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Classroom Craziness

Should these teachers be fired?

  • Yes. They should have known better.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No, but they should be reprimanded somehow.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No. They meant no harm.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No. I bet the publicity is punishment enough.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    0
  • Poll closed .
Emperor said:
Spears said Houston slapped a student and told his class he was God.

I'm all in favour of this kind of discipline in the classroom. Let the little bastards know who's in charge.
 
Boffin channels god, scares students

Hi

source:
---------------


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/15/boffin_god_911/
By Ashlee Vance in Chicago
Published Friday 15th October 2004 18:02 GMT

quote:
----------------------------------

Boffin channels god, scares students

A physics professor at a Louisiana university has been suspended and is being held for evaluation after allegedly flying into a fit of rage in front of his
students.

Louis Houston, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette boffin, apparently let his emotions get the best of him during a Wednesday class. The professor is said to have slapped one student before claiming he was a god.



"Then he told us if we got out of our seats he's gonna kill us," student Kacie
Spears told KATC-TV. "He went on the black board and wrote "911 now," so we were really in fear for our lives."

The students patiently waited for class to end and then called campus security
about the incident. Houston was later taken to an in-patient treatment facility
for a mental health check and suspended by the university. Students have complained about Houston's rants in the past, but the professor passed medical evaluations.

One student has filed charges against Houston, who faces one count of
terrorizing and a count of battery. His bond has been set at $50,000.

It should be noted that the University's theme for this year's homecoming is
"Feel the Rage!".

----------------------
endquote

Mal F
 
Italian teens flood Milan school

Four Italian teenagers have confessed to taking extreme measures to avoid sitting an ancient Greek exam.

The three girls and a boy blocked drains and turned on taps in a bathroom of one of Milan's most famous schools.

They left the taps running over the weekend, and the ensuing flood caused an estimated 500,000 euros (0,000) of damage.

The school's headmaster, Carlo Arrigo Pedretti, said he was shocked when he received a letter admitting the prank.

"I am stunned, I cannot believe it," he said.

"These teenagers have no idea of the consequence of their actions."

The four were being questioned by police on Thursday and risk being charged with vandalism, breaking and entering and disrupting a public service.

The Parini school is one of the oldest state educational institutions in the northern Italian city.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/3764926.stm
Published: 2004/10/21 21:57:07 GMT

© BBC MMIV
 
chatsubo said:
The kids in Peterborough can't be too smart if they think one nuke is going to cause the end of the world.
Still, there's a small part of me that felt a bit cheated over the fact that Peterborough wasn't under nuclear attack.

In Bretton - they might not be, its one of the parts that was built mostly for the London overflow people, cheap houses and lots of them etc.
Its where I work actually.
So, im kind of glad that we werent under attack.

(ive just realised that that post was 2 years ago!)
 
Parents: Teacher Made Kids Smell Urine

Oct 22, 5:20 PM (ET)

FAIRDALE, W.Va. (AP) - A group of parents has accused a teacher at Fairdale Elementary School of forcing their sons to go into the classroom bathroom and take deep breaths because there was urine on and around the toilet. "She wanted them to see how bad it smelled," said parent Shelley Howerton.

Howerton and other parents claim the unidentified teacher violated the boys' rights. Ten parents and three children, including Howerton and her son Atrayo, protested outside the school on Thursday.

"This made me sick," said parent Jamie Harvey.

Atrayo said he was embarrassed by the alleged incident.

School officials said the parents' allegation is being investigated.

"We're going to do what's best for these young children," said Miller Hall, Raleigh County director of pupil services. "This is an issue we are going to investigate, but right now it's all hearsay."

"Some kids have said it didn't happen. ... We have to get evidence, talk to witnesses and follow due process. Then we have to look at the policy, and if there was any wrongdoing, we will deal with it accordingly. ... But (the teacher is) innocent until proven guilty."

---

Information from: The Register-Herald, http://www.register-herald.com

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20041022/D85SNJ9G1.html
 
Teachers humiliated by flirtatious students

Predatory students who use flirting to intimidate and bully teachers have become such a common problem in classrooms that staff need professional advice throughout their careers on how to tackle the situation, according to a new book.

Extra training, including role playing on how to deal with students who genuinely believe they are in love, is also needed to help teachers avoid malicious and false allegations of sexual abuse.
 
Not a problem that :goof: will ever have to face.
 
Caroline,
a. you are completely right
b. why do you have an animated representation of :goof: as your avatar?????????

:rofl:

I have located further pics of The World's Ugliest Teacher and may have to publish them, possibly in the Cryptids section. ;)
 
Head had himself whipped in front of pupils

Hi

another ..

source:
-----------------

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1178123.html?menu=news.quirkies

quote:
-----------------

Ananova:
11:08 Tuesday 16th November 2004

Head had himself whipped in front of pupils

The head of an Alaskan school has been sacked for having himself whipped in front of students.

