Teacher punches student, not charged [Archive]

PhoenixAsh

7th June 2011, 22:25

No, he started a verbal disagreement with her because he refused to go to the principal's office and the teacher got scared and decked him.

She got scared because his entire body language and behaviour was showing rapid escalatio from being verbal to being physical. His jumping towards here in the flash of a second and being from several feet away to actual touching her and screaming is NOT considered a verbal disagreement anymore.

Its considered attacking....and I will tell you now...when this happens to you...you either flee or you fight. If somebody does this to me...I am NOT going to wait until he lands the first punch. He has clearly communicated his intentions through his behaviour and bodylanguage...and I am going to respond.

I will also tell you that if I see anybody on the street doing this to a woman
...I have stepped and will again step in.

Teachers are NOT trained for this shit. Perhaps they should. On the other hand...that means you have a serious anger management issue with the children in the US if this happens so regularly that it is required.

There is no reason to assume he initiated the fight. He could have intiated the verbal altercation or 'fight' if you really must call it that but he did not swing at her or hit her. All he did was get up in her face and yell at her. She could have stood her ground, yelled at him back and let him know she's not going to be intimidated or responded differently in some other manner but she didn't. Well...we do know he did. Because it was pretty much what the other kids said to the police.

He did jump at her...and in all cultures that is considered an attack or attempted attack. Theachers are not specially trained military or riot police.
Think of the notion of teachers having to go through such training just to be prepared....its insane.

Now...the kid could have simply gone to the principles office. He could have remained where he stood. He could have not yelled or started the verbal argument. He could have not licked the window. He could have done many things. Instead he chose to pounch on a 64 year old smaller woman.

Comrade_Oscar

7th June 2011, 22:27

Should she have punched him, no she should have just opened the door and got the principal or something. But seriously the kid is stronger than her and I don't think she should be severely punished. Plus this probably the only time the kids payed attention after all we all know the public education in this country is a joke.

Hebrew Hammer

7th June 2011, 23:04

She got scared because his entire body language and behaviour was showing rapid escalatio from being verbal to being physical. His jumping towards here in the flash of a second and being from several feet away to actual touching her and screaming is NOT considered a verbal disagreement anymore.

Its considered attacking....and I will tell you now...when this happens to you...you either flee or you fight. If somebody does this to me...I am NOT going to wait until he lands the first punch. He has clearly communicated his intentions through his behaviour and bodylanguage...and I am going to respond.

Meh, well, that's true I guess.

I will also tell you that if I see anybody on the street doing this to a woman
...I have stepped and will again step in.

Seems rather sexist on the face of it.

Teachers are NOT trained for this shit. Perhaps they should. On the other hand...that means you have a serious anger management issue with the children in the US if this happens so regularly that it is required.

Teachers should be trained for these types of situations considering you never know what a student is going through or whether or not they have emotional issues that they haven't discussed with you personally for whatever reason.

Well...we do know he did. Because it was pretty much what the other kids said to the police.

He did jump at her...and in all cultures that is considered an attack or attempted attack. Theachers are not specially trained military or riot police.

I didn't really see "the jump," I thought I saw him pump his fists downwards while yelling but then again, only watched the news vid once.

Think of the notion of teachers having to go through such training just to be prepared....its insane.

Teachers should be trained to handle all types of various situations. But I suppose, yeah, it's insane to train a teacher to correctly handle a student with some type of emotional disorder, you're right, fuck it, let them smack the little shits straight.

Now...the kid could have simply gone to the principles office. He could have remained where he stood. He could have not yelled or started the verbal argument. He could have not licked the window. He could have done many things. Instead he chose to pounch on a 64 year old smaller woman.

Like I said, the kid isn't innocent but still, neither is she. They both reacted poorly.

caramelpence

7th June 2011, 23:31

tachosomoza

7th June 2011, 23:44

Good on her. I'll never understand why some people think that revolutionary socialism has anything to do with celebrating obnoxious brats who go out of their way to intimidate and insult their teachers and parents.

I'd support training for teachers to deal with these types. Like I said before, that kid could have been going through hell and high water at home. I can understand why he wouldn't want to tell anyone, since the system tells people that men who cry are weak and unworthy of being called "men". So, he comes to school and acts out.

Sasha

8th June 2011, 00:27

i didnt watch the vid, but i'm 100% sure if that is what happend i would have slapt him too.
i actually did slap an student of mine, and i'm not 64 and the student wasnt an teen but an kid.
but than again he was kicking another kid that was lying on the floor in the spine and kidneys.

06hurdwp

8th June 2011, 00:34

Yes, the student was being a brat, yes, the teacher was backed into a corner.

But no, a punch to the face was NOT needed. She should lose her job at the least.

¿Que?

8th June 2011, 00:34

Not a very good teacher. Even before he begins screaming at her, it's clear the class is out of her control. So she should have contacted school security or the principal's office and informed them that that was happening. Instead, she chose to try to intimidate the class into submission, and only ended up getting intimidated and reacting violently.

The kid's a kid. We can't hold him responsible for this decision, and then say he is not responsible enough to buy cigarettes or alcohol. Like other's have said, he is probably going through some stuff st home, and probably at school too.

But most importantly, this merely shows the failures of our system of education, which is based somewhere along the lines of a military complex, with strict hierarchy and strong affinity towards discipline. It is, as the pink floyd movie suggests, a giant meat grinder where all individuality is lost, no matter if you are the cool punk making F's, or the straight nerd pulling A's. You're all doomed!

06hurdwp

8th June 2011, 00:49

You're all doomed!

Haha, well said mate :)

Either you're the 'cool kid' with no grades, and no future

Or you're the nerdy kid who gets bullied, but has a promising future.

Or you're a Marxist and therefore infinitely cool and infinitely clever at the same time.

Manic Impressive

8th June 2011, 00:52

So to the people defending this teacher why did she need to throw a second punch? You can clearly see when she throws the first that he is moving away but she's like "nah I didn't get him good with the first one but I will with the second one". Remember this is someone in her care. Also the amount of speculation from people in this thread is unbelievable.

Manic Impressive

8th June 2011, 00:55

i actually did slap an student of mine, and i'm not 64 and the student wasnt an teen but an kid.
but than again he was kicking another kid that was lying on the floor in the spine and kidneys.
Then you should stick to being a bouncer

8th June 2011, 01:00

I'd have probably done the same thing in her situation to be completely honest. Not saying its the right way to handle it - it isn't - but I think its a pretty understandable reaction and was clearly in self-defense.

8th June 2011, 01:09

How old was the kid, out of curiosity?

#FF0000

8th June 2011, 01:14

Honestly it's a matter of self-defense but it shouldn't have gotten to that point in the first place.

#FF0000

8th June 2011, 01:15

PhoenixAsh

8th June 2011, 01:16

#FF0000

8th June 2011, 01:17

The kid's a kid. We can't hold him responsible for this decision, and then say he is not responsible enough to buy cigarettes or alcohol. Like other's have said, he is probably going through some stuff st home, and probably at school too.

