March 01, 2005

• 'cept we didn't have camera phones. oh yeah, and we walked two miles in the snow
• I read the article: clearly the kid was being a little sh*t, but you know, that's what teens do. On the other hand, now the campus is going to ban cellphones with cameras. What's wrong with this picture (so to speak)? OK, so maybe it was wrong to allow cellphones in the first place, but banning them because someone made you look bad? Aaiiieee! Someone release the Death Cow!
• I was hoping for something a bit more, I dunno, wild, I guess. Now, if he'd *socked* that weaselly little punk right in the forehead, THAT'd be something to watch! Instead, he'll get strung up on the basis of a little chair floofery and some yelling. An ignoble career end.
• R. Lee Ermey would be proud.
• "Fair and Balanced" Coverage of this Via SuicideGirls Some images on page may be NSFW!!
• I got 4 words for you: Stupid. Fucking. White. Kids. It was shop class, right? I woulda loved to see the teacher take a circular saw to the punk.
• The article made it sound like the guy was reasonably asking for respect, but the video makes the teacher looked like a powerless frustrated asshole who just yells at kids all the time, which only makes the kids take him less seriously, which only makes him yell more... one of those positive feedback loop scenarios.
• I wonder how many people have fathers like that. I bet he's just taking to school what "works" at home.
• That's just fucking spooky. The whole standing for the national anthem in the morning thing, I mean. Do you have your children do little salutes and bless Dear Leader, too?
• Clearly the mandatory pledge of allegiance is creating better citizens every day. Don't forget the "under God" part, damnit!
• what rodgerd said. creepy.
• I personally don't agree nor disagree with the National Anthem or Pledge of Allegiance in Public Schools. For me, growing up, it was just part of the day, like attendance roll. (The Anthem in the WMV is sped up, not like the long-winded MLB or other sports venue versions) It's a measly thirty seconds out of the day, usually only done in your first period class. I wouldn't have missed it if they removed it from the curriculum, and I don't oppose it being a part of the school day. It's a non-entity. That said, I would reserve judgement of this guy unless you had the whole story. Obviously, these students were pushing this guy's buttons, and started recording when he flipped out. You don't necessarily know to what extent they were "acting out" off camera. I know little punks. Heck, I used to be one. (Which is why I so don't want children) They're cruel, vicious, self-centered, malicious cretins. (I'm just categorizing the punks here, not all teens). I've had to pull the old man routine a few times myself with the idiots in my neighborhood. I tend to side with the authority figure, until I get the whole story. If this guy just hauled off with little provocation, he's a frustrated prick. If, however, these kids were being difficult for the sake of being difficult (you know what teachers are prone to yelling and such) then they're assholes too.
• My sense of it is that the standing for the anthem or saying the pledge at school is technically optional, though in practice hard to sit out.
• It's a simple gesture of respect to the country of one's birth and from whose citizenry and constitution the privilege of not *having* to stand stems. Costs you nothing. Not so creepy. In these times, though, simple gestures of respect are, by and large, quite out of vogue.
• They've started playing the anthem daily in schools? WTF!? My kids kids would have a note everyday excusing their tardiness, because they won't be showing up until that kind of shit is over.
• PY, yeah I think that in some areas, that's how it is now, but when I was growing up.. maybe not so much? I can't really recall anyone refusing to stand or recite the pledge. It was just something you did. I guess you can say it's programming to a certain degree, but much like reciting the evening prayer doesn't necessarily make you a better christian, standing for the anthem isn't going to make you a mindless Pro-American Goverment blowhard. I must have said the pledge and stood for the anthem over 500 times in school... and I still think our government sucks...
• I never stood in school for the pledge and they never tried to make me. I will respect my country in the way I see fit. In these times, simple gestures of mindless 50s-style conformity are quite in vogue. Good for any kid who sees through the bullshit.
• Also please note the Supreme Court ruled against mandatory pledge-saying, at the height of WWII no less. Patriotism that must be reinforced by daily standing and chanting rituals is weak patriotism indeed.