Steve Unfreid, principal of Matanuska Christian School, says his unusual tactic was inspired by Jesus, reports the Anchorage Daily News.

He asked teacher Joe Brost to whip him in front of two male students in the school's basement after the boys were caught kissing girls in the locker room for the second time in a week.

He had wanted an alternative to expulsion and told the boys: "Guys, this has gotta stop. I've let the atmosphere get too lax. I share in this discipline. This is a one-time deal."

Then the principal took off his belt, gave it to Brost, and instructed the teacher to "discipline me like you would discipline your own son".

He told the teacher to stop only when the students acknowledged their mistake.

The school's board of directors unanimously decided ito fire Mr Unfreid. Mr Brost later resigned.

----------------------------

endquote

Mal F
 
Teacher sealed pupils' lips with sticky tape

Hi

more ....

Ananova:
Teacher sealed pupils' lips with sticky tape

A Brazilian schoolteacher is being sued for sealing her pupils' lips with adhesive tape.

The parents of three seven-year-olds are accusing a teacher from Natanael Silva School in Varzea Paulista of punishing their children too severely.

But the school says the whole thing has been blown out of proportion and that the teacher was just joking with the children to try and make them shut up.

Headmaster Eduardo Maffasoli told Jornal Hoje: "She says she meant it as a joke and I won't crucify her for that."

The police are investigating the case.

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1203086.html

Mal
 
School distributes satanic sex calendar

Texas parents infuriated by explicit material

Posted: December 13, 2004
1:35 a.m. Eastern


© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com


Local school officials in a suburb of Houston, Texas, are investigating how it was possible that a school police officer handed out calendars to students that featured explicit details on satanic and sexual rituals for every day of the month.

Parents in Pearland are demanding answers, according to a news report on KHOU-TV.

The school police officer who handed out the calendars was supposed to deliver a positive anti-gang message to the students last Monday, according to the report.

"September 20th is a 'midnight host' whatever that is," said one unidentified parent reading from the calendar. "You should have a blood-type ritual. September 23rd is the fall equinox – you should have an orgy. Activity group sex, any age, any sex."

The father did not want to be identified because he feared his daughter would be punished.

"They shouldn't be teaching the kids, at 12 years of age, a calendar of satanism. It's just not right," he said.

Pearland school officials say some 25 students at the junior high received the calendars.

"It clearly was a mistake," said Renea Ivy, Pearland ISD spokesperson. "We don't want it to happen again and so – it was not done with malice, it was not done to promote satanism in any way on the campus. It was just a mistake."

The officer said he got the packets from a anti-gang training course he took. Officials say he neglected to take out the adult material. The police officer remains on duty pending the outcome of an internal investigation.

Source
 
Not nearly quite so bad as what's been posted here, but I do have two personal stories, one from each side of school, as it were.

When I was younger, I was in a program for "intellectually gifted" children. Seriously, it was called the "gifted" program. One of our instructors used to put us in groups to work, but if we misbehaved, we'd be "kicked out of the family," whereupon we could only work with another group if, "another family took pity on us and adopted us."

The teacher explains all this before bothering to check if any of us are adopted. I am. At which point she says, "Oh, sorry, well... we'll just call it something else then." :wtf: Not that it hurt my feelings or much of anything (amazing how many people are completely uninformed about adoption -- I have tons of people ask me what I call my foster parents...) but I was a little shocked at the blase attitude of the teacher.

And recently, my mom was telling me that a major problem at her school is boys peeing on each other, in bathrooms, in class, on the playground, anywhere, and apparently one child's parents called with a threat of a lawsuit because the kid was punished (recess taken away or not allowed to go on field trip, something) for peeing on another kid during class.

Thing is, not that it would ever be right for kids to knowingly pee on each other, but these kids are in the fifth grade (10, 11 years old). So... really not at the age where it's remotely appropriate to drop trou in a co-ed classroom or anything. The mind boggles.
 
Teacher's Diary

View from the front-line:

I am a maths teacher in a ‘bog standard’ comprehensive school. In the autumn term of 2002 I kept a full diary of a week’s lessons, and this is an edited version of it.

What follows is a description of each lesson: I have not embellished or exaggerated anything, or imported any apocryphal incidents. The only deviations from the facts are the names of the children and the descriptions of certain procedures that are particular to our school. I have changed these only to protect the privacy of the school and its pupils.

Also included are my own thoughts. They are not those of all teachers and I do not presume to speak for any of my colleagues. I consider myself to be a liberal thinker with left-of-centre political leanings. I do not think of myself as either a good or bad teacher. My inspector told me I was a “caring” teacher though in our profession we only quote Ofsted when they compliment us. A. Teacher [...]

http://www.private-eye.co.uk/content/sh ... on.teacher
 
Re: Teacher's Diary

The Yithian said:
View from the front-line:

Very frightening!!!!

