Lake Stevens teacher threatens students, goes on leave
I know that high school students can be annoying, but these are perhaps not the best times to be issuing any threats at all, even empty ones, about shooting them. Right? Especially if you’re their teacher?
That’s not how they roll in Lake Stevens, though, where a crotchety old English teacher threatened to take any students that were talking in his class out back, line them up, and shoot them [Times]. Half of his class has subsequently asked to be transfered out. Would this have been a news item before shooting in schools became the new, really fucked up thing to do? Perhaps, seeing as how he’s a teacher and all.
He’s planning to retire in June, so maybe he’s just saying what everyone else is thinking, since it’s not as though his job is on the line. Can’t say, really. He’s been put on paid administrative leave, and his punishment could range from a verbal reprimand to suspension, which, again, probably doesn’t matter much since he’s retiring. It’s just luck that he only threatened to shoot his students, rather than doing something really awful, like flipping off the president [P-I]. That could have cost him his job.
I will admit that growing up in small-town Ohio could have something to do with it, but I seem to remember hearing very similar statements from more than one teacher as a child — usually from some worn-out, grumpy old lush of a teacher. As I recall, no one interpreted such statements literally because it was clear why a worn-out, grumpy old lush of a teacher would say such things.
I’m of two minds when this kind of thing happens. On the one hand I’m sympathetic to the administration and the kids parents, teachers are just that. Everything they do should be looked upon as them teaching our young kids. This behavior is definitely something we don’t want out kids doing.
On the other hand, I can feel for the teacher as it seems today’s kids have even less respect for adults than when I was a teenager (I’m 31 now). Also what’s up with half the kids requesting a transfer to another class? Sometimes I feel we are raising a bunch of hypersensitive kids that are in for a real shock when they get into the working world. Sometimes those old school scare the living shit out the kid tactics do wonders to kid a kid to figure out his priorities and start acting like a person.