For teachers, there is nothing more sacred than the space of a classroom. While the sanctuary of rooms are sometimes shattered by violence, it remains thankfully rare. That makes the video this week particularly disturbing as physics teacher at John F. Kennedy High School in Paterson, New Jersey is attacked by one of his students. The other students do not come to the aid of the 62-year-old physics teacher as he is thrown to the ground by a sixteen-year-old student, though one student eventually comes over to tell the attacker to break off the attack. The teacher had taken the teenager’s cellphone.
The student has been charged with assault and the case seems pretty clear from the videotape. The question is whether the teenager will be charged as an adult, which is likely given his age and the violent character of the alleged crime. While New Jersey juvenile courts have exclusive authority over all criminal defendants under the age of 18, prosecutors are allowed to petition for the transfer of minors over the age of 14 who are accused of certain violent offenses.
Here is the video:
Paul, I have a hand surgeon (carpal tunnel from keyboarding) I asked about texting and he said their thumbs are going to be agonizing in later years. I don’t text often, but use a stylus.
After graduating from college, lots of students take classes on Manners. After college? Perhaps there should be behavior programs from 1st grade on? Kids have a tendency to tell you things from school because they don’t know you know them.
Like learning to drive. We took that in HS. I have no idea how they worked it out. We didn’t spend weeks on it. But a weekly portion of a class learning manners would probably help them. And they teach parents.
I’m not buying cell phones can be used to read books, etc. Read a book on a cell phone? Maybe you’re thinking IPad, which you can read books on.
I wonder if police took a good look at the phone’s history. Kids that desparate to need that phone during class would make me suspicious. Cell phones are used for drug buys, etc.
So small laptops or IPads could be used in a classroom environment, but I still think students should not have phones. Teachers should have one in a drawer. The excuses for the need of a phone make me wonder how I survived without phones all through school.
Sandi Hemming wrote: “I’m not buying cell phones can be used to read books, etc. Read a book on a cell phone? Maybe you’re thinking IPad, which you can read books on.”
I do it on my iPhone all the time. There is a kindle app for my kindle library too. It automatically syncs my place in the book, so I can easily switch from reading on a computer, tablet, or cellphone whenever I want. I can be reading on my tablet, go over to McDonald’s, pull out my phone, and continue reading while waiting in line. And audio books work great on it too.
Sandi Hemming wrote: “The excuses for the need of a phone make me wonder how I survived without phones all through school.”
Well, I have had five children in school. Cellphones are great for orchestrating pickups for after school activities like orchestra practice, band practice, volleyball practice, basketball practice, etc. This is ESPECIALLY true when they attend different schools far apart and you can’t be in two or three places at exactly the same time. They may not be absolutely necessary, but they make life much more convenient. If I’m running five or ten minutes late because of unforeseen circumstances, making that text to your child to inform them is very helpful.
BS-
“You keep trying to perceive that the 2 people involved are peers genius they are not.”
Whether the two are peers or not is irrelevant. It’s not like a teacher has the right to spit in a child’s face because the child isn’t his peer, or because the child disobeyed the teacher.
But back to your perception that only one person can be at fault in a dispute, let’s apply that to another situation.
Say a gangbanger decides to shoot up the neighborhood of a rival gang. So he hops in his hoopty, knocks back a couple 40’s of high gravity and then drives over to enemy territory with his AK and starts spraying houses indiscriminately.
The next day, the rival gang discovers the name of their enemy that shot up their neighborhood, so they load up their suitcase bomb full of weaponized ebola and head out to get revenge. They eventually arrive on their enemy’s turf and plant their wmd in a day care center. It detonates a few minutes later, resulting in a few hundred thousand people dying of ebola.
So applying your BS morality to the scenario- only the gangbanger that shot up the neighborhood initially is at fault. We’d like to find fault with the latter, but unfortunately the first party has already used up all the blame. Try as we might, we just can’t discover a loophole that would only make the first gangbanger 99% or less, wrong. His actions were 100% wrong and that’s all there is to it. There’s just no more blame to spare for the second party. Accordingly, they are completely innocent of wrongdoing.
Does that sound really stupid? Multiply that by five and you’ll know how I feel when I read your posts.
ANA- “This looks to me like a case of both the teacher and the student going overboard.” Let me reiterate you have the mind of a child. You can not comprehend that there is an order to things. Like a child will try and say you are not the Boss of me. Well you can think that but the Boss is the Boss is The Boss. The Boss on your job is the Boss and 100% right you are not. The Teacher is the classroom Boss and 100% right you are not. Your parents are the Boss of their children an 100% right the child is not.
You keep trying to perceive that the 2 people involved are peers genius they are not.
BS – unlike the captain of a British man-of-war during the early 19th century, the teacher is not always right. And the teacher is not always the Boss. A lot depends on the school administration.
BS-
” KID is in NO WAY correct to ATTACK another person. ”
So, I’ve stated that the kid was in the wrong like five times now and you still can’t grasp it. You must be Olly.
“There is no 50/50 wrong KID is 100% in the WRONG.”