I remember when my wife was UB40'ed several years ago & signed on for a month or so. There was herself & about two other people who had a hope of holding a job down & in the end found themselves work, the job center was hopeless & so were the jobs they offered.

The rest of those signing on are still doing so, functionally illiterate, in some cases unable to tell the time, some complained that when they had a job, the boss kept telling them what to do!!!!!
 
Friday, January 14, 2005 · Last updated 4:41 a.m. PT

Michigan teacher transferred over remark

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

DEARBORN, Mich. -- A middle school teacher who reportedly told his students that Bedouin Arabs used the Quran as toilet paper has been transferred to another school, officials said.

The teacher, whose name was not released, was on the faculty of Woodworth Middle School in Dearborn, a Detroit suburb of 100,000. About 30,000 Dearborn residents are Arab-American.

He had been suspended without pay earlier this week after parents complained. The teacher was transferred Wednesday. The name of the new school was not disclosed.

Bedouins are members of historically nomadic tribes and make up about 10 percent of the population of the Middle East. The Quran is the Muslim holy book.

"Any remarks that are disparaging, that are made regarding religious groups or ethnic groups or racial groups, by a member of our organization is considered to be inappropriate, and we would respond accordingly," Dearborn schools Superintendent John Artis said.

Seattle Post Intelligencer
 
Speaker tells middele school students that stripping can be lucrative


By Bilen Mesfin
ASSOCIATED PRESS

4:55 p.m. January 13, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO – School officials in Palo Alto are reconsidering their use of a popular speaker for an annual career day after he advised middle school students that they could earn a good living as strip dancers.

William Fried told eighth-graders at Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School that stripping and exotic dancing could be lucrative career moves for girls, offering as much as $250,000 or more per year, depending on their bust size.

"It's sick, but it's true," Fried, president of Foster City's Precision Selling, a management consulting firm, told The Associated Press. "The truth of the matter is you can earn a tremendous amount of money as an exotic dancer, if that's your desire."

The school has asked Fried to give his 55-minute presentation, "The Secret of a Happy Life," for the past three years.

A tip sheet he distributes to students includes a list of 140 potential careers and areas of interest they can consider pursuing. Along with professions as accounting and nursing, the list offers such nontraditional suggestions as exotic dancing, stripping and acting as a spiritual medium.

He counsels students to experiment with a variety of interests until they discover their "life's purpose," something they love and excel in. The presentation and handout have been praised by students, school principal Joseph Di Salvo and others said.

Fried's presentation "helped me realize that my career choice should not be influenced by money," one student wrote in a thank-you letter. "It should be influenced by what we like and are good at."

But on Tuesday, some students asked Fried to expand on why he included "exotic dancing" on the list.

Fried spent about a minute answering questions, defining strippers and exotic dancers synonymously. He told students, "For every two inches up there, you should get another $50,000 on your salary," student Jason Garcia, 14, said.

"A couple of students egged him and he took it hook, line and sinker," said Di Salvo, who also said the students took advantage of a substitute teacher overseeing the session.

Di Salvo heard about the exchange when the mother of a student called him the next morning. She said she was outraged when her son announced that he was forgoing college for a career in a field he truly loves – fishing – and said she found Fried's handout even more disconcerting.

Di Salvo, who has since heard from another parent, said Fried's overall presentation is a positive one. The mention of exotic dancing and Fried's off-the-cuff remarks, however, have prompted him to consider barring the speaker from next year's career day.

The principal said he would send letters of apology home with students.

"It's totally inappropriate," Di Salvo said. "It's not OK by me. I would want my presenters to kind of understand that coming into a career day for eighth-graders."

School board member Mandy Lowell didn't expect Fried's comment to cause lasting damage but said the speaker didn't adhere to the message of achievement the district is trying to promote.

"I don't think that your natural or implant-inflated bust size is what our schools aim to nurture," she said. "My aspiration is not to have children in this district become exotic dancers."

District superintendent Mary Frances Callan did not immediately return two telephone calls seeking comment.

Despite the uproar, many students said Fried was the most inspiring speaker in a lineup that included a pilot, an attorney, a classical pianist and a journalist.

"He really focused on finding what you really love to do," said Mariah Cannon, 13.

Cannon also said she wouldn't want exotic dancing taken off Fried's list. Although parents might find it hard to hear, it's a legitimate career choice, she said.

Student Tom Marks, 13, said he found some of Fried's comments "weird and unnecessary" but still thinks he should return next year.

"I don't think he should have gone into all the details," he said. "I just got upset that he talked about it so much."

Fried, 64, said he does not think he offended anyone.

"Eighth-grade kids are not dumb," he said. "They are pretty worldly."

Source
 
Michigan Teens Accused Of Planning School Attack

Police Confiscate Computers Of Girlfriend, Boyfriend

POSTED: 2:50 pm EST January 12, 2005

WAYLAND, Mich. -- A possible attack at a high school in Lenawee County was foiled by a teenager's threatening computer messages to his girlfriend in Wayland, police said.