Yeah, so I agreed with the first part, but this is dumb, sorry. If someone is backing me into a corner like that then I don't care what they went through.

#FF0000

8th June 2011, 01:20

I was ready to come in here to the students defense, mind. But the fact is that the teacher didn't punch the kid as an act of discipline or anything. Like I said, it was a reaction to very threatening behavior. Wasn't necessarily the best reaction, but that is what it was and I think it is justifiable in that regard.

And frankly I don't know enough about the situation to say whether or not she is horrible for losing control of the classroom or whatever.

CommieTroll

8th June 2011, 01:27

I see teachers putting up with shit like this all the time, are we not for worker's rights? She should not have to put up with these arrogant, spoiled brats threatening her, she has the right to work in a safe environment and the right to defend herself. In my country a person has a right to defend themselves if a person invades their personal space and this is clearly what I see here. I'm 100% for the teacher. If that asshole behaved himself and actually done his work in school things like this wouldn't happen, and the teacher could loose her means of financial wellbeing? This deeply sickens me, from what I saw in that video that student is a bully, picking on the weak and small, what did he expect? That she was going to take that? Or maybe she would give him a little kiss for his troubles?:L Then when it comes to court he is seen as a victim and that his rights are violated. Troublemakers like that need to be dealt with

PhoenixAsh

8th June 2011, 01:28

Meh, well, that's true I guess.

Seems rather sexist on the face of it.

Exactly because if you behaved like that to another man you would be picking your teeth fout of the gutter. So men do that to women. Because they can and need to intimidate them....so yeah...if somebody backs a woman up in the corner and then is all in her face screaming. I WILL step in and anybody who doesn't is basically a coward.

Teachers should be trained for these types of situations considering you never know what a student is going through or whether or not they have emotional issues that they haven't discussed with you personally for whatever reason. I think teachers should be trained in self defence. Because apparantly kids are being so agressive and unable to controll their agression. They are allowed to attack people because they have emotional issues.

So..now apply this amount of speculation on the teacher. Like I said. You condemn the teachers actions...but then again...what if she went through a life of abuse?

I didn't really see "the jump," I thought I saw him pump his fists downwards while yelling but then again, only watched the news vid once.She told him to step back. He had already approached her threateningly to such an extend that she was backed up against the door. The whole reason why this was taped was because the kid went out of control screaming and approaching her threateningly.

She told him again to step back and he took a leap and was right up in her face.

Fists up or down is irrelevant. I have been getting headbutts from people with their hands casually in their pockets.

Teachers should be trained to handle all types of various situations. But I suppose, yeah, it's insane to train a teacher to correctly handle a student with some type of emotional disorder, you're right, fuck it, let them smack the little shits straight. I don't disagree...But I think she did the correct thing. You know serial killers often have some type of emotional disorder. Whats the correct way to handle them?? Speak to them sternly?
The fact remains that if thsi si so commonn taht teachers need this kind of training you need other things more

Like I said, the kid isn't innocent but still, neither is she. They both reacted poorly.

#FF0000

8th June 2011, 01:30

Troublemakers like that need to be dealt with

I don't think the teacher was wrong given the situation, as I've said a million times, but punching students is not how you deal with them.

#FF0000

8th June 2011, 01:35

Teachers should be trained to handle all types of various situations. But I suppose, yeah, it's insane to train a teacher to correctly handle a student with some type of emotional disorder, you're right, fuck it, let them smack the little shits straight. ITT: people who know absolutely nothing about how schools work.

If the kid is emotionally disturbed they have the legal right to a free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment possible. So, uh, if this kid was emotionally disturbed to the point where he had outbursts like this, he would be in a school where there are teachers trained to work with him.

We do not know what the situation is here. It seems to be a general ed. classroom.

Don't speculate.

PS: All new teachers as of 2012 must have certifications in special ed as well as general ed. The next generation of teachers are all trained to deal with students with special needs.

CommieTroll

8th June 2011, 01:38

I don't think the teacher was wrong given the situation, as I've said a million times, but punching students is not how you deal with them.

I fully understand that and I just read over my post and it just struck me that I sounded a bit like a fascist. Besides that I still think antics like this have no place in a learning environment, I can see both sides of the argument. But what if that student turned aggressive? What should she have done? I'd say she probably should have ran towards the nearest wood shop teacher:L I've seen students kick the crap into teachers before and trust me, it isn't nice

#FF0000

8th June 2011, 01:39

I fully understand that and I just read over my post and it just struck me that I sounded a bit like a fascist. Besides that I still think antics like this have no place in a learning environment, I can see both sides of the argument. But what if that student turned aggressive? What should she have done? I'd say she probably should have ran towards the nearest wood shop teacher:L I've seen students kick the crap into teachers before and trust me, it isn't nice

Basically the second the kid got loud she should've been on the phone but who knows what happened before the video started. It could've been licking windows to intimidating old ladies in 2 seconds.

RedHal

8th June 2011, 01:46

she really 64yr old? WTF is dude trying to intimidate an old lady for!? A punch from an old lady shouldn't do any harm cept maybe to the kid's ego:laugh:

Manic Impressive

8th June 2011, 01:51

The first one didn't connect at all. That is why she threw the second punch.

Sorry bro. Anyone in that position would have done the same thing.
Exactly my point she didn't connect with the first but it is evident that it was enough to make the boy move away. Yet she went for a second out of malice. And really I don't care about what people would do in her situation are you an experienced teacher who is used to having children in their care? nope thought not. Same goes to hard man Hindsight.

#FF0000

8th June 2011, 01:59

Exactly my point she didn't connect with the first but it is evident that it was enough to make the boy move away. Yet she went for a second out of malice.

Really? You're thinking an old woman who was being cornered against a wall by a younger, larger boy who is hurling obscenities and acting in a threatening manner would be feeling malice? Not, perhaps, oh, I don't fucking know, fear?

And really I don't care about what people would do in her situation are you an experienced teacher who is used to having children in their care? nope thought not. Same goes to hard man Hindsight.First, no one is saying this was the best thing to do but the situation was pretty clearly beyond the whole student-teacher relationship. He was behaving in an immediately threatening manner, and she reacted. Could she have made a better decision? Sure. Not reacting and taking a punch or continuing to be threatened might have made her look better, but to be frank, I don't think she was thinking about this. She was scared.

Secondly, no one is being a hardman here.

This was an act of self-defense.

Deal.

With.

It.

Tablo

8th June 2011, 02:12

It has been said already, but I do not think punching was the right reaction. I do however think that I would have acted the same way she did in the situation. Some people don't realize exactly how awful some of these high school students can be. When I was in high school I remember having classes with students that verbally abused teachers to tears. When getting backed in a corner like that I can't blame her for her reaction. I don't know the full situation, but from what I can gather I would side with the teacher.

Pretty Flaco

8th June 2011, 02:24

Punching the kid wasn't right, but it's not like she's a young athletic type. She's nearly retirement age! What kind of asshole punches an old lady?

