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I couldn't have said it better myself.

I imagine her outrage has been a buildup over time. She has most likely been unable to keep their interest and attention and just got fed up with their lackadaisical attitude and uncaring interest. With the environment and attitudes of the students these dates I'm sure she was provoked to go to the extreme that she expressed. I believe her heart was good but unfortunately she allowed her emotions to take charge. This should be taken into consideration; she should not be fired.

Allen:

I agree with your comments. It's difficult for most of us to imagine what many public school teachers have to endure on a day-to-day basis. How would most of us react to daily encounters with students who are disrespectful, apathetic, disruptive and hurling verbal assaults?

I know that most of the students aren't responsible for the chaos that occasionally exists in the public schools. But, it only takes two or three bad apples engaging in disruptive behavior to send a classroom spiraling down into anarchy. Good heavens, these teachers are trained to be educators not wardens of youthful offender camps.

Before the school board or the administration pass judgment on this woman, it might be helpful if they stood in her shoes for a few days.

I remember a book that was written many years ago by a white guy who disguised himself as a black man so that he could try to gain some personal insight into the plight of black people in a segregated society. The disguised writer’s encounters with various people led him to some rather sympathetic conclusions about racial justice. The name of the book was "Black Like Me."

Well, maybe the school board members could pose as substitute teachers for several days and get a real taste of the situation that exists in classrooms today. Perhaps, then, they could get a grip on reality and gain a more sympathetic understanding of what this teacher may have had to endure. Who knows? They could write a book about their experiences and name it "A Teacher Like Me."

Allen,

I'm with you 100%. My first reaction was also sympathy and then respect for her. Shame on anyone who is trying to place all of the blame on her. I'm sure that as bad as her language was, it was nothing compared to what she has heard during the course of the year from those students.

I have a good friend who also teaches at Smith and according to her, it is a very difficult place to teach. I suspect many of the high schools are the same. It seems as if there is little to no respect shown to the teachers.

Allen, on you post several days ago on the American Gangster thread where you claimed Russell Crowe refused to break the law when it came to catching bad guys.

Not true. He did not wait for the search warrant to arrive before he and his partner jacked open that trunk of a car when he found the million dollars that Rusell notoriously and subsequently turned in.

Granted this doesn't appear to reach the degree of egregiousness of like say...having an underling hack a computer, but technically it still shows blatant disrespect for the law.

You got me. You're right. I forgot about that scene.

So it is okay for her to curse out those kids because Smith is a bad school? Did any of you know that was an Honors Chorus class III and if they were so horrid then why didn't they curse her out while she called them all those things. She started talking about "I love you" whenever she realized she called them everything but a n***** .
So I see how the community thinks of low performing schools.. but that is an elective class and the kids that are in there do care. That is why they took it (chorus II ) because you have to be placed in there. If they were bad they wouldn't care about their conduct grade and never would have asked in the first place. So let me close by saying your opinions are your opinions but it is horrible to think that you support someone doing that. Listen back to that tape and the only time the kids even made any noise was when she said something about "call your mammas and daddies and I'll get ghetto"
She was wrong point blank. She has no right to curse at anyone because those are not her kids. And who told her to adopt someone? Does she feel better because she "loved" them and that "S** was straight". The only s**t that is straight is that she was out of order.
Not all kids at smith are bad, some are good. Not all teachers at smith are good, but some are bad.
Hey I have an idea.... Lets all be teachers and go to low performing schools and curse those ghetto kids out because that is all they know!

Or lets just get anyone in there and let them do whatever they please because those kids are loooooosers.

Gina, reading your post you are doing the same thing the teacher did in a way. You are putting in the S*** word when you didn't need to because it a.) sounds cool / street b.)shows you are angry and aren't messing around c.) keeping it real, all of which are reasons why the teacher probably did so.

Maybe all parties could help this situation.

She is the one who that that s*** was straight. Read the post from her dialogue.Those were her words read the transcript. I don't care anyway. Let anyone teach. and let them do whatever they please, and don't let anyone say anything about it. Everyone can crack the whip when they get ready. Ready, set, go!

plus no one uses "straight" anymore... that is sooo 70's.... or keeping it real

Gina, my apologies for falling behind the times with the lingo (wait, lingo is probably out of fashion for even longer than "keeping it real")

And you are right about everybody having to crack the whip, but it's not about cracking it against each other, it's about cracking the whip against stupidity and wasted potential.

Check out Doug Clark's blog. One of the kids that was in the room wrote in.

I guess I can agree with you on that Skeet Club.

The truth is that many, many teachers have similar experiences to the one caught by cell phone Big Brother. I know, I was close to a melt-dwon several times as a teacher a few years back. If it was bad then, I can't imagine what it's like now.

This was just another of the many nails in the coffin of the public school system, along with massacres, bad schores and violence. It's an outmoded dinosaur that needs to be, not fixed, but dismantled - ASAP; the educational enterprize slowly phased out to private schools, parchial schools, home schools and other competing systems that will allow survival of the fittest. As usual, government is botching it.

Public schools are a VERY expensive idea gone historically bad. But, of course, no one wants to admit, publically, that the emperor is stark naked. There WAS a time when there was family and community support, and no drugs or gangs in the schools, when they did a credible job. But even if "solutions" could be found for the rotting carcass of today's schools, it's a bad idea for government to manage a social need anyway. Public schools are just intellectual welfare moms. When will we ever see the handwriting in the newspaper headlines.

This teacher's explosion is commonplace in our schools. She just got caught by phone. Turn-over, general frustration, anger, failure - all characterize the modern school. Think the Iraq war is a financial sink hole - just look at the increases in your property taxes over that last decade or so. In a good ole capitalist environment, a failing business takes its rightful place with others that have not met the needs of the consuming public. It just works!

Truly, all the kings horses and all the superintendent's men (and women) cannot put poor old Humpty together. It's a failed socialistic monstrosity that is hurting our kids, wanabe instructors, and our nation as a whole.

Let's o phase-out the public system and shift to creative commercial schools, religious schools, home schools, et al. Let's have a market place of educational modes that will cater to everyone's needs and abilities. Private foundations, churches, and individuals can provide the necesaary scholarship programs and support systems for the disadvantaged. But I realize there are a lot of folks who would find it very hard to give up bouncing cheerleaders and football heros. But the last time I looked there were plenty of private schools that had all these things - plus greater success and order.

And BEST OF ALL - no NEA!