The 17-year-old boy, a former student at Tecumseh High School who now attends Adrian High School, apparently was angry with Tecumseh students who considered him odd because of his gothic dress and style.

He told his girlfriend, a 16-year-old Wayland Union High School student, that he "was planning to do something big" involving weapons "that will get in the news," Wayland police Chief Dan Miller said.

"The messages were quite graphic and specific about the weapons he'd use and how he'd do it," Miller told The Grand Rapids Press for a story published Wednesday. "It was something we knew we had to get to the police over there before anything happened.

"The police over there said the weapons were his father's, but he had access to them."

WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids reported that the weapons discussed included long-barrel guns and semiautomatic weapons.

Police in Tecumseh, which is 23 miles southwest of Ann Arbor, interviewed the 17-year-old but he was not taken into custody, Miller said.

A Wayland Public Schools security officer notified authorities Monday about the potential plot when a third student reported overhearing a conversation. Neither the instant messages sent last weekend from the teen couple's home computers nor the overheard conversation pointed to a specific date for an attack.

Tecumseh Police Chief Mack Haun issued a news release Wednesday saying the boy in question and his parents "were very cooperative and it was determined that there was no immediate threat to the high school or any students or faculty at the high school."

The youth called it a joke and said he didn't plan to carry out an attack, Miller said.

"Joke or not, it's not something to talk about in this day and age," Miller said.

He said the girlfriend and her parents also cooperated as police searched her home computer. The teens met last summer through a mutual friend, he said.

Police were able to find the girl's outgoing messages. Miller said they corresponded with messages Tecumseh authorities found on the computer owned by the boy, who could face charges under federal anti-terrorism laws.

The case marked the second time in four months that threats of school attacks communicated to people over the Internet were stopped in Michigan.

In September, a 16-year-old Idaho girl told authorities that she received threats from a 17-year-old boy at Chippewa Valley High School in Macomb County. The teen was accused of planning to hurt fellow students and a police officer at the school.

A police raid at the home of Andrew Osantowski found weapons, ammunition, bomb-making materials and books about white supremacy.

During a preliminary examination held Wednesday, Osantowski was ordered to stand trial on a charge of threatening terrorism and several counts related to a gun shop burglary and the thefts of golf carts and power tools.

---------------
Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press.

Source
 
Speaker tells middele school students that stripping can be lucrative

And if you want to move to Canada, strippers go to the head of the queue. :roll:
 
Pupils pay to pee

Greets

Pupils pay to pee

A German school has come under fire after it started charging pupils money to use the toilet.

Students at a secondary school in Sprockhoevel can choose to use the old toilets for free or pay 10 cents to use a new luxury toilet with marble wash basins.

Marcel Hafke, a member of the Young Liberals in the province, has called for an end to the policy.

He described the toilet toll as "heartless" and said: "Second-class peeing should not be allowed."

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1252356.html

mal
 
Elementary students try to hijack school bus

Friday, January 21, 2005
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Three 11-year-old boys and a 10-year-old girl tried to hijack their school bus near Punxsutawney this morning.

State police said the four hatched the plot yesterday. Just after 8 a.m. today, one of the boys pulled a knife from a book bag and held it near another student. He demanded driver Janet McQuown, 52, stop and get off the bus.

A police news release says she pulled over along Pine Tree Church Road in Oliver Township and "the knife was removed from the juvenile's possession." It doesn't say how.

The bus, with the hijackers and about 40 other children, arrived safely at Mapleview Elementary, where the unnamed offenders were taken into custody.

Two were turned over to juvenile authorities and two went home with their parents.

The news release did not immediately say what the hijackers intended to do with the bus.

Source
 
2 UCLA professors quit after gun allegedly used in performance

The Associated Press

Last Updated 7:05 am PST Sunday, January 23, 2005

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Two tenured art professors have resigned from the University of California, Los Angeles, after the university refused to suspend a graduate student who may have used a gun during a classroom performance art piece.

Chris Burden and Nancy Rubins, internationally known artists who taught at UCLA for more than two decades, filed their retirement papers Dec. 20.

"They feel this was sort of domestic terrorism. There should have been more outrage and a firmer response," said Sarah Watson, a director at a Beverly Hills gallery that represents the couple. "People feared for their lives."

The resignations came after a brief performance on Nov. 29 in which a student simulated Russian roulette by appearing to point a loaded handgun at his head and pull the trigger, a student and law enforcement officials told the Los Angeles Times.

The weapon didn't fire, but the student then left the room and what sounded like a gunshot was heard outside.

Police said no one was hurt. It was unclear whether the firearm was real.

The performance prompted investigations by university officials into whether any criminal laws or student codes were violated. However, prosecutors decided against filing criminal charges because there was "insufficient evidence to show a gun was discharged or any bullet fired," said Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.

University officials declined to provide any details about the performance, which took place at a university art studio annex in Culver City.