Rusty Shackleford

8th June 2011, 05:24

The kid is a fucking jackass and deserved it. Ive been in classes with kids like that and honestly, theres no point in sympathizing with them.

Also, i hardly think this is the teachers fault. That kid probably grew up in a working class family where he gets treated like shit because the parents get treated like shit at work.

so, i dont fully blame the kid either. either way, the teacher was right in punching him.

tachosomoza

8th June 2011, 05:32

Both of them were victims. The kid was probably being fucked up at home. The teacher was fucked up by a system that forced her to work until she was 64.

A Revolutionary Tool

8th June 2011, 05:34

First of all, like someone already said, the amount of speculation here is ridiculous. The kid could have been abused or he could be some punk kid who thinks he can intimidate women without a consequence because he's a sexist. Doesn't excuse it either way does it? We have no idea about his history, maybe this isn't the first time he's tried to physically intimidate a teacher. Secondly we have no idea about the school itself, is this type of stuff regular. Because I've gone to schools where teachers and students would physically fight all the time, of course the students always initiated it. Just last Friday on the last day of school at my cousins highschool the vice principle got jumped by a group of girls who fucked him up. That can definitely play into how the teacher reacted. But anyway I think she's in the right if you're going to threateningly advance somebody into a corner like that you best be expecting to get hit.

Weezer

8th June 2011, 05:58

I'm not saying the teacher was right to punch the kid, but doesn't the teacher have rights?

The guy was insulting his teacher and then cornered here leaning against her. The teacher was arguably defending herself. At any rate the guy doesn't look as if he's particularly young so its not some small kid and she didn't really punch him hard.

The boy made first contact, the boy started the fight, the boy got punched.

To put it bluntly, fuck you.

¿Que?

8th June 2011, 06:35

The point is the militaristic type of discipline imposed on these kids, from a very early age. Those that don't conform naturally sometimes turn violent, but can you blame them? This system of control that is the education system is hundreds and thousands times more violent. The education system that assumes that children have to be indoctrinated into a certain logic, that things be fixed and certain, that's what's failing. Because in this alternative system, the teachers learn as much as the students! The power relations between teacher and student are transgressed and reimagined.

A Revolutionary Tool

8th June 2011, 07:00

Both of them were victims. The kid was probably being fucked up at home. The teacher was fucked up by a system that forced her to work until she was 64.
Except for you have no fucking idea at all.

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 15:45

I support the teacher 100%. The kid is taller and yelling at ther face and who knows what else when the camera is not recording. :crying: I know a teacher who got a restraining order against two elementary school kids because they were so verbally abusive and making threats. The kids though were much older than normal elementary school kids ... The teacher was old too.

So if somebody yells in your face, when you have clear and undisputed institutional authority over that person (in what is an oppressive institution), you are justified in hitting him? Interesting how we rarely hear the same people saying that if a teacher yells in a student's face, it's okay for the smaller student to punch the teacher. Again, I am amazed that people who routinely stand on the side of the oppressor, even when the oppressor is initiating physical violence, would dare to call themselves leftist. Yet here we are: spank children and punch students. Viva la revolucion!

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 15:54

Punching the kid wasn't right, but it's not like she's a young athletic type. She's nearly retirement age! What kind of asshole punches an old lady?

Did you watch the video? He did not punch her first. He simply said something to her in close quarters, and she punched him in the face.

PhoenixAsh

8th June 2011, 16:03

So if somebody yells in your face, when you have clear and undisputed institutional authority over that person (in what is an oppressive institution), you are justified in hitting him? Interesting how we rarely hear the same people saying that if a teacher yells in a student's face, it's okay for the smaller student to punch the teacher.

This wasn't a smaller student now was it? But yes...its authority and yes...that should be different.

BUT

it was quite apparant that the rules of absolute authority in the institution applied only by consensus of both parties in that specific incident...clearly you seem to think that authority gives somebody the right to use and threaten physical violence against somebody for any reason what so ever without even having a platform of trying to lessen the bonds of authorit in a general way?

A strange notion.

There are also other bonds of oppression at play here.

And yes...I WOULD say that if the roles were reversed the student had the abolute right to hit back. ANYBODY who does this is going to attack.

Again, I am amazed that people who routinely stand on the side of the oppressor, even when the oppressor is initiating physical violence, would dare to call themselves leftist. Yet here we are: spank children and punch students. Viva la revolucion!Now...THAT wasn't the case here now was it? Because the oppersor did not initiate physical violence. The guy did...against that woman. And yes...I advocate selfdefence.

So you are intentionally trying to be over the top here. So let me retunr the favor just to show you how ridiculous it is to polarise in such a manner by slightly altering your rant :

" I can't understand why people who appologise violence and dominating attitudes springing from a mysogenistic world view of society against women...I don't understand how they dare to call themselves leftists.

Yet here we are: Yell at women...push them in a corner. Deny them the right to self defence. Viva La revolucion "

:rolleyes:

Fawkes

8th June 2011, 16:10

I don't really see what's the big deal here, if this happened anywhere other than a school, everyone would be bemoaning the fact that the kid didn't get a couple of teeth knocked out. This isn't corporal punishment nor is this a case of a teacher taking advantage of kids' subhuman legal status, this is someone reacting expectedly on a split second impulse to a very real threat. Teachers and students both get horribly fucked over by the education system so don't try to make it into this huge oppressive power struggle between the two groups.

Franz Fanonipants

8th June 2011, 16:12

Fox News - Impacting Revleft super hard

tachosomoza

8th June 2011, 16:25

This wasn't a smaller student now was it? But yes...its authority and yes...that should be different.

BUT

it was quite apparant that the rules of absolute authority in the institution applied only by consensus of both parties in that specific incident...clearly you seem to think that authority gives somebody the right to use and threaten physical violence against somebody for any reason what so ever without even having a platform of trying to lessen the bonds of authorit in a general way?

A strange notion.

There are also other bonds of oppression at play here.

And yes...I WOULD say that if the roles were reversed the student had the abolute right to hit back. ANYBODY who does this is going to attack.

Now...THAT wasn't the case here now was it? Because the oppersor did not initiate physical violence. The guy did...against that woman. And yes...I advocate selfdefence.

So you are intentionally trying to be over the top here. So let me retunr the favor just to show you how ridiculous it is to polarise in such a manner by slightly altering your rant :

" I can't understand why people who appologise violence and dominating attitudes springing from a mysogenistic world view of society against women...I don't understand how they dare to call themselves leftists.

Yet here we are: Yell at women...push them in a corner. Deny them the right to self defence. Viva La revolucion "

:rolleyes:

Sexist. :thumbdown:

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 16:44

This wasn't a smaller student now was it? But yes...its authority and yes...that should be different.

