A New York school has suspended a 9-year-old boy in the fourth grade for putting a “kick me” sign on the back of a classmate. The suspension was handed down for “bullying.” While I have written about the need for greater efforts against bullying, I hope that this incident is not just limited to a classic school prank.
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Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Think reality is self-evident. Neuroscientists at Stockholm’s Karolinska Institutet aren’t so sure. Seems recent testing reveals it is quite easy to convince the human mind that it’s body has three arms.
We just saw how Michigan has responded to budget shortfalls by ordering the closure of half of Detroit’s school — pushing the class size to 60 students. Now, Supt. Tom Brady has gone one better: issuing pink slips to all of the teachers in the school system in anticipation of dire budget cuts. I have previously noted the disconnect in these stories as Congress and President Obama continue to gush billions in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. An effort by Ron Paul to force a pull out of the war to save $100 billion a year was roundly rejected this week.
Continue reading “Every Teacher in Providence Given Pink Slip Due To Expected Budget Shortfalls”
We have yet another example of mindless school policies leading to an equally mindless arrest. An eleven-year-old Arvada Colorado boy was arrested for drawing an inappropriate stick figure — even though his therapist had told him to draw such pictures as a way to managing his emotions.
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Texas Tech University seems to be sending a rather curious message about its priorities. Faculty members are objecting after the administration froze faculty salaries for the entire university but then gave Texas Tech football coach Tommy Tuberville a $500,000 a year raise.
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I just saw this on Reddit and thought it was a bit of a curious sales pitch for Florida State University. I note that they do not give the same assurance of “mostly sober” for their faculty.
Continue reading “FSU: The S is For (Semi-)Sober”
Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
One hundred twelve pound Cassie Herkelman is a historic figure in Iowa high school sports. Though Iowa has allowed girls to compete against boys in wrestling for two decades, Cassie is the first to win a match in Iowa’s legendary state wrestling tourney. The problem, for some, is that she won by forfeit.
Continue reading “Religion Grapples With Sportsmanship In Iowa”
Hastings Law Professor Clark Freshman has acquired some real-life material for his next class. Narcotics police raided his home on January 11th in the belief that he had an illegal marijuana growing operation. They found only a rather ticked off law professor.
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There is a rather considerable controversy over academic freedom out of Widener School of Law where professor Lawrence Connell has been suspended after using Dean Linda Ammons in hypotheticals in class. Two students filed complaints alleging that his use of Ammons (who is black) was violent, racist and sexist. The school is demanding that he retract the statements.
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After just posting the story of a tenth-grade student suspended for a posting on Facebook, this story appeared of yet another teacher suspended for her own postings on a blog. Natalie Munroe taught at the Central Bucks East High School near Philadelphia as an English teacher — until students discovered a comment on a February 8th blog.
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We have yet another case of a student being punished for remarks made on Facebook. Tenth-grader Donny Tobolski described one of his teachers as a “fat ass who should stop eating fast food, and is a douche bag.” He was promptly suspended.
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China is being accused of pulling the “Beauty of Xiaohe” over concerns that the remarkably well-preserved 4,000-year-old mummy because she is too Western looking. People who have seen the mummy have noted that she looks remarkably Caucasian — a problem for Chinese officials who have long denounced theories that that China’s Tarim Basin, in Xinjiang province, was actually settled by Europeans.
Continue reading “Whose Your Mummy? China Reportedly Pulls Mummy Due To European Features”
The Bombay High Court has declared astrology to be a science, so that guy who does your horoscope is really a scientist when he writes “today you will face challenges that could offer great rewards or penalties.”
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Minot State University professor emeritus Eric Clausen has filed his second federal complaint alleging that he was retaliated against by the National Geographic Society after he complained that the contest discriminated against girls because virtually no girls have won the national title.
Spotsylvania High School student Andrew Mikel II, 14, is the latest kid to be swept up in the zero tolerance/zero logic campaign against toy guns in school. (For earlier stories, click here and here and here). Mikel was expelled and criminally charged after he used a pen casing (the tube of preference for spitballers) to spit plastic pellets at other students at lunch. He was charged with use of a “weapon” in school. The Spotsylvania Knights may carry a lance
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