No action was taken against the student, who was continuing his studies after the dean's office determined that a suspension wasn't warranted. The two professors, who are married, believe the student should have been suspended while the investigations continued, Watson said.

Burden, 58, oversaw a program that includes performance, installation and video art, while Rubins, 52, taught sculpture.

Burden did performance art before moving into sculpture in the late 1970s. His best-known performance, titled "Shoot," featured an assistant who shot him in the upper arm with a .22-caliber rifle.

Burden's work, however, was different because the audience never felt in jeopardy, while the UCLA performance inspired "genuine fear," Watson said.

Rubins was famous for assemblage pieces composed of parts of scrapped vehicles and appliances.

Watson said the couple was unhappy long before the incident because of budget cuts and bureaucratic constraints. But the university's response to the gun performance was "sort of the last straw," she said.

---

Information from: Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com

Source
 
Students Arrested Over 'Violent' Stick Figure Drawings

Pictures Show Classmate Being Stabbed, Hung

POSTED: 1:40 am EST January 26, 2005
UPDATED: 6:50 am EST January 27, 2005

OCALA, Fla. -- Two boys, ages 9 and 10, were charged with felonies and taken away from school in handcuffs, accused of making violent drawings of stick figures.

The boys were arrested Monday on charges of making a written threat to kill or harm another person, a second-degree felony.

The special education students used pencil and red crayon to draw primitive stick figure scenes on scrap paper that showed a 10-year-old classmate being stabbed and hung, police said.

"The officer found they were drawing these pictures for the sole purpose of intimidating and scaring the victim," said Ocala Police Sgt. Russ Kern.

The boy depicted in the drawings told his teacher, who took the sketches and contacted the school dean, Marty Clifford. Clifford called police, who arrested the boys after consulting with the State Attorney's Office.

They were also suspended from school.

One drawing showed the two boys standing on either side of the other boy and "holding knives pointed through" his body, according to a police report. The figures were identified by written names or initials.

Another drawing showed a stick figure hanging, tears falling from his eyes, with two other stick figures standing below him. Other pieces of scrap paper listed misspelled profanities and the initials of the boy who was allegedly threatened.

Parents of both of the arrested boys said they thought the boys should be punished by the school and families, not the legal system.

Ocala police said they stand behind the decision to arrest the children.

"When an adult or even myself look at the picture looked at it at first I was thinking there is really not much to the picture or I would not be that scared by the picture those children drew," Ocala police spokesman Russ Kearn said. "However, we have to put ourselves in his mind and that's the bottom line here. It is his well-being and the way he perceived that picture to be. It actually put him in extreme fear and he was in fear for his life."



----------------
Copyright 2005 by Internet Broadcasting Systems and Local6.com.

Source (contains pictures and video on this story)
 
Substitute Teacher Accused Of Duct-Taping Kids Mouths Shut

POSTED: 9:22 pm CST January 26, 2005
UPDATED: 9:26 pm CST January 26, 2005

CHICAGO -- A Chicago public school substitute teacher was suspended this week after she allegedly put duct tape on the mouths of 10 second-graders.

The principal of the Esmond Elementary School learned of the allegations Wednesday.

A misdemeanor investigation is being conducted by Chicago police and the Department of Children and Family Services.

--------------------
Copyright 2005 by NBC5.com.

Source
 
Slightly longer report:

Substitute allegedly puts tape on 2nd-graders' faces

Associated Press
Jan. 28, 2005 10:36 AM

CHICAGO - Police and school officials are investigating reports that a substitute teacher at a Chicago elementary school taped shut the eyes and mouths of second graders.

Students told the principal at Esmond Elementary School that the substitute verbally abused at least 10 children and then covered their eyes and mouths with tape on Tuesday.

A school district spokesman says he teacher has been temporarily taken off the substitute teacher list. He says she'll have an investigatory conference with the labor relations department.
advertisement


A police spokesman says a special unit that handles crimes involving children is investigating.

Source
 
I remember a game in the seventies that was a rifle range with a gun that fired a beam of light rather than a projctile.
 
Florida Teacher Instructed Students on Bomb-Making, Authorities Say

The Associated Press
Published: Feb 16, 2005



ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - A high school chemistry teacher was arrested after students claimed he taught his class how to make a bomb, authorities said.

David Pieski, 42, used an overhead projector in class to give instructions in making explosives to students at Freedom High School, including advising them to use an electric detonator to stay clear from the blast, an Orange County sheriff's arrest report said.

In Pieski's classroom in Orlando, authorities found a book labeled "Demo," which includes the chemical breakdown for a powerful explosive, the arrest report said.

One student said he set off an explosive device at a golf course on Jan. 6 and videotaped it, an arrest warrant said. The videotape shows an explosion, and the voice of a young man can be heard shouting, authorities said.

Pieski was charged with possessing or discharging a destructive device and culpable negligence. Pieski, who was booked into the Orange County Jail on Monday and released on $1,000 bail, declined to comment.

