So, I lost a teaching job last week

How it transpired is something that a LOT of people have thought I'm making up.  But it really happened.

I was on my first day of substitute teaching.  And I went into that school all shiny and shaved, shirt tail tucked into my khakis, best boots... I was going to make an impression on the students and faculty alike (say, why don't most men seem to tuck their shirt tails in anymore?).

Most of all, I went in bearing in mind all that my own teachers, and substitute teachers especially, had handled us as students when I was in school.  Yes even the subs, many of whom are still burned into my memory.  They knew they only had a day or two to make their mark upon their students' educations, but they were determined to make the most of it.  That's precisely the mindset that I was going to emulate.

The assignment was a high school science class.  Chemistry, to be more specific.  The teacher had left a video for the students to watch, and then afterward they were to set about making 3D models of the atoms of various elements.

The video was about the electrons of an atom, how they orbit the nucleus in different shells.  And how each shell has a maximum number of electrons that can be in them.  We're talking very basic chemistry, per the model that Neils Bohr gave us.

The last example given in the video was about sodium.  The narrator described the nucleus, the first few shells going out, and then the last shell.  Which in sodium has but one electron.  And this lonely particle is what is most responsible for sodium being so drastically reactive.

How reactive?  It didn't touch on that in the video and that's too bad.  Well, when a quantity of sodium comes in contact with water it combusts.  And VERY dramatically at that:

 

 

This is something that every high school chemistry textbook going back at least the past eighty years has described (or at least used to).  It's also something that the chemistry teacher at my own high school demonstrated one day.  He had a tripod out on the football field holding aloft a brick of pure sodium.  Below it was a bucket of water.  He let the sodium brick drop and fall into the water.

The explosion was heard over five miles away.  Dad said they even heard it over the sounds of the machinery at the quarry he worked at.

I thought that along with telling them about Neils Bohr also being an Olympic-class football (aka soccer to us yanks) player, the students might find that virtue of sodium to be pretty interesting too.  So I shared it with all three classes that I had that day.

It turned out that the students did indeed appreciate my example of how an element like sodium can react with other substances.  All because of that one electron on its outermost shell and looking for stability.  Some of the students asked if we could do that during our class time.  I had to tell them no. But I like to think the visualized image will stick with them.

The following day I taught at another school.  And after returning home that afternoon I got a phone call.  Telling me that my services had been suspended pending an investigation...

It had gotten around that had I told the chemistry students about sodium's reaction with exposure to water.  The administration at the school considered this to be describing how to create high explosives.

Which was the absolutely LAST thing I would have intended.  It was nothing but describing a very simple interaction between valence electrons, involving one of the most basic elements on the periodic table.

Apparently the word "explosive" has been stricken from the vocabulary of secondary education in the public schools of these United States.  I'm going to assume that the mechanics of the internal combustion engine and the bursting forth of Orville Redenbacher popcorn kernels from their original volume will likewise now be deemed forbidden knowledge from the Dark Ages.

Well, I was invited to write and submit a statement about the incident to those investigating it.  I typed it up, trying to describe everything that had transpired.  I then zapped it out across the ether toward the proper authorities.  And I trusted that they would arrive at the same conclusion I was on: that I had not done anything wrong in teaching the fundamentals of chemistry to high school chemistry students.  I sincerely believed that I would be back in the classroom soon.

That was not to be however.

So, I'm no longer allowed to be a substitute teacher in that particular school system.  But for one glorious day I taught those kids some really neat concepts of science.  Like when one student asked about what neutrons do, I turned that into an explanation of how gas centrifuges enrich uranium into nuclear weapons-grade yellowcake.  And no, the school did not possess a gas centrifuge either (the students asked).

This is ridiculous.  There is no reason whatsoever to be afraid of basic chemistry. Ignoring it and making it a punishable offense to teach about it is certainly NOT going to ever deter real bad guys from using that knowledge.  Science is supposed to be neutral. Objective.  Pure science is on a level playing field and irrespective of agenda.  It simply IS.  It seems officials are now ascribing qualities to science in accordance to their whims and feelings, and not purely of physical principles.

Oh well. I gave it my best.  I don't regret for a moment what I taught those young people.  If it got them to thinking a little differently or deeper about the world around them and its wonders, then my task is complete.

Who knows?  Maybe I'll get to someday return to the classroom.  Just imagine the flames I would set alight if I taught the young people about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights!

But it could have been worse. I could have instead been fired for blowing up that little red schoolhouse...

