Discussion for article #226735
Such is the life of being a teacher: either you’re doing things to engage your kids, you’re doing nothing to engage your kids, or you’re on leave pending the outcome of an investigation.
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My money is on the mom being white.
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I’m mostly curious about how these kids constructed a paper gun that shoots paper bullets.
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No. Just no.
It is one thing to have the children research the shooting. It would be great to have them enact a moot court, or a press interview. But to re-enact a shooting?
Any kind of shooting, regardless of racial overtones seems highly inappropriate for a classroom. Aren’t they surrounded by enough violence?
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Well that’s ridiculous. Your position is that either the teacher reenacts a shooting that started riots and about which we don’t know bunches because it only happened a few days ago, or the kids will be so “disengaged” they won’t get an education at all? How long exactly since you’ve been in a classroom? “Poor teaching practices” doesn’t even begin to describe this situation.
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Missing from the coverage: which version of the shooting did they re-enact? There are at least three. Include some even more minor variations in the stories being told and there are about seven. Did the teacher select only one version that the teacher wanted the children to re-enact? Did the children re-enact, let’s say five different versions?
I could actually get behind that (walking through five major versions). It would be a magnificent teaching lesson at this juncture in numerous ways (witness reliability, hard available evidence, missing evidence, structured timeline recreating known events, craven, hysterical and sensationalistic “reporting,” etc.).
But, 6th grade is about three grade levels too young. Had it been 10th graders, possibly this could be construed as something other than brain washing.
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When do they re-enact the Civil War…er…I mean the War of Northern Agression?
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There’s not five versions of that shooting being talked about. There’s two, 1) the version told by Darren Wilson and 2) the version told by the witnesses who saw it that have talked to reporters.
It’s nice to assume that there is confusion about what happened, but there isn’t. Compared to other times when police shoot someone in the line of duty, the RELEVANT events in the Michael Brown shooting are fairly clear.
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Recall spit balls.
What are we teaching our children? It sounds like the teacher was teaching them what REALLY is out there. Michael Brown got shot, no, KILLED by the police for real. He was unarmed for real. He was killed in the broad daylight for real.
You need to know that the police will actually kill you, while you are unarmed, and get off without punishment. You especially need to know that if you are a black boy in the US in 2014.
A 6th grader should be about 12 years old. That’s old enough. It sounds young, but 13 years is when the underside of life first start to reach at them. That’s when the first teenage moms get pregnant, and the delinquents commit thier first crimes.
It doesn’t happen doesn’t really help to stick your head in the sand, whether your denial comes from the left or the right.
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“Engage” what, how to fill in blanks via conjecture?
I am just as curious too! When I re-read it that particular sentence, what came to my mind were the 3D printers which allows you to virtually make anything. Not sure if its on the market though. No long ago, saw on the news, how people will have the capability to make guns without serial numbers. Making them untraceable. If that were to happened, I’d say, “We’ve Come To The End of The Road”. Hopefully there are more sane people who will work to put a stop to his dumb shit, than there are those who are insane and think NOTHING will ever happened to them…
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It must have been a very young teacher who has no memory of the 1965 marches in Selma, or maybe she meant to have the students reenact this
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well unfortunately, 12 and 13 year olds around here already own a AR15 with 30 round clips and full camo gear. Birthday presents you know they will always cherish. How do I know?? They are already hunting deer because the antlers are almost fully grown and will be shedding the velvet soon. There just 3 months short of rifle deer season.
Even had a sheriff say he was getting his 14 yo a 30.06 because he is a big boy and can handle it.
So this teacher is no surprise in her actions. Just regular everyday stuff to enlighten the young ones as to how the world turns in there eyes.
Same same, no? This and that.
It’s on fricking TV all day long. Don’t they have a DVR? They could pause and replay to their hearts content and that should be enough. Why does a kid need to know the feeling of shooting someone or of being shot? There is nothing good about that at all.
Just preparing them for life as adults in Selma.
Alabama is steaming pile of shit full of welfare queen Republican racists(leeching off tax revenue from other states) dreaming of the days before the war of Northern aggression and who spend their days trying as hard as possible to make life resemble those days for African Americans. Fuck them. I feel sorry for any African American too stupid or poor to be able to leave the state. I hate everything about that state and I dread even driving through it on 20. I’ve had the displeasure of working with people who run government entities in Alabama and they’re all corrupt racist scum. Nicknames like Reb. Not that its very different elsewhere. The accents change but not much else.
When tornadoes go through there I pray for African Americans and innocent people and wish a plague and wind on the rest. I’m not the only person of color who feels exactly that way either. This entire nation is bathed in the blood and misery of my people. Nothing has happened to make amends for that.
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Hope you find a way to let go of the hate, it will never do anything for you or get you anywhere. I do understand the deep despise though.
I was born and raised in Texas. Got my first gun (4-10 shotgun) when I was ten. Soon after that I was given my first.22 rifle. I had long been shooting my BB gun for years and accompanying my father and other relatives on hunting trips at a very young age. It is not uncommon for young kids growing up in the South and out West to be given guns – and the requisite training on gun safety and how to use them at an early age. This is just historical precedent and reality in some parts of this country. This early training no doubt made it possible for me to become and expert marksman when I joined the U.S. Army many years later. There was a marked difference in basic training between those of us who were already trained in how to shoot and those who had never held a gun in their hands before.