I didn't say it was a smaller student, but people seems to be justifying the fact that the teacher hit the student because she was smaller. My point is that, if the situation were a smaller student and a large, shrieking teacher, then size would suddenly not be an issue at all. So the issue really isn't size, the issue is the fact that we have on this thread a bunch of leftists grasping at straws to justify to use of violence in an oppressive institutional setting against somebody whom that institution disempowers.

it was quite apparant that the rules of absolute authority in the institution applied only by consensus of both parties in that specific incidentThat is not clear at all. All we have is video footage of an upset student approaching a teacher, saying something to her, and her punching him in the face. The rest is just stuff you're making up.

...clearly you seem to think that authority gives somebody the right to use and threaten physical violence against somebody for any reason what so ever without even having a platform of trying to lessen the bonds of authorit in a general way?On the contrary, I am the person who is arguing that NOBODY should have the authority to inflict physical violence on another person. You are apparently taking the opposite position: that if somebody you supervise at work approaches you, upset about an issue, and agitatedly walks up to you in a way that makes you uncomfortable, you have a right to strike that person. Very strange for a leftist to take such a position.

And yes...I WOULD say that if the roles were reversed the student had the abolute right to hit back. ANYBODY who does this is going to attack.So how do you know that the video wasn't started until after the teacher had already gotten into the student's face yelling and screaming and barking commands? How do you know that the student approaching her wasn't just a response to aggression she had already shown him? If you're willing to countenance him hitting her in response to such aggression, how could you not countenance him simply getting in her face? Your whole attitude toward this incident this just reeks of smuggling in mainstream ideas of students and young people as property in through the backdoor.

Now...THAT wasn't the case here now was it? Because the oppersor did not initiate physical violence. The guy did...against that woman. And yes...I advocate selfdefence.The student in the video at no time struck the teacher. He did not initiate violence against her. She struck him. Watch the video again, and this time pay attention.

Fawkes

8th June 2011, 16:46

Sexist. :thumbdown:

There's a difference between taking the chivalrous stance of "we valiant and strong men must protect the weak and fair ladies" and recognizing the fact that we live in a culture that facilitates and apologizes for violence against women as a specific (but not homogenous) oppressed group.

caramelpence

8th June 2011, 16:46

So if somebody yells in your face, when you have clear and undisputed institutional authority over that person (in what is an oppressive institution), you are justified in hitting him?

How exactly do you think state schools work? It most certainly is not the case that teachers are allowed to exercise total authority over their students, in fact the teaching profession is one of the most regulated professions in the public sector, both in terms of who is allowed to become a teacher in the first place and what teachers are allowed to do once they are inside the profession. I'll let others provide specific information concerning the US but in the UK, which I imagine follows the same overall approach, many schools in the state and private sectors have an official "no touch" policy where teachers are not allowed to physically interact with their students in any way, be it to restrain them in order to protect themselves or other students, or to comfort students who are in emotional distress, because teachers know that a student or their parents could potentially cite child protection laws when teachers have made a decision to intervene. When that does happen, and regardless of the final decision, public witch hunts against individual teachers inevitably follow. You should know that the main teachers' union in the UK, the NUT, has called for the problems with this approach to be recognized and for teachers to be able to take a more assertive approach. The existence of these and other rules has implications for teachers being able to search students for prohibited property, for example. Moreover, the most recent disciplinary code produced by the General Teaching Council also specifies that teachers have to conduct themselves in a certain way in their private lives and outside of the working week and that if they act in ways that are deemed inappropriate, they are liable for disciplinary proceedings - so not only do teachers face a large volume of constraints in school, they also find their private lives being policed. This is not "uninhibited authority".

When it comes to classroom discipline, I take the side of the teachers and their union, not a minority of insolent brats who want to spoil lessons for everyone else. A socialist vision of education should be open to experimentation, but it should not be premised on the assumption that there is something inherently wrong with teachers having authority over their students, and if there is anything that should lie at the core of such a vision it is the view that teachers should have the autonomy to teach as they wish rather than having to operate within a set of restraints, both in terms of managing classroom behavior (i.e. not being allowed to exercise discipline when it's necessary) and having to rely on curricula that are orientated towards testing and statistical achievement rather than learning in a more meaningful sense.

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 16:47

tachosomoza

8th June 2011, 16:49

There's a difference between taking the chivalrous stance of "we valiant and strong men must protect the weak and fair ladies" and recognizing the fact that we live in a culture that facilitates and apologizes for violence against women as a specific (but not homogenous) oppressed group.

I agree. I perceived Hindsight's post as sexist because it said "hitting women", when the gender of the teacher is irrelevant.

caramelpence

8th June 2011, 16:50

If this had happened anywhere else besides a school, the teacher would be charged with assault. It is not lawful for you to strike another person simply because they walk up to you and get in your face.

Actually, I'm sure that provocation would be an entirely legitimate legal defense here, given that the student was shouting in the teacher's face whilst she was pressed against a wall and being towered over, so even if the brat did charge the teacher, one would hope that the case wouldn't go very far.

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 16:52

When it comes to classroom discipline, I take the side of the teachers and their union, not a minority of insolent brats who want to spoil lessons for everyone else.

Just substitute workplace with classroom, and employers with teachers, and you pretty much have replicated verbatim the classic 19th century attitude of the bourgeoisie to their proletarian "hangers-on."

A socialist vision of education should be open to experimentation, but it should not be premised on the assumption that there is something inherently wrong with teachers having authority over their students,This is a strawman. Nobody is saying teachers should not have any authority. My argument is that nobody should have the authority to strike another human being unless one has been struck first, and is therefore acting in self-defense.

and if there is anything that should lie at the core of such a vision it is the view that teachers should have the autonomy to teach as they wish rather than having to operate within a set of restraints, both in terms of managing classroom behavior (i.e. not being allowed to exercise discipline when it's necessary) and having to rely on curricula that are orientated towards testing and statistical achievement rather than learning in a more meaningful sense.See the spanking thread further down in the politics forum. Hitting is the least effective form of discipline, and just normalises violence in a way that dupes people into thinking that what the bourgeois state does to oppressed people is a-okay. Initiating violence for the sake of disciplining young people has no place in a socialist society. That you think it does is deeply disturbing.

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 16:55

Actually, I'm sure that provocation would be an entirely legitimate legal defense here, given that the student was shouting in the teacher's face whilst she was pressed against a wall and being towered over, so even if the brat did charge the teacher, one would hope that the case wouldn't go very far.

Not only do you exhibit a deranged authoritarian attitude toward young people, you also have a profound ignorance of the law. If you walk up to somebody and start yelling in their face, they do NOT have the right to strike you. And there's a very good reason you don't. Wanna guess what it is? But I guess this doesn't matter in this case, since we are, after all, talking about students. And they have no rights because they are just "spoiled brats."

caramelpence

8th June 2011, 16:59

Just substitute workplace with classroom, and employers with teachers, and you pretty much have replicated verbatim the classic 19th century attitude of the bourgeoisie to their proletarian "hangers-on."