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A proposal for armed teachers in the classroom

Several years ago as a college student, I was minoring in secondary education.  The intended plan was since I couldn't hack it in computer programming (with visions of being a millionaire like the guys who made Doom in my head) that I should focus on something I was actually good at: history, and teaching it.

The discussion in class one day turned to student discipline and keeping order in the classroom.  Naturally it went on a tangent about school shootings.  And I suggested arming the teachers with taser weapons.

It's a wonder I didn't get banished from Elon University right then and there, the notion was so radical and attacked.  But this was before Columbine.  Now?  The thought of a non-lethal stun device seems almost quaint.

Under no circumstance is the Second Amendment to be violated.  Some may not like it, but the right to keep and bear arms is the absolute final deterrent against government becoming all-powerful and consuming, and that is what the Founders intended.  But schools, whether public or private, are special environments where immediate accessibility to a firearm may not universally be for the best.  And yet, armed attacks on students and teachers continue.  I could deviate a bit about the true cause of such atrocities, but that's for another post.

So... what is to be done?  Because advertising that a school is a "gun-free zone" does not work, has not worked and will never work to deter a bad guy from storming the premises with a firearm and the intent to hurt and kill others.

Here, then, is my proposal:

• Give those teachers who opt to be armed the right to do so, provided that they pass extensive background check and pass a mandatory training program tailored to address school violence and the responsibilities that will come with having a loaded weapon on standby in the classroom.
• Install a lockbox in each classroom.  Secured with a real key, not a combination lock.  Only the teacher of that room and the principal will have a copy of the key, with another copy kept at the main office and retrievable by authorized personnel or law enforcement requesting the key through proper channels.
• Teachers who choose to bring their firearms to school will be required to check them in at the office every morning, retrieve the key for their classroom's lockbox, and upon arrival at their classroom will immediately secure the gun in the lockbox.
• At the end of the day each teacher opting to have a firearm available will remove the gun from the lockbox, sign the gun out at the office, and return the key.
• The gun is kept out of ready reach but in a worst case scenario will still be within immediate grasp of the teacher.  There is also a log kept of which members of the faculty are armed for that particular day.

It's as responsible and accountable a system as I've been able to conceive.  Maybe more learned and wiser minds in regard to school safety can come up with something better.  If so, I for one would appreciate knowing what it is.

But merely announcing that a school doesn't allow guns, with nice neat placards announcing as much to visitors entering the building, isn't going to save lives.  Not from a lunatic whose only thought is to wipe out as many innocent lives as possible before the cops or deputies finally arrive.  In this imperfect world, seconds count when help is still minutes away.

And people like David Hogg (whose fifteen minutes of fame are WAY past finished) need to recognize the reality of the situation.  If they want completely safe schools, then "good feelings" aren't going to accomplish anything.  Knowing that there are armed teachers and other staff on campus, who will fire back with deadly force if absolutely need be...

The psychological value alone in that merits considering arming teachers with appropriate weaponry, to be used as a last resort.

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North Carolina schools: Dark sarcasm in the classroom...

Photo: Gerry Broome, AP

Apparently following the recent examples of others throughout the country, today thousands of teachers from across North Carolina descended upon the streets of Raleigh to demand more money, resources, and... well, what exactly?

Many and perhaps even most school systems in North Carolina cancelled classes entirely.  There were not enough substitutes to fill in for the full-time teachers who had declared their intent to be absent.  Effectively abandoning their students while they themselves, festooned in new red t-shirts, took bus caravans to the state capital.

How much in scarce financial resource got burned up for today's exercise in political activism?  And why couldn't it have been done on a Saturday, when school was out and even more teachers would be free to make the trip and show solidarity?

"Yes Miss Loudermilk, I can spell 'hypocrisy'.  H, I, P, P, O..."

Fine.  Let's look at the facts:

North Carolina teachers have seen a 19% increase in pay over the past three years and another increase is happening this year. The funding already exists and there is PLENTY of it.  Public education is already more than half of the state government's annual budget.

Unfortunately administrative waste is at an all time high.  Both in the central offices in Raleigh and throughout too many of the local systems "from Murphy to Manteo" as the song says.  THAT is the real drain on the coffers.

Slash and burn away the unnecessary detritus in administration costs and there is more than an ample supply of funding for the teachers, for classroom supplies, for new technology.  And if some proceeds are allowed to be freed up from the North Carolina Education Lottery instead of being earmarked for new school construction (ehhhh... it IS going to new school construction, right?) the teachers will have more money for purposes of education than they would know what to do with.