School Superintendent Judy Cunningham said Pieski was reassigned to a desk job after he was interviewed by authorities. He is still earning his salary.

Pieski told investigators he detonated chemicals in a coffee can by a ball field four times for his students, the sheriff's office said. He said he did this as a chemistry project to show a reaction rate, the arrest report said.

"Pieski admitted to me that he observed (the student's) video and approved of his successful results," the arresting officer said in the warrant. "Pieski disagreed with the project being an explosion."

Pieski guided investigators to an unlocked metal cabinet in the back of a classroom, where there was "a can of black powder stored next to other chemicals," the sheriff's office said.

School officials told investigators that Pieski previously had been told he was not allowed to have any form of explosive on campus.

Source
 
Ten cures for academic boredom
The Journal scopes out the coolest college courses
T O P S T O R Y - By Matt Hartley, Editor in Chief
No matter how much you like your classes and no matter how interesting your field of study might be, everyone feels the tedium of education from time to time.

We all have an inner child who doesn’t want to get up at the sound of the alarm, who constantly whines “I don’t want to do my homework,” and who just flat out doesn’t like school.

But what if school let you learn about the things you really, really liked? What if you could take an English course where you read only about hockey, or how about a sociology course about shopping—or better yet, a course about how to be a rock and roll journalist?

To that end, the Journal now presents the Top 10 classes we wish we had at Queen’s.

1. Hockey Literature and the Canadian Psyche
University of Victoria

It’s only fitting that Canada be the site of possibly the world’s first course devoted completely to hockey literature. This second-year course, offered through the University’s English department, debuted in January of this year.

Professor Doug Beardsley has written two books about hockey himself and teaches the lecture course, which runs for three hours each week.

“Hockey represents the dark side of the Canadian spirit,” Beardsley told the Canadian Press. “The way we play the game on ice is semi-legal mayhem, which allows us to balance the psyche.”

With the NHL hiatus now set to last indefinitely, Beardsley’s class just might be the answer for the hockey-starved English student. No word on whether late students lose participation marks or are simply benched for the next class.

2. Star Trek and Religion
Indiana University

Ever wonder why there are no Muslims or Christians on Star Trek? Someone at the University of Indiana at Bloomington has—and felt it was an important enough issue to merit academic study.

“Star Trek and Religion” is a twice-weekly lecture course offered through the school’s religious studies department. The course seeks to “examine some of the ways in which religion appears in the Star Trek cluster.”

Instructor Mary Jo Weaver designed the course, which looks at each incarnation of the Star Trek catalogue, from the original series right up to the latest Enterprise—plus, there’s no mid-term.

According to the course website, the “action of this popular science-fiction series is set in the future, but the ideas and conflicts come from past and present debates in the modern world.” Class discussions center on “the rejection of mainline religion in favor of secular humanism and the tentative embrace of newer forms of spirituality informed by modern physics and cosmology.”

Evidently this isn’t just a class for the studious Trekkie, so please don’t wear the Jean-Luc Picard costume your mom made you to class.

3. Rock Journalism
DePaul University of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Illinois

Do dreams of standing outside stage doors waiting to interview rock stars dance in your head at night? Does your fantasy life play out like something from Almost Famous?

Then apply to Chicago’s DePaul University. Rock Journalism, a second-year sociology course, “explores the wide variety of rock writings, from album and concert reviews to interviews with musicians.”

According to the department website, this course also examines the role of the rock press in popular culture and how it contributes to the “Hype Machine” of American media.

While taking this course might not get you into a foursome with Kate Hudson, it does offer insight into a subject rarely studied in such detail at a university, let alone in a sociology department.

4. The Beatles Albums
University of Southern California (USC)

There isn’t much to say about this fourth-year music course that you can’t discern in the title. Once a week for two hours, students meet in a lecture hall on the USC campus and discuss the finer points of the works of John, Paul, George and Ringo.

Imagine having to tell your parents you need to buy a vinyl copy of Abbey Road for school—although you may have to leave your home in Tucson, Arizona to get to this California class.

5. American Idol
University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Starting this semester, students who have a thing for the likes of Clay Aitken and Kelly Clarkson can now study their heroes in an academic setting. The music department at UNCC has added an American Idol course to its curriculum.

According to professor Jay Grymes, the course is intended to turn students into “better critics” and “more informed consumers.”

The class, which meets three times a week, includes assignments such as watching the television broadcasts of American Idol and lectures about music terminology and music history related to each week’s show. Plus, Friday discussions will deal with the music industry and what it looks for in a star.

Grymes is a self-professed fan of the show and hopes his class will offer students a deeper understanding of pop culture. If you thought that guy in the second row of your politics class had nothing important to say, imagine someone getting participation points for saying: “That Simon Cowell is just so mean.”

