August 16, 2008

• This will not end well.
• What could possibly go wrong?
• The solution to your gun problem is obviously more guns.
• Exterminate the brutes!
• So is this little town in a deserted area of northwest Texas a hotbed of Crips, Bloods, and Rolling 40s?
• Nah, they just like shooting kids.
• The bear hugs the kettle.
• But the Crips and Bloods haven't really been the problem with guns in schools -- they're smart enough to handle their beef outside the classroom. It's the pissed-off suburban white kids you have to watch.
• Y'know, I don't get Texas.
• Texas has a powerful influence on the textboox your kids use in public schools. As Texas goes, so goes the nation. Yup, we need more guns. Only solution. Not more education. Just more guns. Viva La Revolución!
• Hello, boys and girls, my name is Mr. Dog, I'll be your substitute teacher today, and I'm packin' heat.
• TUM, I've lived in Houston since 1992 and I don't get Texas, either. Although I will say this: they don't read. Anything - books, newspapers, web pages, menus, instructions, road signs, emails, captions, magazines, whatever. The state motto should be "Ignorance is bliss". So that probably explains a lot of it. However, the lack of literacy does mean you can put inflammatory things on bumper stickers and no one will shoot at you.
• well, at least now teachers will have something to do with the apples the children bring them: "Sally, stand really still now..."
• The bear hugs the kettle. I wondered if teachers ever went berserk . Though most of them seem so nice and quiet, that might be the sign of a simmering kettle. The bear hugging the kettle might work best then if the bear stands waiting in a closet just before class. Makes sense to me for dealing with these berserkers. Is that what you had in mind, Hank?
• No, at least I don't think so. What I had in mind is that the point of the parable of the bear hugging the kettle is that the kettle is causing the bear pain, but it hugs the kettle tighter because that is the only thing the bear knows to do with something that's hurting it, do the bear hug. Only when the bear lets go the hot kettle does the pain stop. Getting more guns, loading up on weapons and arming everyone is hugging the kettle. But America has always embraced the things which are destroying it.
• For total maximum classroom safety - let the kids pack too. As an added bonus, recess would become a "herd-thinning" event.
• My first response when I read this yesterday was "what idiots"... but, after a day of thinking about it, and considering my own experiences, I might have a different opinion. Over the years I've taken 4 handguns away from students (I can't even remember how many knives I've confiscated). The last incident was just last year, when I happened to pick up a small shoe bag in our gym that had been left behind. The minute I picked it up I know something was amiss, it was just too heavy. I felt the bag and there was no doubt what was in it. There happened to be a Juvenile Court officer in my building at the moment (I run a small alternative education program, about 40% of my kids are court involved, probation officers stop by frequently to check on attendance). I grabbed Bill, said "come to the office with me", we went in, I dumped the bag out on the desk.. A vintage .45. Police were called, they arrived about 15 minutes later, checked the gun to find it was fully loaded. I was lucky in that I found that gun before anything happened, but, more than once since then, I've contemplated what could have happened in that situation. The district in Texas has said that "For employees to carry a pistol, they must have a Texas license to carry a concealed handgun; must be authorized to carry by the district; must receive training in crisis management and hostile situations; and must ammunition designed to minimize the risk of ricocheting bullets", so it sounds like they are at least thinking about the problems involved. I'll not say that these qualifiers solve all the issues, but they are a start. Another consideration here is that this is a very, very small district, and, as mentioned in the article, 30 minutes from the nearest law enforcement. They don't have a police liaison officer in the building, they are essentially on their own were there to be a situation. It's easy to make fun of Texas (what with Bush and all), I lived there for a couple of years while I was in the service and concede that it is a bit of a strange place, but this may not be as bad of an idea as it first appears... When the lives and safety of children are your responsibility, the course as to how to fulfill that is not always clear...
• First thing we do, lets kill all the parents. With apologies to Willie. But of course, we all know that's where it starts - parents who raise kids to think that playing with guns is an acceptable thing to do.