• Don't really understand how observing the custom of standing for the anthem is conformity, but like I said earlier, meh... I just sincerely doubt this dumbass "happened" to decide to get all politically motivated when his teacher was on camera. My father was a substitute teacher for a short while after we moved to NYC. His first day teaching a school of punks, his kids started out like these... just harmless sullen "the world is out to get me you fuck you, you don't know me you're not my dad" bullshit, he tried to restore attention to the lesson, but once a few diehards pressed the issue and some of the other kids realized authority was out the window... next thing you know kids were throwing chairs and books out the windows... security was mysteriously nowhere to be found... so he had to "calm" the class himself... (basically breaking a baseball bat in half by repeatedly slamming it into the wall)
• I missed the chanting part - is there a second link? :) Stand or don't stand, it's your right and makes no difference to me. But like Debaser pointed out, standing or not standing is almost entirely content-free, politically speaking. One may ascribe all sorts of laudable qualities to either of these two dildoes, but the reality is we viewed several seconds of a marginally entertaining asshole contest. Neither Jefferson nor Orwell need do a grave-spin today.
• MonkeyFilter: The Finest Derails on the Internets!
• *rises, salutes flag of Cascadia*
• what drjimmy11 said. this is absurd.
• Mr.Knick: Are you serious? Even in Soviet Canuckistan they play the Canadian national anthem at the beginning of the school day. (At least in Elementary school... not sure for high school). It's not a big deal. Even if you hate current politics and the current leader and the way things are going, there's nothing wrong with standing straight for 45 seconds and taking a break to think how great your country is, overall. And I'm not saying great as in "so much better than Iraq" or anything, I'm just saying great that most people can attend school in your country, and most people have food to eat, and your country hasn't started a thermonuclear war with anyone. It's not like respecting the American anthem and saying the pledge is giving your life to BUSHITLER, it's respecting the ideals of your country. Technically, it's not mandatory, but I don't think many of the people who sit it out really understand the depth of their particular dissent. That being said, sounds like the teacher was a real douche and the kids were trying to egg him on. They weren't making a political statement.
• Rise for Der Fatherland /brownshirt
• and your country hasn't started a thermonuclear war with anyone. And thats why I'll never respect my country. Fuck rocketpacks and flying cars and cities on the moon, the one thing I've been promised since childhood was a good nuclear war. And did we get one? Did we fuck. Whats the good of all these nukes if we aren't going to use them. I've been wanting a post apocolyptic wasteland to wander around in for years now.
• So at the risk of derailing this thread even further it begs the question of weather this Kid truly understood the depth of his dissent or was he just being a punk. I think he well understood what he was doing by the fact he walked out of the class after the Teacher pulled his chair away. In addition I wonder to what degree we have created a tendency towards knee jerk dissent, by being so vocal in our opposition to “The Establishment” or whatever you want to call it. Not saying that dissent is the wrong path but has it moved beyond personal freedoms to Screw you and your rules because I’m allowed to now, and there is nothing you can do about it.
• Certainly the kids were instigating the teacher, but part of a teacher's job is to deal with fucktard high schoolers. Nobody so far has mentioned the possible consequences of the teacher pulling the chair out from under the kid who wouldn't stand. If the kid had fallen and, say, hit his head against the floor, the teacher would be out of a job and the school would have a nasty lawsuit on their hands. Regardless of how far the kids pushed him, the teacher still should have maintained enough self-control not to put his students in jeopardy.
• " this Kid truly understood the depth of his dissent or was he just being a punk" Dissent is punk. But no one has the balls be different. That's why punk is dead.
• Is there really anything here to get excited about at all? I saw a teacher being a bit ineffective, and some students being a bit jerky. Neither side's very impressive or out of line. Could be better, but a typical day at a very average seeming school.
• *hands Argh shat-upon gold record*
• I've been wanting a post apocolyptic wasteland to wander around in for years now. Dude, you come from Essex. Also, can I just say that playing the national anthem in schools, never mind the rising and the chanting, is just fucking weird. Sorry, no two ways about it. It's creepy, it's pointless, it's disturbingly obsessive. It's like you're stalking your own geographical location. It should be the Articles of War or nothing.
• Now everyone can be Frederick Wiseman!