Life isn’t a zero sum game, genius. Two people can both be 100% wrong at the same time.
Let me reiterate- arguing with you is like arguing with a child. You’re incapable of reason. I can apparently repeat simple facts an infinite number of times and you still can’t understand what I’m saying. If I were that incapable of rational thought, I’d go see a doctor.
ANA- You keep missing the point of KID vs ADULT. KID can gripe KID can go to principal KID is in NO WAY correct to ATTACK another person. There is no 50/50 wrong KID is 100% in the WRONG. When you grow up and have a family and kids please come back and tells us the you took your kids Xbox away and he PUNCHED YOU IN THE MOUTH and how correct he was for doing so. Or if there is a “put the god of your choice in here” you join the military and try and tell your drill instructor that he is somehow to fault for any punishment he gives you. After the surgery to remove his boot from your A$$ tell us how that worked out for you. In everything we do there is a authority structure. People just cant just run wild you are out of your mind.
I am assuming the kid was kicked out of school for a period of time. Or, spend two hours every day after class in a study room until the grades are improved
Schools operate in fear. All parents should be required to sign a document that any phone found inside school building will be confiscated. If you can get away with it, hold them until end of the school year.
This is our world. It’s the way it works now. In teenage defense, I spent a lot of time on the phone as a teen, but at home. The cell phones are a great time saver. I have one, but it’s turned off when with others.
If you have teenagers you spend your day taking them to school, picking them up, taking them to practice soccer, pick them up. I would be exhausted! Then husband calls and asks you to pick up something for him. So, off you go.
When they get the phone, there should be rules, like thanking people, table manners, etc. follow rules or no phone. Except the parents are always on the phone. It’s social time. Go to the market, call a friend, chat and shop. We don’t have time to stop at a friend’s house to chat over a cup of coffee.
Sadly, if that student felt empowered to attack the teacher, his father (or brother, or mother’s boyfriend) will have no problem attacking the teacher. And no problem getting violent if kid is charged.
Sandi Hemming wrote: “I am assuming the kid was kicked out of school for a period of time.”
The police went to the student’s home and arrested him. Charged him with assault.
Students need to be taught respect, etiquette, manners, etc. I support the use of cellphones in schools 100%. Many schools are afraid of cellphone technology and tend to ban them as being a disruption. The same attitude was taken against calculators back in the 1960’s. They were afraid students would not learn if they were allowed to use calculators, so they banned them. Now schools require calculators be purchased for their students.
With a cellphone, all textbooks could be downloaded and stored on the phone for reading. Textbooks are much better read on a cellphone or tablet. Instant access is available to a dictionary to give full meanings of words. Notes can be added while reading and later searched. The entire text of the textbook is searchable. In many cases, textbooks can be read to the students by the very author who wrote the book. So instead of listening to mind rotting music, the student can be listening to a textbook being read to him right off his cellphone. Schools need to embrace this technology fully and implement it in its educational goals. Tests can be given on the cellphone, and graded tests can be retrieved on the cellphone immediately after they are graded. The technology is here. The resistance are from educators who are afraid of technology and want to do things the way they have always been done. The simplest answer to them is to take the phones.
So allow the phones, but teach respect and manners in regards to the phone. Teach them not to be on their phones when in the company of others. This simple manner should apply to more than just the classroom. The classroom provides a means to teach this kind of etiquette.
david – your idealism regarding students and cellphones is endearing. If something can be abused students will find a way. They are like prisoners working against the guards. They txt test answers to their friends, chat with each other, etc. However, since none of them has a watch, they do need them to tell time.
Paul C. Schulte wrote: “If something can be abused students will find a way.”
My children confirm what you say here 100%. Many times they have told me its nuts, it will never work, students text all the time in class. Although there were no cell phones invented when I attended school, it still seems to me that there must be a way to teach children in a formal way the proper etiquette to engage when in company. Maybe they need an entire class on manners and focus on technology and cell phones in addition to why it is good to respect elders, respect those in authority, etc. The technology is new, and I think we just have not responded well enough to the need to teach self imposed manners. At work, I find it easy enough to ignore text messages until an appropriate time. Surely they can be taught to do the same.
david – there are some schools who are requiring their students to learn manners, including table manners.
BTW, kids don’t call each other anymore, they just txt each other. It is bad taste to actually call someone.
paul-
“Anarchist 2.0 – once he is in the wrestling match there is no backing down.”
That’s pride talking. It’s not a prison yard, it’s a school room. What you keep ignoring is that he has the ability to boot the kid from class whenever he feels like it. He didn’t need to keep the phone to retain his authority. He was doing what a lot of people would do naturally in that situation, but it just wasn’t the right course of action for a class room.
Paul–
“there is no way he should have backed down once he had the phone.”
We disagree. Risking injury to himself and his students exhibited poor judgment. If he would given the kid his phone back but made him leave the classroom, he would have maintained his authority and prevented the disruption to his class.
You’re advocating physical violence in the classroom if you think it helps the teacher maintain his authority, and I disagree. I believe a teacher has a duty to prevent physical violence, particularly when doing so is as simple as not engaging in a wrestling match with students over trivial issues.
