Blame the Phone
In Brick, New Jersey, the Board of Education seems embarrassed over an incident that occured on their watch. In brief, according to the Asbury Park Press,
…a videotape showing a Brick Township High School teacher [Stuart Mantel] screaming at his students to show respect for the national anthem — and then pulling the chair from underneath one student who refused to stand — was posted on several independent Web sites.
I watched the video, which had been recorded by a student with his new-technology wireless phone (and please: he didn't "videotape" the incident, he recorded it digitally). The teenagers were acting pretty much like teenagers, and I wouldn't have the patience for it, but if this is how Mr. Mantel typically responds to being dissed by teens, he's got some serious issues that should be resolved if he's going to continue to try to teach them.
Anyway, what interested me was a couple of other things later in the story. First:
According to a written description posted on some of the Web sites, the student who taped the confrontations was suspended for 10 days. Mantel was not disciplined.
District spokeswoman Jennifer Strano declined to say whether anyone had been disciplined, but said "appropriate administrative action" had been taken….
Not surprising, I suppose, that it was all the students' fault, but we are assured that "appropriate administrative action" was taken. Were any of the students, perhaps, "rendered" to other torture-prone countries where we were assured that they would likely not be subject to torture? Does one see the influence of Republican propaganda vernacular in this response?
But what, do you suppose should be the response of the school board to the incident?
Strano said each school in the district has a policy prohibiting the use of wireless phones in school during school hours.
In the statement, [Schools Superintendent Thomas L.] Seidenberger said he may ask the school board to adopt a stricter policy. He also said he may ask the board to consider developing a policy regarding unauthorized taping.
That's right! The problem was obviously caused by lax rules about wireless phones being used during school. Who could argue with that logic: if the student hadn't "taped" the incident, there wouldn't have been an incident. Ta da!
And taking one from the Jeff "There's just so much misinformation out there" Gannon playbook
…Seidenberger issued a statement that "not all details cited on the Internet regarding this incident are factual." The statement did not elaborate.