• I'll never understand Americans. The Republicans have laid claim to Patriotism as one of "their" values, so the left have embraced anti-patriotism out of pure spite. Here in Canada (Quebec excepted, of course) you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who didn't stand proudly for our anthem, no matter what they thought of the government of the day (and our anthem has the word "God" in it!). You Americans don't seem to be able to separate your country from your leadership, and it's pretty sad to see.
• let me try to explain Americans, starting with this: Amendment I Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. I have never been fond of being forced to stand and perform rituals against my will, during Reagan, Bush Sr, Clinton or Bush Jr. administrations. It has dick to do with who's in power. Our country is all about the rights of the individual and the right to dissent. Everyone has the right to be patriotic in their own way. "Stand up when we tell you or you're a bad American" is a blatant example of un-American behavior. My country stands for freedom and not Pavlovian response to a piece of music or a rectangle of colored cloth and I am damn proud of it.
• I don't see anybody conflating those two things, rocket (with the very slight exception of middleclasstool's jokey Cascadia comment). Don't see any anti-patriotism, either. Distaste for the notion of expressing respect by rote, worry at the idea of affirming allegiance as a matter of course instead of from a genuine belief, or recollections of utter ambivalence towards an essentially mechanical activity do no anti-patriotism make. Now, the following statement - patriotism is a crude and destructive folly, conjoined twin to xenophobia, rivalled only by greed as the greatest cause of human suffering in history - that's anti-patriotic. In the theoretical, rather than the specific, sense, of course.
• You can chalk me up as an anti-patriot - the nation state is a bollocks concept that arose to centralise and consolidate the power of ruling groups in a particular historical context (or because that power was coalescing). I'm in attached to certain places, people and cultural milieux but the kind of loyalty demanded in ceremonies like this I reserve for principles and ideals.
• Forget just standing for the anthem, in Canadian elementary school we sang it every morning. In French one year too, which is why I know a bunch of rote French syllables I don't understand. "Terru de nose aieeu" It never bothered me, though I wish tha in high school we had been allowed to continue running to class, because I could have been a whole minute less late that way. I used to like the singing though - you don't often get a chance to sing in groups and it is fun. And yeah, I do love my country, and wish that will keep our land glorious (or at least not terribly disliked) and free (to marry the consenting adult of your choice, gay or straight). That said, those kids are assholes, but the teacher has also lost it. He won't regain control. I can't say what I would do exactly in that situation, having never taught that age (oh god, I love my hardworking little college kids now), but I think my approach would have been to say "I am leaving this room, and when I come back, you will all be sitting and quiet, or I will simply give you a pop quiz you have no chance of passing. Your choice - be quiet, or fail the course." That's pretty well my approach to most of these things - it is absolutely no skin off the teachers nose to fail students. It's their lives.
• It could have been anything - it just happened to be the anthem - this is a display of a teacher in a power struggle. The kids have got his number and he is doing what they want. That it happens to be kids disobeying an order to show respect for a jingoistic song that is the anthem of a nation that claims as it's greatest cornerstone the individual's right to dissent . . . well the irony shouldn't be lost.
• "I am leaving this room, and when I come back, you will all be sitting and quiet, or I will simply give you a pop quiz you have no chance of passing. Your choice - be quiet, or fail the course." Wow, way to go ballistic! In what way is that supposed to be examining them on what they've learned in that class? You do that, you've lost them for good. You have to be absolutely and scrupulously fair or the whole thing will come crashing down like a ton of bricks. In practical terms, what you are offering is an empty threat. You can't fail them all because if you do the relevant people -- departmental people, head people, parents -- are going to be swarming all over your arse and what's left of your career, because this is an absolutely *terrible* reflection on the school. And if you can't fail them in this manner, why say you can? Only one kid in the class needs to be smart enough to work out you're bluffing and your strategy's rooted.
