school has a code of conduct that parents and the kids have to sign at the beginning of the school year. The option for your cell phone example is left to the discretion of the teacher, but generally results in confiscation of the phone until the end of the school day, and communication with the parents about the breach of the code. The first time. Things can escalate from there, but it generally takes quite a bit for a kid to actually get expelled from our school system.
As a parent, what troubles me about this case is that the student tweeted his two words outside of school, outside school hours, not sent through the school’s network, from the child’s own device. Petty childish crap of this sort should never involve the police, especially not the county prosecutor’s office. Hennepin County, where the City of Minneapolis can be found, has far more important things to do with the people’s time and money.
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you bring up an excellent point. at the time i was thinking in terms of the student being a smartass and balancing his right to be one with the teacher’s right to not be defamed. i didn’t even think about the ramifications of his story taken as a statutory sexual assault narrative. certainly the administration’s approach is poorly designed for eliciting useable information about that either.
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Is the teacher identical to the school system? What was I responding to again?
Yes, **teachers** are powerless when it comes to students and students have all the advantages and rights in a school setting.
And it’s never, ever justified.
I obviously don’t agree this is a fair characterization of the situation, so you’re just begging the question here.
Completely agree, and never argued otherwise.
Again, disagree and you’re just begging the question.
Intention, no, but I’m sure you know the idiom about intentions.
What exactly did the teacher do wrong again?
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They could have just talked to him; this is more just an example of how the recent trend towards extreme escalation and zero tolerance is idiotic, and how bringing the pigs in usually just makes everything worse.
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it is not clear from the above synopsis whether the posting was reflective of reality or whether it was the student trying to be a smartass. i just got through responding to @parachihuahua’s suggestion of that possibility and i stand by my response: the administration is not taking a helpful approach for uncovering the truth.
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Seen from the outside US schools seem very strange places. I have three children who have all been through the Norwegian school system and I have never heard of anything even remotely similar to this story. It seems as if US schools and the police have absolutely no sense of proportion, and that the students have no respect for anyone. I don’t mean that Norwegian teenagers are angels but that everyone here seems a little better at not blowing things out of proportion, more likely to negotiate than escalate.
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Agree entirely. I think my previous comments have made it clear that I think the school administration and police department were very much in the wrong here.
Which of course has no bearing on the ethics of the student’s actions in the first place.
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First let me say this: I don’t think the response here is entirely reasonable.
Still, it gets complicated quickly. The student made the comment outside of school on their own device and own network- so no school jurisdiction there. The teacher could go after defamation against the student on their own (though I’ve honestly never heard of that being done…), but the student and teacher will in all likely hood have to interact during a school day, which is (I should think for obvious reasons) not a great thing. And then the school admin has to get involved and and and.
It’s hard because there really isn’t that much in-between in punishment available here. If the teacher does nothing, that could (easily) be their career gone. And the only “proper” option she has is via law enforcement (and that’s not going to go well…). My suspicion is that the school district was trying to create/use some in-between option that doesn’t really exist and got called on it. They’ve then fallen trap to the “double down” policy.
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That’s the real problem, the perception that if you don’t psychotically burn down your accuser then you must be guilty.
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Yeah.
The kid thinks he’s joking (and whatever), but the reality is he’s playing with fire around somebody’s livelihood. He’s a kid, so you don’t really want to come after him with the wrath of a lawsuit, but the teacher likely has student loans from, you know, becoming a teacher. And those have GOT to get paid.
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