• Another Houstonian here. Texans seem to have a special relationship with their guns. The response to the Luby's massacre, 10 years ago, where 21 (?) people were killed, was that there were not enough guns there. Recently, the state land commissioner blocked the sale of the Christmas Mountains to the National Parks system because federal law bans guns in national parks. Priorities. When my house was broken into some years ago, while my wife was home and sleeping, the policeman told her that he was surprised that he, the burglar, had not yet been shot for this type of foolishness.
• Awakening one night in Dallas, inadvertendly I said "Wait a minute," to the dudes scoping out my front room with pencil beam flashlights (torches, if you will). I do believe they thought I was asking them to wait while I went to get my GUN, instead of what I had actually meant: wait until get my pants on. They both ran out the screen door they'd sprung. So the *subliminal* inadvertent threat of going to get a gun might well be enough also in a school context. I'll admit it is a tough call though.
• Well I just hope individual Nations get some guns - then there won't be so much damn war in this crazy ol' world.
• Wait...there's a bear?
• I know that I wouldn't be able to concentrate on my teaching if, in the back of my mind, I knew I might be called upon to use lethal force against one of my students. Have armed security guards in the school if you feel you need them, but turning Mr. Chips into Dirty Harry just doesn't seem like anything close to a solution.
• Students aren't criminals and teachers aren't the police.
• Since parents routinely give me hell for giving their children too much homework on a night when I know DAMN WELL that they have a dance recital, I can only imagine their displeasure when I have to call and tell them that I have shot their daughter in the chest. This is my only objection. Indeed, I think if I showed up in class with a shoulder-holstered beretta, my coolness factor would increase tenfold.
• You people are such shit-wet infants. "Ooooh! Guns scare me, baby wants a bullet-proof diaper!" All I know is that if I knew at the time that Ms. Finnigan, my ancient and brow-furrowed 6th grade music teacher, was packing heat when she curled her thin, creaking spine around the out-of-tune piano to painfully describe the aeolian mode in her arthritic staccato for yet another disinterested class, I would have given the old harpy a lot more respect than she got - the bitter, hateful shrew.
• You don't have to shoot her in the chest, Ralph. You could just graze her. Incapacitate while leaving her writing-hand unaffected.
• Two in the head, one in the chest!! How many times? It's the only way to be sure!
• Ms Finnigan gets a bad rap. She introduced me to mixolydian mode, and god she was unbelievable.
• I used to remember Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian and Aeolian by saying, "I opened the door to the fridge, took the lid off the dish, and mixed up the aglio e olio."
• Hmmm, I smell a trend...just how many monkeys are teachers?
• *Raises hand* This is my second year working as a Para-Ed for behaviorally challenged kids. I've never wanted to shoot them, but pistol whipping sounds intriguing.
• I am certified to teach high school English in two states, but non-practicing.
• Trained as a teacher, but didn't get certified (long story).
• The idea of becoming a teacher is my idea of hell. I mean, that is what satan will have me doing for eternity, because I can't think of anything worse. I'd even prefer to be a christian priest.
• -- I hasten to add, that's because of my own hellish time at school, not because I think people who are teachers are cunts or anything. Although a lot of them are. Except you. /points at YOU
• One thing you can say about teachers is, at least they're not guidance counselors.
• True. True.
• Well, TUM, talk about damning with faint praise...
• i decided to avoid being a teacher after i student taught- i spent my whole time fighting the administration trying to do what was right for my students, while the admin was more interested in covering its ass. that was not a battle i wanted to fight for the rest of my life, so i got the hell out and into design, instead.
• Monkeyfilter: at least they're not guidance counselors.
• I find that in teaching, I am doing something for the benefit of someone(s) other than myself. Of all of the many ways that life has re-invented me, this is the first incarnation that hasn't proved to be, in the end, wholly selfish, self-serving, and corrupting. It feels okay and sometimes excellent to be in this new mode. So, there.
• Monkeyfilter: It feels okay and sometimes excellent
• to be perfectly honest, at this point in my life, I'd love to get back into teaching, but it's no longer an option for me. I have a lot of respect for teachers who careand the tightrope they walk.
• care ][ and
• Me, too, EEQ.