So how much more money must be demanded? When does the actual problem finally get addressed? What was the purpose of today's march that was so direly pressing it required closing entire school systems? And... if I may dare to ask... would this same event have been organized had the party makeup of the state legislature been different?  Who paid for all of those red t-shirts anyway?  King and Gandhi didn't need name branding in the furtherance of their causes.  And they still succeeded!

At the risk of alienating some, I am compelled to remark: today's "march" was as much an abandonment of common sense and impartial motive as it was abandonment of the students themselves.  Nothing... I repeat, nothing... is going to be accomplished because of it.  And were I to be governor of North Carolina, there would be a dire consideration to fire every public school teacher who left their children behind for sake of this spectacle.  To not only fire them them but to furthermore forbid them employment ever again as a public teacher in North Carolina.  This was dereliction of duty and desertion of post, as much so as a soldier on guard detail.

Am I suggesting that the right to protest be revoked?  No.  Absolutely not.  But there is a right way and a wrong way to do this.  And the teachers in Raleigh and the organizers of this "march" (WHO organized it exactly?) not only violated that line, they also set a terrible example for the children they had made it a professional responsibility to nurture and encourage and educate.

If for no other reason, I would have fired every one of the teachers because they have demonstrated that they do not hold to the rule of law that is to be acknowledged and respected in this country.  Instead they opted to demonstrate something we are seeing too much of in recent months: rule by mob.  When students can leave their classes on the say-so of a young demagogue like David Hogg with the basis that it is a "media event", then those students should be penalized with an absence or an "F" for the day.  If the kids believed enough in their cause, they should be willing to suffer and endure for the cause.  Otherwise the consequence is that students can walk out of classes for any rationale at all.  "Equal access" and all of that.  Unless the schools wanna start writing lots and lots of checks to attorneys representing "aggrieved parties" denied the same accommodation.

The rule of law or the rule of mob.  We can have one or the other, but not both.

Which do the teachers want the students to better appreciate?

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Zero-tolerance out of control: Pencil leads to boy's suspension, while Eagle Scout hit with felony

I'll be damned if (Lord willing) I get blessed with children and I put them in a government-run school.

They're not here yet.  But I already love them too much than to subject them to the insanity of a modern public school.  And few things exemplify that madness more than do zero-tolerance policies.

(Hey, I ran for school board once.  It can't be said that I never tried to make the public schools better.  But things won't going to get better until more people get up the gumption to tell the bureaucrats "ENOUGH!")

Two stories demonstrating my point.  The first is about seven-year old Christopher Marshall of Suffolk, Virginia.  He was suspended from his elementary school last week per a policy of "zero tolerance".

What was his crime?  Pointing a pencil as if were a gun at another student and making "bang! bang!" noises with it.

Yeah, you read that right.  That's all that little Christopher was doing.

From the story at WAVY.com...

Seven-year-old Christopher Marshall says he was playing with another student in class Friday, when the teacher at Driver Elementary asked them to stop pointing pencils at each other.

"When I asked him about it, he said, 'Well I was being a Marine and the other guy was being a bad guy,'" said Paul Marshall, the boy's father. "It's as simple as that."

Christopher's father was a Marine for many years. He thinks school leaders overreacted.

"A pencil is a weapon when it is pointed at someone in a threatening way and gun noises are made," said Bethanne Bradshaw, a spokesperson for Suffolk Public Schools.

The Suffolk school system has a "zero tolerance policy" when it comes to weapons. And, Bradshaw admits, that policy has tightened up in recent years because of widely publicized school shootings.

"Some children would consider it threatening, who are scared about shootings in schools or shootings in the community," said Bradshaw. "Kids don't think about 'Cowboys and Indians' anymore, they think about drive-by shootings and murders and everything they see on television news every day."

And then there is the tale of Eagle Scout, honor student, devout Christian and model young man Cole Withrow from Princeton, a small town near Raleigh here in North Carolina.  Cole had been skeet shooting and accidentally left his shotgun in his vehicle when he came to school late last month.  Cole realized his error and sought to do the right thing: he went to the office and called his mom to come and take the gun out and away from the campus.  Unfortunately one of the staff at Princeton High School overheard the call and alerted the police.

Cole Withrow with his sister Hannah Walker

Cole was arrested on felony charges and expelled.  He will not walk with his classmates at graduation in a few weeks.  All for trying to do the right thing in the matter.  For trying to do what his faith and his vows as a Boy Scout would have him to do.