6. Mafia Studies
Rome University, Italy

Rome University’s Mafia Studies course—the first of its kind ever to be offered—opened last fall to rave reviews and packed lecture halls.

Offered through the University’s law school, students learn about the very different types of Mafia networks that exist in Italy: the Cosa Nostra in Sicily, La Camorra in Campagna, La Sacra Corona Unita in Puglia and the Ndrangheta in Calabria—and don’t mess with the Ndrangheta, which investigators say is now the most powerful.

Guest speakers include leading magistrates with intimate knowledge of the Mafiosos. The course aims to get beyond the Godfather stereotypes and get to the very root and causes of mob networks. The mafia is a very real problem in Italy—many of the 500 students registered for the course are considering careers battling organized crime.

7. American Golf: Aristocratic Pastime or the People’s Game?
Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania

According to the department website, this history course seeks to “involve a whole-class effort to invent the study of golf as a legitimate academic subject.” Representations of golf in literature, film, journalism and computer software will be examined.

In addition to the assigned readings, students are required to undertake an historical research project about golf. The website also states that expertise in playing golf is not required, but a working knowledge of the game is recommended—same goes for copies of Tiger Woods’ PGA Tour 2005 for Playstation and plaid socks.

8. Shopping: Desire, Compulsion and Consumption
Williams College, Massachusetts

For all the Carrie Bradshaw types who would enjoy nothing better than collecting designer boutique shopping bags, Williams College has just the course for you.

According to the religious studies department website—for some reason this is a religious studies course—“Shopping: Desire, Compulsion and Consumption” focuses on three themes of the experience of shopping.

The course will examine the manufacturing of desire on which consumption depends and the deeper neurotic and erotic dimensions of creating desire, as well as contrasting the experience of shopping in traditional settings with contemporary malls.

This is no bird course, though—be prepared for three essays and one ethnographic account—whatever that entails. There are marks for participation in discussions, so don’t take this class if you’re only looking to get Prada for half price.

9. Campus Culture and Drinking
Duke University, North Carolina

Don’t bring a beer bong to class for this one. Duke’s “Campus Culture and Drinking” isn’t just for frat boys. Offered through the cultural anthropology department, the course aims to examine “the cultural understandings that surround, motivate and shape undergraduate drinking.”

According to the department website, the course seeks to explore the motivational forces behind drinking on university campuses and hopes to use the cultural analysis of discourse as a general tool for investigating and analyzing social issues.

Although you won’t get drunk in this class, it may help you understand why your roommate will come home drunk at 8 a.m. and still make it to Ritual by noon.

10. Hip-Hop Eshu: Queen B@#$H 101
Syracuse University, New York

Believe it or not, the English department at Syracuse University has begun offering a course entirely devoted to rapper Lil’ Kim’s place in American literature.

“It’s about her lyricism and the lyrical persona and how [she] articulates certain things that gender and sexuality studies have been trying to grapple with,” said course professor Greg Thomas.

“What we’re talking about here is new notions of sexual consciousness, sexual politics in her rhymes, how she deals with societies based on male domination in her rhymes and societies based on rigid gender categories and constructs.”


The rapper also plans to address the class herself—that’s one lecture that might merit a trip across the border.

Now, a course about American rap lyrics seems justifiable, but an entire course for Lil’ Kim herself? Kim is, after all, a self-described “diamond cluster hustler” and the “queen bitch, supreme bitch.”

—With files from the Queen’s Gazette, bbc.co.uk, yahoo.com, and cnn.com

Source: http://www.queensjournal.ca/articlephp/ ... ures/lead1

Then there's my friend who teaches courses on sex, drugs and conspiracies. ;)
 
Erm... maybe in loony-toon land!

February 23, 2005

Florida boy accused of assault with rubber band

13-year-old suspended 10 days after confrontation with teacher

WKMG Local 6


Suspended from school. Robert Gomez has been accused of threatening a teacher with a rubber band. WKMG Local 6 image.

A 13-year-old student in Orange County, Fla., was suspended for 10 days and could be banned from school over an alleged assault with a rubber band, according to a WKMG Local 6 News report.

Robert Gomez, a seventh-grader at Liberty Middle School, said he picked up a rubber band at school and slipped it on his wrist.

Gomez said when his science teacher demanded the rubber band, the student said he tossed it on her desk.

After the incident, Gomez received a 10-day suspension for threatening his teacher with what administrators say was a weapon, Local 6 News reported.

"They said if he would have aimed it a little more and he would have gotten it closer to her face he would have hit her in the eye," mother Jenette Rojas said.

Rojas said she was shocked to learn that her son was being punished for a Level 4 offense -- the highest Level at the school. Other violations that also receive level 4 punishment include arson, assault and battery, bomb threats and explosives, according to the Code of Student Conduct.

The district said a Level 4 offense includes the use of any object or instrument used to make a threat or inflict harm, including a rubber band.

Rojas plans to fight the ruling but her son still faces expulsion.

