Disappointed that an educator would stoop to this level and in BB for gleefully reporting it. Even once they’re grown, teachers shouldn’t be judgmentally shaming children.
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By all accounts, Hermann Göring was a jovial, charming, life-of-the-party kind of guy.
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I think this is low. I’m the same age as Miller and engaged in many of the same creepy kid behaviors. I’m unconcerned about him being weird as a kid. The big difference is that he chose to be a Nazi. That’s more worrying.
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is it this guy?
http://www.springfieldpublicschoolsmo.org/pages/SPSMO/Home_Page_Items/Faces_of_SPS/Tom_Masterson
Nope. I think it was just Masters. Not a red head.
This conversation triggered a grade school memory. Remember when a kid would occasionally vomit in class and the teacher sprinkled that weird sawdust stuff on it? The smell of that stuff would then make other other kids start to gag.
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I am no fan of Trump or his administration, but I find this type of reporting pretty vile.
Reporting on the behavior of a 3rd grader is ridiculous - and is unethical; the teacher has no right to talk about her students.
This political environment has really become disgusting. How about focusing on what connects us, as opposed to what divides us? Let’s celebrate fun and wonder. The political stuff is getting tiring.
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When the world finds out I used to eat Play-Doh, I’m in big trouble!
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Paste used to be made from mostly edible things like boiled wheat flour, and it was preserved with wintergreen oil, hence the minty taste.
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I second this. I don’t care how horrifying Stephen Miller or his policymaking is: I absolutely condemn what that teacher has done.
Other points:
- I bet there are plenty of weird glue-eating kids out there who are going to grow up to become conscientious citizens, intelligent contributors to society, and just all-around wonderful people. Don’t pile on the glue eaters!!
- This kind of gutter behavior is only going to backfire politically anyway. It will contribute to Trump’s victim complex and his “angry liberal mob” hypocrisy.
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I’ve been teaching for 24 years and data privacy and bullying have both been around that long. This teacher is out of line. I’ve never taught 3rd grade, but I taught 4th graders for 15 years and can safely tell you, they do totally bizarre stuff all the time. Sometimes I’m struck speechless by the weird things kids do. Sometimes a weird kid in 4th grade becomes a brilliant, kind, insightful 8th grader.
We can stick to current actions to understand Miller.
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Thanks for sharing, sorry to hear that. I was bullied heavily too - by faculty and students - and I’m here too 
I think if you re-read my post carefully (key phrase: “some of”) you’ll see we’re in agreement.
Childhood abuse can explain bad behavior, but it doesn’t excuse it.
There’s a heavily studied angle on toxic behavior among your various young white knobs. White supremecists, the angry gamers, movement misogynists, internet trolls and the alt right. Showing that the very specific ways in which young people were bullied when young is a factor in their behavior and outlook.
At base the whole turn aout is fair play, hit them back harder, respond to bullying by being a bigger bully thing. Which is fairly universal, as filtered through that whole toxic masculinity thing. Essentially some proportion of young men who don’t fit the societal norms for masculinity in specific ways, if bullied, judged and what have. Internalize those rigid ideas of masculinity deeply. Then enact a highly exagerated, confrontational version of it. Together with the classic blame shifting you see with things of this sort. As with racists who blame problems in their own lives, or ecconomic status on minorities. Or the misogynist tendency to put blame for their percieved inadequacies or sexual short comings on women, rather than the men who enforce those norms.
You basically have the root for an awful lot of nasty trolling, and a pathway that leads a lot of vulnerable young men into these ideologies. Its also at the root for a lot of the talk about alphas and betas, chads, cucks, obsessions with purportedly supplicant foreign women, obsession and fear of giant penises etc. And if you float by where these idiots talk amongst themselves you can see the connections laid right out. They’re frequently explicitly talking about shit that happened in highschool. Refering to adolescent social dynamics. Or discussing things in really adolescent terms.
Its a fair reason a big chunk of these movements are so young (and so male), and rose with only slight connections to previous white surpremecist and ultra-conservative movements.
While the specific pathway to those groups tends to run through adolescent judgements and bullying; the more general concept has implications for acceptance of other flase beliefs especially conspiracy theories.
Its also got implications for things like the way male geeks use competative and adversarial trivia as a gate keeping tecnique. And similar dynamics in other subcultres. A lot of that in punk rock. Who’s a poser, who sold out, their first album was better. And most fandom sub cultures.
As read on the alt right its pretty specifically male. And the broader ones (conspiracy theory as recapturing worth/importance) tend to be universal. So its not surprising you didn’t go through a giant judgemental dick phase connected to being bullied as a kid. But there’s a lot out there about the specific impact on women. Its involved in how women are much more likely to accept false beliefs of specific types than men. Like alt med, extreme religious beliefs, spiritualist beliefs, guardian angles, diet nonsense. And the particular character of the ideas women accept. With bigfoot as an example. Women are far more likely to report long term interactions, sexual encounters, families of sasquatches than men.
It all gets filtered through the social dynamics we’re subjected to. But at the root of the whole thing is an attempt to feel in control and important. And a persecution complex when you don’t. So while men are often attempting to demonstrate or achieve the social dominance they feel they’re being deprived of. Women are often casting about for any sort of control or influence due to the fact that they’re actually deprived of both. And the ways in which they do so tends to conform to our preconvieved gender rolls, as at root this is about internalising those.
So if Miller was a paste eating smelly kid. And he got his ass kicked for it regularly. Well given where he’s at its likely he went through that angry pathway to fucked up beliefs. Its not neccisarily ok to point and laugh at his childhood behavior. But it can be an important thing in identifying how people end up like him. And how to prevent kids from following suit. Or how to pull people out of it.
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“I want everyone to close their eyes and for the boy or girl who ate Mr. Fluffers to raise their hand.”
Let me just put it this way; If called, I will not serve!
Xeni, if this is what passes for journalism with you, then stop pretending that you’re one. Perpetuating this sort of abhorrent attack on the actions of a 7 or 8 year old is absolutely disgusting. He may be a detestable adult, but JFC get some ethics.
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Oh, my stars! You uncultured heathen!
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Was a creepy glue-eating kid
You mean he is not anymore?