Cole will be allowed to graduate, just not from his own school.  His family is fighting for Cole's right to be with his classmates.

But at least his troubles caught the attention of Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University.  Cole Withrow has been offered a scholarship to attend the college.  Harding University has also extended a similar offer to Cole.

Is it paranoia?  Is it laziness?  Is it intentional conditioning of the kids on the part of the public school educators and administrators?  For whatever reason it is, this kind of thing has gone on... and continues to go on... for far too long.

"Zero-tolerance"?  More like "zero common sense".

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Thoughts about public prayer at the Rockingham County Board of Education

At last night's monthly work meeting of the Rockingham County Board of Education, the proposal was put forth that the board should begin each session with prayer.  It's been a longstanding custom to have a moment of silence.  If the board approves of it at the May 13th meeting, that would be replaced with a public prayer before an official function of government.

Here's the story from today's News & Record...

Board members spent nearly an hour talking through the finer points of whether they should open meetings with prayer. It was discussion that at times became tense but never contentious.

The school board currently opens its meetings with a moment of silence. Board member Ron Price asked the board to consider adding prayers during the last meeting.

The members will vote on the issue May 13

The possibility of a lawsuit was brought up Monday night by board member Amanda Bell. She said she doesn’t want to put the school board at risk

Fellow member Leonard Pryor also echoed those concerns.

“It’s my firm opinion we’ll be sued,” Pryor said

Earlier this month, legislators proposed a bill allowing for the establishment of an official state religion. The bill, which died in committee, was a reaction to a recent lawsuit against Rowan County, whose Board of Commissioners insist on having explicitly Christian prayers before meetings

Forsyth County lost a similar lawsuit in 2011, and the state Supreme Court refused to hear the case last year

Guilford County commissioners are currently reviewing their prayer policy

Price said there is a way to have an invocation without crossing the legal line

“We have to have a format before we can say, ‘OK, we can do this without violating the court’s decision,’ ” Price said.

I'm of a few opinions about this, and they're not necessarily contradictory.

Of immediate concern is that adopting a policy of prayer before the meetings will make the Board of Education wide-open bait for a lawsuit.  And don't think that there are already "civil rights" lawyers who've already gotten a whiff of blood about it, too.  Are the board members prepared for a long, drawn-out legal battle which will cost the taxpayers of Rockingham County money which, I hate to say, we are sorely lacking at the moment?

However, I'm also of the mind that this should not be fodder for a lawsuit at all... because it's not really a matter for outsiders to come and meddle with at all.

I've never understood how something like prayer at events like public meetings, high school football games and the like could ever be an infringement of the rights of any person, or group of people.  We are a constitutional republic, one purpose of which is to defend the minority from the depredations of a majority.  It's why as a whole we aren't a pure democracy.  But so far as public prayer goes: what is there to be defended, at all?

It's like this: so long as it is not a violation of the rights and privileges a person has as defined by the Constitution, there is a lot of leeway for a local unit of government on such matters as choosing whether or not to open a hearing with prayer.  Or a moment of silence.  Or nothing at all.

The way it should be is that the people of Rockingham County will let the board members know what they - the citizens - wish in this regard.  And then the Board of Education will discuss and vote from there.  If by and large the people of Rockingham County approve of it, then there can and should be prayer before the meetings (preferably with a rotating roster of local clergy).  If people disagree, then they should lobby to change the policy.  If they believe it is important enough then individuals should take it upon themselves to run for seats on the Board of Education in the next election.  In fact, I would even suggest that the current board members be made aware of that... and in no uncertain terms!  There is a lot to be said of accountability from your publick officials when they realize their actions can lead to possible unseat-ment.

Again, this is a local matter.  One that we ourselves, the citizens of Rockingham County, should define for ourselves.  If there was a public school district in, say, a predominantly Catholic area in New Jersey and the board chose to reflect and respect the population it serves, it should be free to ask a Catholic priest to offer a prayer of invocation at its meetings.  Our friends in Utah should be free to let a Mormon minister do likewise at their hearings.  The same holds true for a predominantly Jewish community, if it would like a rabbi to bless each meeting.  In Rockingham County's case, it's safe to say that we are quite a melting pot of various perspectives about God... but for all intents and purposes this is a community that does have a faith in God.  We may not agree with all the particulars about Him, and whoever is asked by the board should understand and appreciate that.  But if we as a locality desire to ask for His wisdom and guidance in our public hearings, then we should be afforded that liberty... and without the fear of lawsuit from external interests!