• Back in England, in the state schools system (70's and 80s'), I had to recite the Lords frigging Prayer every assembly time (at least once a week). Of course, it was optional, but as a kid, you can't really opt out without pissing someone off who thinks your just being contrarian (just like this guy). In the States, the church is at least nominally removed from state... I always felt sorry for the two (yes two! we were multi-cultured!) Asian kids in my school who'd sit there and trot our the lords prayer with the rest of us despite obviously not being Xtian... As a foreigner over here, I've always thought the Pledging of Allegience and the National Anthem are what sets the America public apart from the British. Most Brits seem totally disenfranchised and alienated from their country (especially the English), wheres most Yanks seem to really love theirs. Of course by "most" in both places above, I mean "my general feeling is" from the people who I knew/met, rather than some statistically significant count - just my impression. I mean, if you went into your average bar in average America, and played the National Anthem, people would stand, remove their hats, place their hand on the heart and listen. If you did the same in England, you get punched in the face. That says something. Not sure what, but it says something. I for one, encourage my kids to pledge allegience. Even though they aren't American. Shit I'm in this country, enjoying its fruits, the least I (and those that are mine) can do, is show a bit of respect... course, if they dont feel the same way thats their perogative too... And another thing... Grrrr... darn kids today have their music up loud... not even music... ear rings... and whats that damn pokemon... playin video games and riding scoooters... grrrr.
• Watching the videos gave me pupil flashbacks to experiences with teachers who were cruel (and I wasn't even the object of their meanness, just an innocent, traumatized bystander). At the other end of the spectrum, I am reminded of a well-liked high school history teacher who was kind of a tough old guy type reminiscent of the one in the video. He would have rowdy students get down to the floor and give him 5 pushups (or 10 or 20). I think some of us who couldn't do pushups had extra motivation to not get on his bad side.
• Good point on the empty threat, Wolof, which would undermine it. You could put in a real threat - detention, pop quiz (which they can fail - no reason a teacher can't give a pop quiz), whatever. If it's shop class, you can say that no one gets to have any fun with the machines if they aren't orderly that day. After a few days of doing nothing for the whole period, the other students will pressure the bad ones to be good. In some situations that won't work - when they don't care about the class, or about what the other students want. In that case, you just send them out of the classroom until they are willing to behave. If they fail in the meantime, that is their own lookout. If you really have been reasonable (which this teacher may not have been), than that is all the responsibility you have to them. You aren't there to coddle them, not in highschool (needless to say, small children are different). Their right to an education also comes with the responsibility to act appropriately. You can totally be hardass, so long as you don't loose your temper (you always have to do this without raising your voice, or losing your cool), and you are straight with them. Treat them like adults, including that they have to face resposibilities like adults. There is no reason that you have to let them walk all over you. I hear so much about teachers trying to just go on around the disruption, or being told there's nothing they can do. And there are so many crap principals who don't back up their teachers. I don't know what I would do if the instructor in the course I teaching assistant ever undermined my authority the way that my friend who taught for Teach for America (terrible program) was undermined. Now, after I've shown my hardass side, I'll just say that I went to a highschool with very little discipline where we sat as we liked, called teachers by their first name, and voted on the curiculum. But maybe that's why I feel like I do - they gave us a lot of freedoms, but they came with responsibility. We never would have acted in a class the way those students did, it would just be totally disrespectful to the teacher as a person. Hell, I felt so guilty if I hadn't finished the reading (which was heavy). There probably is an element of viscious cycle here - teachers who are not firm and disciplined but bastards, students who have no respect, and that feeding back and forth.
• The teacher is out of control AND the kid is a little punk, but that version of the anthem is like blood in a shark pool. It sounds like the Hollywood Heavenly Choir all zipped up on goofballs.
• After a few days of doing nothing for the whole period A few *days*? *rolls eyes* Don't you have a syllabus to teach? Use the focus room, detention, yard duty and the threat of same. (But use this stuff only as a last resort!) Look at the dynamics of how the room is set up and change it if need be. Don't let troublemakers sit together. Put out little fires before they become big ones. Have a sense of humour. Try to enjoy yourself. And don't be an arsehole.
• No Whistling!
• I used to pledge my allegiance to the flag but I sensed it didn't believe me.
• Looks like I probably spoke (you know) too fast. Clearly the teacher was being a sh*t.