BS-
“Anarchist you must be more gooder and smarter than the rest of us.”
Who’s “Us”? YOU lack reasoning capacity, don’t try to drag everyone else down with you. Don’t assume that everyone else here has below average reasoning ability just because you do.
“This part seems to escape you and your mental giantness. Its the Teachers class. He took the phone for a reason. ”
No, that didn’t escape my notice. Once again, your limited capacity for reason is preventing you a rational understanding of my comments necessary to form a valid response. Talking to you is like arguing with a child. If you were capable of adult thought, you’d notice that my complaint against the teacher is that, since it was his class, he has the responsibility of not allowing confrontations to degrade to physical violence, especially when he can easily maintain his authority and prevent violence, as he could have done here.
” Attacking someone is NEVER…an option unless you are protecting yourself.”
And, since I’ve clearly stated that the teen was in the wrong for his behavior more than once, I’m wondering how many times people usually have to tell you something before you finally understand it. Why don’t you just print up my comment and then read it as many times as it takes to finally understand it? Now all you’re doing is wasting my time.
Anarchist 2.0 – once he is in the wrestling match there is no backing down. All decisions had to be made before he took the phone. In for a penny, in for a pound.
I remember reading that the teacher took the phone from another student who was using the phone. Then the student who owned the phone attacked the teacher to get it back.
” Anarchist lets look at my view”
Let’s not. It’s too simplistic to merit a second evaluation. Rather, let’s examine why you’re scared to present that view under your usual name. Why is that?
” Do you see something different than I? ”
You can’t even describe the incident without reducing it to your subjective opinion. If you can’t even describe a situation honestly, what makes you think you can arrive at an honest evaluation?
Here’s what I see-a student assaulting a teacher in an attempt to forcibly retrieve a cell phone that the teacher is holding in his hand and refusing to let go.
” So its not what im thinking its what im SEEING.”
That actually isn’t the case at all. You just described your opinion of what you saw, not what you actually saw. You’re incapable of differentiating reality from your opinion of reality. Do you see how I was able to describe the video objectively without coloring it with my personal opinion? That’s the reason why my perspective is valid and yours is nonsense. You ought to practice doing that and maybe, if you keep at it, you’ll eventually learn how to form a valid opinion.
But let’s move on to another facet of your cognitive dissonance that accounts for a dog barking at a passing car having more credibility than you-.
” The lady at the WAWA just short changed me money do I say excuse me you owe me a quarter or should I grapple with her and slam her on the floor.”
In my comment, I presented the opinion that both the student and the teacher were in the wrong, and yet you’re incapable of understanding that. Why is that? I stated that opinion so clearly that it’s puzzling how an adult of average intelligence could screw it up, yet you managed.
Just because the student is wrong, doesn’t mean the teacher is right. At any point during that scuffle, the teacher could have let the student have the cell phone and ended the physical confrontation, but he cling to it for dear life despite the disruption caused to his class and the potential for injury to himself and his students that the altercation caused. He was more3 concerned with exerting his authority that maintaining the safety of himself and his students. He should have let go of the phone and then told the student to leave before any physical altercation began.
Anarchist 2.0 – although I think the teacher was wrong in the way he handled it to begin with and the student was wrong to attack him, there is no way he should have backed down once he had the phone. Had he given the phone back he would have lost classroom control forever.
LOL Anarchist lets look at my view. I see an animal attacking and then throwing on the ground a 62 year old man because he took away his toy. So its not what im thinking its what im SEEING. Do you see something different than I? The lady at the WAWA just short changed me money do I say excuse me you owe me a quarter or should I grapple with her and slam her on the floor. What Would Anarchist Do so I did what WWAD thinks normal people should do and jumped over the counter and threw her on the floor. That really is a small child’s mind set.
Dude you are so obviously a Moby that It is not worth talking about. I am sure the professor has better things to do than to police nonsense.
-york
I’m guessing you’re not a psychologist. The BS guy was obviously one of you conservatives saying what he really thinks, but doing so under a pseudonym because he understands how repulsive his views really are. Typical of the type, he’s willing to rant but too cowardly to own it.
And you, my friend, also displaying traits typical of your type, are incapable of considering an opinion that differs from your, so you assign a sinister ulterior motive because then it’s not your lack of rationality that makes you incapable of reason, it’s just that someone is “trolling” and therefor you have no need to consider an opposing opinion. An adult with a child’s mind. So sad
Anarchist 2.0 – you appear to be the pot calling the kettle black.
And not the same person.
I think it is Andrew Sullivan. Now that he retired he can’t spend all his time playing “Poop Shoots and Ladders” with the neighborhood kids.
You are superb @ that type analysis, my friend. You may be correct. Trolls gotta troll.
Seriously Nick?
They are the same guy.
LOL! The comment prior to mine was the Yang to the Anarchist’s Ying. Perfect.
This kid is an animal. The “innocent” kid in Furgeson was an animal. People keep wanting to play the race card on incidences like this. Poor black kid being oppressed by a white man. There is a reason kids like this get shot and the prisons are full. He was brought up to be an animal.