No, sorry, that doesn't make any sense whatsoever, I fail to see how teachers being able to respond to physical intimidation and maintain class room discipline against brattish children has anything to do with justifications for capitalists having authority in the workplace.

My argument is that nobody should have the authority to strike another human being unless one has been struck first, and is therefore acting in self-defense.

This is nice in an abstract moral world of rational agents but what we are dealing with in this case is a woman (and yes that is relevant here, as others have pointed out it is much less likely that this student would have been such a thug if they had been faced with a man, especially a man of strong physical stature) who was being intimidated, through shouting and through being physically pressed into a corner, and in an instance like that where the thug showed no sign of backing down, it's entirely reasonable that the teacher would be provoked to respond in order to defend herself. I presume, if you have any sense whatsoever, that you accept that people can be provoked, and that provocation is a legitimate reason to act in many instances, even if you haven't been physically struck yet.

Hitting is the least effective form of discipline, and just normalises violence

Totally irrelevant, we're not talking about discipline, let alone the morality or usefulness of corporal punishment. When the teacher struck the thug she was responding to provocation in order to defend herself, she was not exercising discipline, i.e. she was not punishing the thug for their disgusting behavior.

If you walk up to somebody and start yelling in their face, they do NOT have the right to strike you.

It's not about whether they have a "right" to do this or that, it's the fact that provocation - in legal terms, a temporary or sudden loss of control - is, in many jurisdictions, a suitable defense for offenses like assault and even murder, which can result in anything from acquittal to reduction of sentence if the defense if accepted, and so there is a good chance, given the facts of this case, that, if the brat were to go ahead and charge the teacher with assault, she would be able to avoid the charge (and quite rightly) by pointing to the fact that she was provoked - depending on the specificities of the law concerning assault and provocation in the US. Given that this defense has been used in murder cases, it would obviously be legally sensible to use it in this case as well. This is, of course, assuming that this case would even be considered assault.

Tim Finnegan

8th June 2011, 17:07

The teacher should be ashamed of herself. That was a lousy punch.

Fawkes

8th June 2011, 17:08

Are people here totally ignorant of just how disempowered of a position public school teachers in the U.S. possess? They're treated like shit and work one of the most stressful and time consuming jobs I can imagine. No one's denying that students and kids in general are treated as subhumans, but teachers aren't these big bad authority figures that can just do whatever the hell they want, they get fucked over horribly by the administration constantly and possess very little power over the goings on of the classroom.

This kid isn't a "brat" or anything, he's a person who made very physically threatening (and from the news reports, sounds like verbal too) gestures toward somebody else who reacted in such a way as to defend themselves from the threat this much bigger and more aggressive person posed.

Also, legally speaking, I'm not positive, but I don't believe that one has to be hit first to warrant a response in self-defense. I'm pretty sure if there is deemed to be an imminent threat to ones physical wellbeing, proportional violence as a means of defense is legally sanctioned. I'm not positive on that, but I'm pretty sure I remember reading that from a legal resource TC posted a while ago.

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 17:10

No, sorry, that doesn't make any sense whatsoever, I fail to see how teachers being able to respond to physical intimidation and maintain class room discipline against brattish children has anything to do with justifications for capitalists having authority in the workplace.

Then let me spell it out for you. The classroom in bourgeois society, like the workplace, is profoundly undemocratic. Just as society, people for whom production is supposedly taking place, have very little control over how production takes place, students who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of education have very little control over how education takes place. It was just as common in the 19th century to hear factory owners referring to militant workers as animalistic upstarts who were trying to ruin the economy for everyone else, just as it is currently common (even on leftist forums, to my surprise) that students who are upset about an administrative decision are just "spoiled brats" trying to "ruin education for everybody else." In both situations, it's people taking the side of the powerful against the powerless, and acting like the deployment of power by the powerful is actually the fault of the powerless.

Does this make more sense now?

This is nice in an abstract moral world of rational agents but what we are dealing with in this case is a woman (and yes that is relevant here, as others have pointed out it is much less likely that this student would have been such a thug if they had been faced with a man, especially a man of strong physical stature)

The sex of the individuals involved is irrelevant in determining whether it is lawful or right to strike another person. We do not have laws written so that it is okay for women to hit men, but not the other way around. It is illegal to strike another person. Bringing sex up to justify what she did is regressively sexist, reinforcing the image of the helpless damsel in distress.

who was being intimidated, through shouting and through being physically pressed into a corner,

You keep bringing up this "physically pressed into a corner," but I've seen the video several times. I do not see any physical contact between the two individuals until the teacher strikes the student. At no time is the teacher in a "corner." This is just pure apologia for a needless act of violence that has no place in a humane society.

and in an instance like that where the thug showed no sign of backing down, it's entirely reasonable that the teacher would be provoked to respond in order to defend herself. I presume, if you have any sense whatsoever, that people can be provoked, and that provocation is a legitimate reason to act in many instances, even if you haven't been physically struck yet.

Thankfully the word doesn't operate according to your principles, where somebody yelling at you or saying things you do not like (being "provoked") justifies you hitting them. If so, there were be a lot of battered spouses in the world without legal recourse.

Totally irrelevant, we're not talking about discipline, let alone the morality or usefulness of corporal punishment. When the teacher struck the thug she was responding to provocation in order to defend herself, she was not exercising discipline, i.e. she was not punishing the thug for their disgusting behavior.

The teacher initiated physical contact. She initiated violence. You can spin this as much as possible with your ridiculous claims about "cornering" and "provocation," but that doesn't change the fact that the teacher punched him. He did not touch her.

tachosomoza

8th June 2011, 17:11

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 17:13

Fawkes

8th June 2011, 17:23

http://www.self-defender.net/law2.htm

776.012 Use of force in defense of person.--A person is justified in the use of force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against such other's imminent use of unlawful force. However, the person is justified in the use of deadly force only if he or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony.

776.031 Use of force in defense of others.--A person is justified in the use of force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to prevent or terminate such other's trespass on, or other tortious or criminal interference with, either real property other than a dwelling or personal property, lawfully in his or her possession or in the possession of another who is a member of his or her immediate family or household or of a person whose property he or she has a legal duty to protect. However, the person is justified in the use of deadly force only if he or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony.

776.041 Use of force by aggressor.--The justification described in the preceding sections of this chapter is not available to a person who:

(1) Is attempting to commit, committing, or escaping after the commission of, a forcible felony; or
(2) Initially provokes the use of force against himself or herself, unless:
(a) Such force is so great that the person reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that he or she has exhausted every reasonable means to escape such danger other than the use of force which is likely to cause death or great bodily harm to the assailant; or
(b) In good faith, the person withdraws from physical contact with the assailant and indicates clearly to the assailant that he or she desires to withdraw and terminate the use of force, but the assailant continues or resumes the use of force

So legally speaking it's kind of a gray area. She had a means to escape, but whether identifying and opening the door in a matter of seconds and running out of the class she had the responsibility to protect all while being physically and verbal threatened by a much bigger person is considered a "reasonable means" is open to interpretation. Either way, whether she is legally guilty or not, that does nothing to change my sentiments that she was fully justified in doing what she did. It's not like she pummeled the kid or broke anything, she did just enough to get this person who was posing a dangerous threat to her to back away. This is not corporal punishment.