• It depends, Wolof. Of course you try all those things first. But sometimes you're coming into a situation where it's already too far gone for simple tactics. And who cares about the syllabus when the classroom is in chaos? If you have to be a hardass - note, not asshole, like the teacher on the tape, but firm - to get their attention, then you have to be. From what I saw around my not so great neighbourhood growing up, the most unruly teenage boys responded best to the really strict male social workers/counselors. A friend of mine did teach for America, and as a young untrained volunteer was parachuted into a class that makes the one on the tape look quiet. Sometimes I think if the principal had just come in and laid down the law, things could have gone much better. As it was, she didn't have support from the school on anything discipline-wise, and the classroom was chaotic; no learning could be done. I've never heard of a focus room or yard duty - what are these? Then again, detention was almost never used at my first highschool, and didn't exist at my second. We only got detention in the mornings for being late.
• I don't yell and I don't do hardass*. Just stand there and say nothing. Wait for quiet. You'll often find the vocal kids will be "shhhhed!" by the others, which is exactly the way to work it. *Note: I am hardass, but I don't do hardass, except in the most extreme circumstances. Which mostly arise because teachers fuck it up over a period of time. It would be good if scartol showed up right about now.
• In Canada, although the anthem is sung or at least stood for every morning in elementary through to high schools, it seems to be strangely understood by Canadians that politics is incidental to the nation - when I stood for the national anthem I was standing for the country - the land, the people - not for those in charge. In fact, the very singing of the anthem is a exultation of defiance, for in singing for the country, we are singing for our individuality and the propensity to change. This videoclip, of course, illustrates the very worst of humanity. The rows of desks. The anger. The unbecoming behavior. Perhaps we are already in hell?
• "Perhaps we are already in hell?" You know, I've been seriously pondering that lately.

• Here in Canada (Quebec excepted, of course) you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who didn't stand proudly for our anthem, no matter what they thought of the government of the day

  Well, rocket me ol' chum, if you're talking voluntary events, like going to spotrs events and the ilk, that's true in New Zealand, too. But force me to go somewhere by law and tell me I've got to salute and sing and generally make like the subject of a tinpot dictatorship, and I'll tell you to fuck off.
• Just stand there and say nothing. Wait for quiet. You'll often find the vocal kids will be "shhhhed!" by the others, which is exactly the way to work it. That has been the most effective approach for me as well. Works with kids from the suburbs as well as my cherished juvenile offenders.
• That's an interesting observation. I think you're right, rogerd; Anywhere people are assembled by choice the anthem seems to get a favorable response (sports event, in a bar, a parade, whatever). The kids in class because they have to be? Different. Depends on the person though. I was taught to respect the ideas the flag stood for - including the idea that anyone could dissent. I remember standing to say the pledge in school, but am all for returning it to the original form (sans "under god") both for personal reasons and because it throws off the cadence of the chant. Would I stand for the anthem piped into my classroom every morning? Probably not. I feel the same way about that as I did about rote recitation of prayers in church: growing up Catholic I realized that I could recite the Nicene creed from memory without actually thinking about it, it became a string of syllables rather than an affirmation of faith, and I used to stand there wondering how many other people in church that day were also mouthing syllables while thinking "I should get my tires rotated this week". Doing something every day makes it mean less, I think. I'm guessing these kids aren't anti-American assholes, they're just kids who are bored with a daily routine that has lost all meaning to them through endless repetition. Plus their teacher seems kind of like he has very little skill in dealing with kids other than shouting. (I'm betting $10 he doubles as a wrestling or football coach.)
• Firstly, on the national-anthems-in-school-thread, we had it here in good ol' Southern Ontario, through grade school and high school. From my perspective, it was a good way to eat up time. If I wasn't being an ass singing in French or in falsetto or something, hell, I would have had to be sitting down trying to get through another period listening to this sadist and/or clockpuncher. Second, on the video itself, it has a terrible ring of truth. Yes, the kid was being a little shit. But he's a teenager. Should hardly be a surprise. The teacher's tantrum was uncalled for, yet overly familliar. I was brought right back to that awful instinct of trying to stiffle my laughter and Be Completely Serious For A Moment. Reminded me of when we gave our grade ten religion teacher a nervous breakdown. And by 'we', I mean largely 'I'. I wound her up and up and up, then some innocent girl asked that one question too many, then BOOM! Teacher bawling her eyes out, screaming "Do I sound NORMAL to you?!?" Good times, good times... Thanks, Loki, for bringing that all flooding back. Times like these are truly what made high school bearable.