"It's ridiculous, it's a rubber band," Rojas said.

The school's principal could not comment because the case is still under investigation.

A district spokesman said there is still a series of meetings the district will have before Gomez is officially expelled.

Source
 
Volshebnik said:
Erm... maybe in loony-toon land!

February 23, 2005

Florida boy accused of assault with rubber band

13-year-old suspended 10 days after confrontation with teacher

WKMG Local 6


Suspended from school. Robert Gomez has been accused of threatening a teacher with a rubber band. WKMG Local 6 image.

A 13-year-old student in Orange County, Fla., was suspended for 10 days and could be banned from school over an alleged assault with a rubber band, according to a WKMG Local 6 News report.

Robert Gomez, a seventh-grader at Liberty Middle School, said he picked up a rubber band at school and slipped it on his wrist.

Gomez said when his science teacher demanded the rubber band, the student said he tossed it on her desk.

After the incident, Gomez received a 10-day suspension for threatening his teacher with what administrators say was a weapon, Local 6 News reported.

"They said if he would have aimed it a little more and he would have gotten it closer to her face he would have hit her in the eye," mother Jenette Rojas said.

Rojas said she was shocked to learn that her son was being punished for a Level 4 offense -- the highest Level at the school. Other violations that also receive level 4 punishment include arson, assault and battery, bomb threats and explosives, according to the Code of Student Conduct.

The district said a Level 4 offense includes the use of any object or instrument used to make a threat or inflict harm, including a rubber band.

Rojas plans to fight the ruling but her son still faces expulsion.

"It's ridiculous, it's a rubber band," Rojas said.

The school's principal could not comment because the case is still under investigation.

A district spokesman said there is still a series of meetings the district will have before Gomez is officially expelled.

Source

This happens more than you'd think. I almost got suspended once for threatening a gym teacher with a soft dodgeball.
 
Similar things have come up a time or two in this thread:

Mr. R.I.N.G. said:
Student Expelled for Fatal Fiction

(Roswell-AP) -- An honors student at Roswell High School has been expelled for the rest of the year for writing a fictional tale in her private journal about a student who kills a teacher and is later killed by a security guard........


www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 964#281964


Emperor said:
Faggus said:
why is it always the teachers who have difficulty with the difference between imagination and reality?

It does appear that any kind of creativity outisde of their acceptable envelope is being crushed - nice:

Walnut Creek student arrested for cartoon


Bay City News

Thursday, May 27, 2004


A 14-year-old Walnut Creek boy was handcuffed and arrested at Walnut Creek Intermediate School on Wednesday for an animated cartoon he posted on the Internet that officials determined was threatening to teachers.

The boy's mother, Karen Hamadanyan, said today that she doesn't deny that her son made the cartoon, but denies that it was meant as a threat and called his arrest "absurd''.

.......

www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 567#390567

Emperor said:
Students Arrested Over 'Violent' Stick Figure Drawings

Pictures Show Classmate Being Stabbed, Hung

POSTED: 1:40 am EST January 26, 2005
UPDATED: 6:50 am EST January 27, 2005

OCALA, Fla. -- Two boys, ages 9 and 10, were charged with felonies and taken away from school in handcuffs, accused of making violent drawings of stick figures.

The boys were arrested Monday on charges of making a written threat to kill or harm another person, a second-degree felony.

The special education students used pencil and red crayon to draw primitive stick figure scenes on scrap paper that showed a 10-year-old classmate being stabbed and hung, police said.

........

www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 060#492060

and here is another example:

Student Arrested For Terroristic Threatening Says Incident A Misunderstanding


A George Rogers Clark High School junior arrested Tuesday for making terrorist threats told LEX 18 News Thursday that the "writings" that got him arrested are being taken out of context.

Winchester police say William Poole, 18, was taken into custody Tuesday morning. Investigators say they discovered materials at Poole's home that outline possible acts of violence aimed at students, teachers, and police.

Poole told LEX 18 that the whole incident is a big misunderstanding. He claims that what his grandparents found in his journal and turned into police was a short story he wrote for English class.

"My story is based on fiction," said Poole, who faces a second-degree felony terrorist threatening charge. "It's a fake story. I made it up. I've been working on one of my short stories, (and) the short story they found was about zombies. Yes, it did say a high school. It was about a high school over ran by zombies."

Even so, police say the nature of the story makes it a felony. "Anytime you make any threat or possess matter involving a school or function it's a felony in the state of Kentucky," said Winchester Police detective Steven Caudill.

Poole disputes that he was threatening anyone.

"It didn't mention nobody who lives in Clark County, didn't mention (George Rogers Clark High School), didn't mention no principal or cops, nothing," said Poole. "Half the people at high school know me. They know I'm not that stupid, that crazy."

On Thursday, a judge raised Poole's bond from one to five thousand dollars after prosecutors requested it, citing the seriousness of the charge.

Poole is being held at the Clark County Detention Center.

Source
 
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