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 17:28

So legally speaking it's kind of a gray area. She had a means to escape, but whether identifying and opening the door in a matter of seconds and running out of the class she had the responsibility to protect all while being physically and verbal threatened by a much bigger person is considered a "reasonable means" is open to interpretation. Either way, whether she is legally guilty or not, that does nothing to change my sentiments that she was fully justified in doing what she did. It's not like she pummeled the kid or broke anything, she did just enough to get this person who was posing a dangerous threat to her to back away. This is not corporal punishment.

While the law is written ambiguously, it is almost always applied so that the "reasonable belief" that you are going to be attacked means that a person is literally verbally indicating they are going to attack you, or has already begun attacking you. Again, if we are to take the principle that being confronted in close quarters by an angry person is a rationale for striking that person, battered spouses would almost invariably have no legal recourse.

caramelpence

8th June 2011, 17:30

Nobody is saying teachers can do whatever they want

You're the one who talked about teachers having "undisputed authority". Most people would take that to mean that their authority is undisputed, i.e. that no-one does or can challenge it.

Then let me spell it out for you...

At a superficial level, it's true that schools and workplaces are similar as institutions insofar as their participants do not democratically decide, through processes of collective discussion and voting and so on, how they are run and what their goals should be, but what you haven't shown is why this is a problem when it comes to schools, or why, in the case of schools, if they should be democratically run, we should understood democratic control to mean that the students should take on the major role in the running of the school, as opposed to the teachers and other staff making decisions amongst themselves. In order to make your comparison a meaningful one you need to explain why students not having democratic control over their schools is a problem on the same scale or of the same nature as workers not collectively managing their workplaces, and you also need to explain what student democratic control over schools would actually look like, given that the institutional consequences of your assertion that student democratic control is necessary are not immediately apparent. I personally don't think that students should have democratic control over schools, I think it should be teachers, along with administrative and clerical staff, who make collective decisions, which would mean changing schools away from the current system, based on the empowerment of headmasters and department heads and the implementation of policy directives from the education authorities, but would still maintain the basic notion of a student-teacher relationship, which is that teachers, on the basis of their specialist knowledge, should be in a position of authority over students, and that they should be able to resort to powers of discipline when necessary.

I am actually interested in your understanding of what a school run by its students would look like, given that you apparently see students not having democratic control as a serious injustice, and given that even contemporary schools run along egalitarian principles embody some form of teacher authority. At what age would students gain control of their school? Would they be allowed to determine the allocation of all resources? Determine which teachers should be at the school? Close the school down if they want? Would the community as a whole have an input into these student-run schools or would it be an entirely autonomous affair?

The sex of the individuals involved is irrelevant in determining whether it is lawful or right to strike another person.

All this shows is that the formal equality of the law papers over the power inequalities that are deeply rooted in contemporary society, including the inequalities surrounding sex and gender. As socialists who look beyond the law, we should be able to accept and competently argue that the sex of participants in a situation of confrontation does influence the ways power is exercised. For example, in a discursive scenario, a man shouting over someone has different implications if that person is a woman.

You keep bringing up this "physically pressed into a corner," but I've seen the video several times.

If this wasn't clear, I wasn't saying that the student literally took hold of the teacher and pinned her against a wall, I was saying that he put her in a confined situation through his physical movements. People often do this in situations of confrontation - you can make someone back into a space by walking aggressively towards them and elevating yourself above and over them without ever having to touch them. In that sense she was pressed into a corner.

You can spin this as much as possible with your ridiculous claims about "cornering" and "provocation,"

It's not me spinning anything, it's about the basic concept of provocation. Are you denying that people can be legitimately provoked into striking someone? What if someone is being baited with racist abuse?

Provocation is, it should be emphasized, different from self-defense, as a legal defense, not to mention as a moral concept.

Fawkes

8th June 2011, 17:32

Stop clouding this issue. Nobody is saying teachers can do whatever they want. What you seem to be saying is that, because poor teachers can't do whatever they want, we should look the other way when they hit kids every once in a while. It's ridiculous.

And you're saying that, because kids are so disenfranchised, acts of violence against them are never justified. It's ridiculous.

Again, I am amazed that people who routinely stand on the side of the oppressor, even when the oppressor is initiating physical violence, would dare to call themselves leftist.
I'm amazed that you consider teachers to be the oppressor. Are you fucking kidding me? Teachers are students best allies.

Edit: Also, just to note, if you look back at the "spanking" thread, you'll see that I was one of the most vehement and vocal opponents of disciplinary violence in any context.

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 17:41

You're the one who talked about teachers having "undisputed authority".

I am sorry you cannot understand the difference between "undisputed authority" (nobody disputes that a teacher has authority over students in the classroom) and "unrestricted authority" (the teacher can do whatever she wants to students). But there is a difference nevertheless.

At a superficial level, it's true that schools and workplaces are similar as institutions insofar as their participants do not democratically decide, through processes of collective discussion and voting and so on, how they are run and what their goals should be, but what you haven't shown is why this is a problem when it comes to schools, or why, in the case of schools, if they should be democratically run, we should understood democratic control to mean that the students should take on the major role in the running of the school, as opposed to the teachers and other staff making decisions amongst themselves. In order to make your comparison a meaningful one you need to explain why students not having democratic control over their schools is a problem on the same scale or of the same nature as workers not collectively managing their workplaces, and you also need to explain what student democratic control over schools would actually look like, given that the institutional consequences of your assertion that student democratic control is necessary are not immediately apparent. I personally don't think that students should have democratic control over schools, I think it should be teachers, along with administrative and clerical staff, who make collective decisions, which would mean changing schools away from the current system, based on the empowerment of headmasters and department heads and the implementation of policy directives from the education authorities, but would still maintain the basic notion of a student-teacher relationship, which is that teachers, on the basis of their specialist knowledge, should be in a position of authority over students, and that they should be able to resort to powers of discipline when necessary.

Basically a paragraph in which you say that students are too spoiled and bratty to have any say in what goes on in the course of their education. Why would I bother recommending books like A.S. Neill's "Summerhill" or Bill Ayers' "On the Side of the Child" to somebody whose attitude is so innured in mainstream authoritarian ideas about young people are capable of.

Not surprisingly you also fail to make a dinstinction between democratically decided authority and authoritarian authority imposed from without. Nobody is saying that the classroom should be a free-for-all in which a teacher has no discretion to order her charges to perform certain tasks, just as nobody says that a communist workplace will be an uncoordinated mess in which each worker gets to do what he or she wishes.

