CDZ First Amendment Rights in Schools

[Picaro]

To what extent should schools limit 1st amendment rights? It's always been a controversial court subject, but I've yet to meet someone that is against it.

It should be non-existent during classroom time, limited to formal debates in civics, Speech, and/or philosophy classes, and by 'free' not 'free' as in 'Hey guys!!! Watch me do this nasty ass rap song bout rape and murder n stuff!!! Yuk Yuk!!!' but real speech about the chosen subjects. Otherwise keep your idiot kids' opinions to themselves.

Get an avatar Picaro .

If I can find a suitably annoying one, I will. The one I used at my last regular board would probably be banned here, as few people get the ironic symbolism unless they know some post -WW I pre-WW II Ihistory of American influence in Germany.

 

[EverCurious]

I'll weigh in on this one, mostly because my son is fretting about a specific teacher almost daily now. My son is a capitalist, probably more of a republican than I am, his teacher is a flaming liberal. In any event she is constantly shutting my son down when he starts saying things that go against her agenda - often times 100% political (to the point that both my husband and I are considering discussing the matter with the school board, he isn't there to listen to her complain about who the American people elected, nor is he there to listen to her political opinions - I consider it abuse of authority frankly.) My son has always loved school, but thanks to this teacher he's dreading it every day now.

The most recent "conflict of opinions" - a story about a lower 48er who comes to Alaska to "live off the land" He is ill prepared for the weather and conditions and refuses the advice of long time Alaskan's - ends up dead. My son, and most of his class, note the guys a fool and should have listened to the advice he was given and moral of the story "ignore sage advice at your peril." The teacher promptly reprimands them for "giving this guy a hard time for following his dream" My son is a bit of an... idk speaker I guess for his click(s), he notes that intelligent people take advice from those who know better. Teacher then sends him to the principle, who calls me and explains this situation to me as though my son was in the wrong. Now, being a life long Alaskan who has seen the seasonal deaths of one to two tourists each year for nearly 43 years, I agree with my kid here; guy in the story's an idiot. The principle then says that the teacher feels he's disrupting the class by expressing his "alternate" opinion. I point out that when I was in school, the same school no less, the free expression of opinions weren't a problem. I'm informed that "things have changed" and that "such behaviors are frowned upon now" - to which my response is rather blunt; "I'm glad my son's almost free of your prison then." So the principle and I are no longer on speaking terms - I suppose rather like the teacher, his fragile ego couldn't handle my "alternate" opinion.

On the other hand, they have the majority of a classroom that seriously dislikes their teacher - in fact they call her Mrs. Snowflake behind her back apparently. Yes, I told my son that was rude, to which he countered that her shutting down their opinions and possibly messing up their grades by sending them out of class all the time was rude. (I have no argument against that.) I told him to just smile and nod, get through the class and move on (equating to say the work force where you could end up loosing your job,) but I'm left wondering when and why schools lost that "freedom." This particular instance isn't even controversial, it's not anything but common sense being stated, and yet the teacher is punishing my son (and other students) for 'disagreeing' with /her/ personal opinion. It feels very wrong to me. It's not even freedom of speech that's an issue in schools today, it's freedom of opinion as well. I mean some of the stuff my kid says I can see as being offensive to other kids; like for example my son isn't keen on "white trashing" as he puts it - saying it like that can be considered offensive so I tell him to find a better way to discuss the matter "openly", but saying a guys an idiot for not preparing for Alaska isn't offensive. What's the point of making this an issue? Why is it so important to this teacher that these kids deny logical reality? I'm struggling to see exactly what she thinks she's teaching these kids, other than she's a snowflake...

So yeah, sure it's easy to say "as long as their not disrupting the class" but it seems to me that teachers are using that as an /excuse/ to shut down freedom of expression, rather than as a valid argument. I mean if he was yapping over her or whatever, but she calls on him, my son says she does it on purpose because then she can throw him out of class for "disrupting" and when he leaves she hammers the rest of the kids (or at least his friends) to agree with whatever she's trying to say. (His friends are geeks and nerds, super shy folks who have no spines to be completely frank - so they just roll over as soon as he's done "protecting" them - he's a self appointed guardian of a sort, been standing up to bullies for these people for years now and I tend to agree with his assessment that the teacher is a bully here.)

 

[Picaro]

When I use the term PC Nazi and PC fascists I'm describing what they really are, and not exaggerating in the least. The Boomers let these freaks and loons take over the education system from top to bottom, and the scary part is our banking and corporate sectors have no problem with it and encourage it these days.

 

[sakinago]

To what extent should schools limit 1st amendment rights? It's always been a controversial court subject, but I've yet to meet someone that is against it.

Against what, limiting 1st amend?