However, there is one last thing I wish to be considered: that asking God for that wisdom and guidance doesn't begin with any action or permission within the halls of any earthly government.

I have no reason to believe that a public prayer before a school board meeting, a county commissioners meeting or a session of the United States Senate is going to be any more sacred than a prayer each and every person offers to God in quiet solitude at home, or beneath a tree, or wherever a person happens to feel they need to be for that communion.  We can let a minister speak to God on our behalf at a public meeting, but we listen to God best when we are alone with Him.

In other words: a public prayer is of little or no good if the people sanctioning it can not and will not pray to Him on their own.

It was once said that America is great because her people are a virtuous people.  But we have come to expect, even demand a "virtue by proxy".  Many of us petition and scream for public prayer, or a display of the Ten Commandments in the courthouses and schoolhouses, or that a Christian cross be put up in a city-owned park.

I have no problem with any of those things whatsoever.  I do however have a lot of problem when such material symbols take upon greater importance than the meaning behind them.  We have more desire to see a thing with our eyes than to have a thing inscribed upon our hearts...

...and that is what I would ask the members of the Rockingham County Board of Education to consider, as well as any who are considering similar measures.

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FRESH PRINCE flipped turned upside down, gets public schools to lockdown!

A 19-year old's voice-mail rendition of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song caused the entire public school system where he lived to go on lockdown because a receptionist interpreted it as a threat.

Travis Clawson of Economy, Pennsylvania has a recording of himself singing the theme from the popular Nineties sitcom starring Will Smith (right).  The receptionist at his eye doctor's office called Clawson to confirm an upcoming appointment.  Instead of Clawson answering it went to his voice-mail greeting.  And the receptionist thought she heard Clawson singing "shooting people outside of the school."

The actual line is "And all shooting some b-ball outside of the school".

The receptionist then called Ambridge Area High School where Clawson is a student.  The officials then dialed 911.  That contacted the police and put out an alert to all the schools in the system.  The cops finally located Clawson in a guidance counselor's office and arrested him.

Ummmm... wow.

Mash here for more of this bizarre story at TimesOnline.com.

And tip o' the hat to Scott Bradford for this hilarious find!

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Middle-school students threatened by faculty over "offensive" t-shirts

Genoa-Kingston Middle School student Michael McIntyre is a young supporter of the men and women serving in the armed forces.  So much so that he has taken to show his enthusiasm for the United States Marine Corps by wearing this t-shirt (left).

But in spite of wearing it many times to school, Michael has now been threatened with suspension by his school's faculty and administration unless he removed or "covered up" his Marines shirt.  It was deemed inappropriate and against school policy to have an image of a gun.

It's the sort of story that we're hearing too much of lately: public school students either threatened with suspension or suspended outright because they draw pictures of guns, or point their fingers like guns on the playground, or even go "bang bang!" at each other.

Now it's a t-shirt that says "Marines" and features two military rifles crossed.  As if Marines have any other tool of their trade...

"What the hell are we supposed to use man? Harsh language?"

Pull the trigger here for the full story at usofarn.com.

Meanwhile in Florida, student Summer Schreiner was told she'd be suspended from school if she refused to doff her t-shirt bearing a pro-abstinence message.  From the story at the Christian Post:

A school in Florida asked an 8th-grader to change her t-shirt carrying a message of sexual abstinence that she received at a Christian conference, saying it is "inappropriate." The t-shirt the 15-year-old girl was made to change into said, "Tomorrow I will dress for success."

Summer Schreiner of Cocoa, Fla., wore a t-shirt with the words "Don't drink and park... accidents cause kids" to class at Clearlake Middle. She says she was told by the assistant principal to change it because it was "inappropriate."

"I got through lunch, and on my way back, the assistant principal tells me I need to go to the office and change my shirt," she told Fox 35.

Summer received the shirt the night before at a conference organized by The Silver Ring Thing conference, which seeks to "create a culture shift in America where abstinence becomes the norm again rather than the exception." After teenagers make the pledge of abstinence, they receive a silver ring.

"I was pretty upset. I thought it was silly," Summer said. "It's not like I was wearing a curse word or something that was promoting violence. It's the shirt I got at a conference that is something that is very important to me."

Is it just me, or do too many school systems seem to have a requisite that teachers must lose their common sense before being employed?  If she were a few years older Summer could probably go to the nurse at her high school and get free condoms, no questions asked.

No, I won't put my children through a public school system.  Not if the public schools keep up with this ludicrous behavior.  My children aren't here yet but I already love them too damned much than to subject them to this kind of insanity.

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