I am actually interested in your understanding of what a school run by its students would look like, given that you apparently see students not having democratic control as a serious injustice, and given that even contemporary schools run along egalitarian principles embody some form of teacher authority. At what age would students gain control of their school? Would they be allowed to determine the allocation of all resources? Determine which teachers should be at the school? Close the school down if they want? Would the community as a whole have an input into these student-run schools or would it be an entirely autonomous affair?

See the two books I recommended above. There are many more books that talk about such experimental schools. It's a shame that, without having researched the issue, you feel free to make such sweeping claims on behalf of oppression.

All this shows is that the formal equality of the law papers over the power inequalities that are deeply rooted in contemporary society, including the inequalities surrounding sex and gender. As socialists who look beyond the law, we should be able to accept and competently argue that the sex of participants in a situation of confrontation does influence the ways power is exercised. For example, in a discursive scenario, a man shouting over someone has different implications if that person is a woman.

So all men are more physically powerful than all women. And a woman who hits somebody should be treated differently than a man who hits somebody? Again, how can one even begin to argue with thinking so odiously regressive?

If this wasn't clear, I wasn't saying that the student literally took hold of the teacher and pinned her against a wall, I was saying that he put her in a confined situation through his physical movements. People often do this in situations of confrontation - you can make someone back into a space by walking aggressively towards them and elevating yourself above and over them without ever having to touch them. In that sense she was pressed into a corner.

Except for the inconvenient fact that she was standing right in front of a door. One that was certainly unlocked. But yes, let's continue the fiction that she was backed into a corner from which there was no escape.

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 17:45

And you're saying that, because kids are so disenfranchised, acts of violence against them are never justified. It's ridiculous.

I have been very clear that violence is justified in self-defense. My problem is the idea that self-defense can be invoked just because somebody is yelling at you in close quarters. It's funny how so many people making that argument on this thread would scream "sexist, sexist!" if they heard somebody defending a small, short, thin man who struck a tall, obese woman doing the same kind of yelling in the privacy of their home.

I'm amazed that you consider teachers to be the oppressor. Are you fucking kidding me? Teachers are students best allies.

The school is a capitalist institution designed, in part, to break young people into quietly and meekly accepting authority from people arbitrarily put in charge over you for hours and hours every day. The agents of this breaking process are the teachers. I'm amazed you don't understand that.

PhoenixAsh

8th June 2011, 17:47

Sexist. :thumbdown:

I agree. I perceived Hindsight's post as sexist because it said "hitting women", when the gender of the teacher is irrelevant.

No...the gender is not irrelevent. We do not live in a society were gender is irrelevent. I agree it should be irrelevant but we unfortunately live in a society that perpetuates gender roles and denies its irrelevance. Therefore our actions are based, either in opposing them or in perpetuating them, on the notion of gender and react out of that given fact and it dictates consciously or unconsciously the way we interact, react and behave.

I didn't say it was a smaller student, but people seems to be justifying the fact that the teacher hit the student because she was smaller.

Fair enough.

Size is considered to be a major factor in establishing dominance and it plays a crucial role in threat assessment. Wether this is based on realism or not.

Its for that reason that armies in the past have adopted headdress not based on functionality but on size to make their troops appear larger and therefore more threatening. Its also the reason small animals stand on their hind legs when they feel threatened of we puff up when we become agressive or want to establish dominance.

My point is that, if the situation were a smaller student and a large, shrieking teacher, then size would suddenly not be an issue at all. So the issue really isn't size,

That I agree with in the general concept of the situation. Size however is an aggravating factor because it plays a large role in threat perception.

the issue is the fact that we have on this thread a bunch of leftists grasping at straws to justify to use of violence in an oppressive institutional setting against somebody whom that institution disempowers.

I think teachers are pretty much disempowered. The authority they do hold is based on mutual acceptance and the power to punish transgressions by punishment. That power does not extend to situation in which the other party clearly violates the bond of authroity and transgresses it in such a way that we move from the realm of authority to the realm of personal safety. Clearly in those situations the official authority stops being a factor.

That is not clear at all. All we have is video footage of an upset student approaching a teacher, saying something to her, and her punching him in the face. The rest is just stuff you're making up.

See above. The teachers authority only applies in situations of conformity. If somebody refuses to accept that authority there can be consequences at a later point for that refusal...but in the immediate situation that move negates the authority of the teacher who has no way to enforce compliance at that specific point.

On the contrary, I am the person who is arguing that NOBODY should have the authority to inflict physical violence on another person.

I think violence was already applied by backing her into a corner and threatening behaviour.

Something teh students later admitted was the reason why they were filming the incident: because of the rapidly escalating behaviour of the student.

You are apparently taking the opposite position: that if somebody you supervise at work approaches you, upset about an issue, and agitatedly walks up to you in a way that makes you uncomfortable, you have a right to strike that person.

Sorry...are you arguing that this was a situation with uncomfortable behaviour instead of pure agression?

Because I can guarantee you that if somebody at work would approach me in exactly the same way that student did his teacher...they would be fired and the company would file charges. In fact that has happened in the past....so I am also speaking out of personal experience here.

Very strange for a leftist to take such a position.

No, actually it isn't. I somebody threatenes you with violence...you have a right to defend yourself.

So how do you know that the video wasn't started until after the teacher had already gotten into the student's face yelling and screaming and barking commands?

Because we have the eyewitness accounts that stated she didn't because the student who filmed it stated he filmed it because he was rapidly escalating.

How do you know that the student approaching her wasn't just a response to aggression she had already shown him?

see above.

If you're willing to countenance him hitting her in response to such aggression, how could you not countenance him simply getting in her face?

Because he is not simply getting in her face.

Your whole attitude toward this incident this just reeks of smuggling in mainstream ideas of students and young people as property in through the backdoor.

Actually I don't. I interpret human behaviour. All the signs he showed were in line with behavioural patterns for initiating violence adn in my assessment of his rapid escalation, his continued intrusion of her personal space and his whole puffing up attitude, raising of the shoulders...tells me that a person is going in to initiate violence.

The student in the video at no time struck the teacher. He did not initiate violence against her. She struck him. Watch the video again, and this time pay attention.

No...perhaps you should pay attention. Because actual striking is not relevant. Its about intent.

If this had happened anywhere else besides a school, the teacher would be charged with assault. It is not lawful for you to strike another person simply because they walk up to you and get in your face.

No. I can pretty much guarantee that you wouldn't unless it was a cop you were doing it to. Actual physical force is not necessary to warrant self defence. This kind of intrusion of personal space implies violence and intend and composes an imminent threat to personal safety.

If I was in this situation on the street and it was filmed. I would be out in no time IF I would be arrested at all. No charges would be pushed.

You have to believe that there is an imminent threat of danger to your life to warrant a self defense attack, IIRC. There was an escape route open. I agree about the teachers, though.

No...threat to life is not necessary. Prevention of physical harm to yourself or others is....for self defence. In some countries even the protection of property falls under that norm.