• "You can't have your pudding if you don't eat your meat!" My mother tells stories of being paddled in high school for not standing up for the National Anthem. If America is great, if the ideals espoused in the National Anthem are great, then no one should have to be forced to celebrate them. End of story. When I stand at a sporting event to the Anthem, I do it because I choose to do it. I do it because I like to celebrate America. If I was forced to do it, well, they could haul me off in fucking leg irons, because that's NOT WHAT AMERICA IS ABOUT. I don't care if the kids were purposely fucking with that tool, if he wants to be a teacher he should learn to roll with it. The best teachers are the ones that are totally nonchalant and who could, instead of screaming at their students, lead a discussion about why the National Anthem is important. As soon as you use threats or force, you've lost learning.
• I'm also Canadian. Maybe my memory is going, but I don't remember the national anthem being played every morning, not in elementary nor in high school. Otherwise I'd know the anthem better than I do now. It was certainly sung at special functions and so on, but the mornings were the time for the "messages du jour" (daily messages?) from the principal, and that was it. 'Course, this was Quebec, and you can just stop what you're about to say right there. I find the whole flap over this curious. What I saw in the video was nothing compared to what our high school teachers were like. Heck, a week without something like that happenning in class would be rare. We've had teachers throw chairs at students. Scatter everything that was on a desk to the floor. Overturn student's desks violently. Our high school principal once pushed a senior student up against the lockers and lifted him in the air by his collar while screaming at him, an inch in front of his face. We've had teachers break down in tears and leave class, and one or two of them had a complete nervous breakdown. I knew my school was bad, but there was never even a blip in the media. But we didn't have cameras, I guess. Would I be right in thinking this is getting all that attention because of the national anthem/compulsory patriotism angle? 'Cuz I'd think there's thousand times worse in other schools.
• splice: Did you salute the fleur-de-lis and a poster of Lucien Bouchard, King of Quebec? Heh, just kidding... In Ontario where I grew up they played O Canada every morning in elementary just before the announcements/les annonces (it was French-immersion). I took high school in Alberta, and I don't recall them playing O Canada, well, ever except Rememberance day. But my memory of high school is faulty. I suppressed most of it. A friend of mine says they did it in elementary, so it seems a pretty universal thing... (offer void in Quebec I suppose). However, it seems they might not be doing it anymore.
• Back when I was in primary school (in Ontario), we sang O Canada, pledged allegiance to the Queen, and said the Lord's Prayer every morning. In a public school, no less!
• Oh yeah? Well over at Pagan Preparatory, we used to invoke the spirit, sacrifice a live goat without blemish, drink its blood, and have ritual orgies with students and faculty, all before nine o' clock!
• I grew up in NYC and never said the pledge of allegiance or sang the anthem in school, so it's not a "national" thing. Different communities have different ideas about what will make their kids appreciate what they've got, yadda yadda. In my elementary school we sang "Imagine" (including the part about their being no heaven/hell etc) for our graduation song. It actually is a free country in that respect. But schools are free to encourage patriotism as well, and some do. This teacher just looked like a powerless idiot though, who couldn't control some jerky high schoolers, who were loving that their teacher had no control over them...
• When I stand at a sporting event to the Anthem, I do it because I choose to do it. I do it because I like to celebrate America. Have you ever chosen not to do it, at a well-attended sporting event? What was it like? Just genuinely curious about the reactions, if any.
• PY- Well, kinda. I've stayed seated at a Tigers game, but that may fail the "well attended" test. I don't remember why I did it, I probably had a dumb reason. But there was no reaction. Other people stood up, I didn't, then we watched the Tigers lose (not actually sure on the outcome, but I'm making a pretty educated guess).
• That`s bullshit. You go to school to learn, not to show your pariotism. That pig teacher acts more like a prison guard. The kid was right, walking out of the gulag.
• Dear MCT, Does it have to be before nine o' clock? I'm a late riser.
• Afternoons are generally generally for nipple massages and scat play, but we could maybe move something around.
• we watched the Tigers lose (not actually sure on the outcome, but I'm making a pretty educated guess js: Sad, but probably true. (sigh) Remember 1984?