PhoenixAsh

8th June 2011, 18:00

The sex of the individuals involved is irrelevant in determining whether it is lawful or right to strike another person. We do not have laws written so that it is okay for women to hit men, but not the other way around. It is illegal to strike another person. Bringing sex up to justify what she did is regressively sexist, reinforcing the image of the helpless damsel in distress.

Well..she wasn't so helpless now was she? BUt for a socialist you are strangely ignoring the power dynamics in society in which the majority of women are in fact being placed in considerable distress a situation which is perpetuated by all kinds of reasons including subconscious behaviour.

The gender was initially brought up to counteract the speculation on the personal situation of the student. One can also easilly speculate about the position of the teacher and her personal situation. This is irrelevant for the discussion.

But gender is not irrelvant if looked at in the societal reality we live in..and the role gender plays in violent behaviour either by the culprit or the victim....not in how threats and violence are perceived. Perception is simply the added personal experience and analysis of sensory input and tha is pretty much influenced by societal experiences and realities.

It is not illegal for somebody to hit anybody in all circumstances. Especially in cases of selfdefence.

Now if we look at the position of women in society and the reality of abusive behaviour they face from men. A simple and horrible fact that can not be argued with. Then threat assessment and perception are not simply judicial paper calculations but carry a huge subjective intepretation of social reality and experience....and with that comes the interpretation of what constitutes excessive or acceptable levels of force and violence in the attempt to defend one self and also in what is a necessary level of agression you have to face i order for reactions to be interpreted as self defence.

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 18:02

I think teachers are pretty much disempowered.

Yeah, just like foremen on southern plantations were disempowered, too. You know, like the slaves were. Give me a break. Relative to students, teachers obviously have far more power, and that power is directly over students.

The authority they do hold is based on mutual acceptanceNot true. A student who no longer wishes to accept the teacher's authority is still bound to that teacher's authority according to the rules of the institution. A teacher's authority is in no way premised on whether students agree with it. It is not mutual at all.

I think violence was already applied by backing her into a corner and threatening behaviour.The problem here is she was not backed into a corner. She was standing directly in front of an unlocked door. The other problem is that, according to this definition of violence, a husband is justified in attacking his wife physically if she gets in his face and starts yelling. Or if you want to bring size into it, a diminutive husband would be justified in slamming his tall, obese wife around.

You could not possibly believe this, which is why I am emphasizing that these abstract proposals about "backing into a corner" being the equivalent of "violence" are just desperate attempts to find supposedly principled ways to arrive at supporting an action which you intuitively think is right because brutalizing and controlling young people is viewed as natural in present-day society.

Die Rote Fahne

8th June 2011, 18:02

Kid should have fucking known better. I don't feel sorry for him, asshole had it coming.

Now, was it right, that the teacher hit him? No. She should have gotten the principle involved, and his parents, and landed the kid a suspension or whatever. Hitting was too much. However, you liberals feeling sorry for this kid should really do some soul searching. You were in high school once. He had it coming.

The teacher should lose her job, the kid should be suspended.

This would be way different if this happened in middle school or elementary school.

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 18:03

Well..she wasn't so helpless now was she? BUt for a socialist you are strangely ignoring the power dynamics in society in which the majority of women are in fact being placed in considerable distress a situation which is perpetuated by all kinds of reasons including subconscious behaviour.

This is just rich. I am going to be lectured about how I am ignoring social power dynamics from somebody who wants to ignore the massive power differential between teachers and students in the classroom, and adults and children in society more broadly.

praxis1966

8th June 2011, 18:09

PhoenixAsh

8th June 2011, 18:12

So all men are more physically powerful than all women. And a woman who hits somebody should be treated differently than a man who hits somebody? Again, how can one even begin to argue with thinking so odiously regressive?

Seriously? You are seriously making this argument? About false generalisations? After you just argued that all threats towards teachers are warranted and excusable?

And I find the reverse sexist argument very, very odious.

Except for the inconvenient fact that she was standing right in front of a door. One that was certainly unlocked. But yes, let's continue the fiction that she was backed into a corner from which there was no escape.

So you suggest that a student who moves from a few feet away to centimeters in somebodies face in a fraction of a second...

Let me intreject here...there is a whole field of psychology dealing with the biological time necessary to react cognitively to a sensory input.

But you suggest that in an escalating and high tenstion situation which does hold huge threats...in a fraction of a second...to right in her face...even up till a point he made body contact or at least its unclear if he didn't.... the teacher has to cognitively analyse the situation, turn around, open the door...:rolleyes:

Let stop here for a second...turn around and turn her side or back to the person who is in all likelyhood attacking her...is very sensible. The first lesson of all self defence classes: turn yor back on the attacker. :rolleyes:

Alllriighty then.

So what abouy the student NOT becomming agressive, deciding to NOT violate personal space, deciding NOT to be all in her face all agressive and dominating???

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 18:14

I hate to be the one to tell you this, Lucretia, but all else being equal you don't know thing one about teaching. My parents are/were (father is now retired) educators. I've worked in schools, both in a support capacity as a computer technician and in an instructional capacity as a substitute teacher and as a classroom paraprofessional (read: teacher's aid) in various grade levels. Beyond that, there are teachers that I've known who are dyed in the wool leftist activists whom I've met through my org.

What I'm getting at is, I know how this whole thing works so let me explain something in no uncertain terms and in a way you can understand:

Next to nothing a teacher does, whether it's what they teach or how or how they discipline a student, is within their control. 99% of it is state mandated and enforced by administration. So, blaming teachers, who are generally people who want to help educate and empower people (especially ones in public education) carte blanche for the state of education is like blaming a rape victim for being raped.

If you want to get worked up about education, get worked up at the state. By blaming teachers, you're barking up the wrong fucking tree, pal.

Blaming teachers? Get a grip and actually read what's being said before you start your fanaticism.

There are a number of comments I have made that I stand behind.

1) Teachers have more power than students in the school.
2) Teachers have power over students.
3) The power teachers have over students is not premised on students' acceptance of that authority.

Only the illiterati can view these statements and interpret them to mean that I think:

1) Teachers have absolutely authority and control over what they do.
2) Teachers have unrestricted authority over students
3) The root problem in education is the abusive teachers.

But feel free to pretend you're some sort of expert in education because your parents were teachers. My late parents were both accountants, but that doesn't make me an expert in accounting. Does it?

Tim Finnegan

8th June 2011, 18:17

Yeah, just like foremen on southern plantations were disempowered, too. You know, like the slaves were. Give me a break. Relative to students, teachers obviously have far more power, and that power is directly over students.
I think that you really need to get away from this simplistic image of power disparities as purely realised in terms of institutional authority. If you actually look at the incident as an encounter of human beings, and not of mechanical work-units, it becomes a lot more ambiguous. As Hindsight has tried to point a good few times now, the incident clearly involved a large, stronger, aggressive male physically and verbally dominating a smaller, weaker, non-aggressive female (and, as he has also pointed out, pretending that gendered power dynamics do not exist is not anti-sexist, it's just silly), pushing her back, intruding into her space, shouting at her, and so on, which, in the very immediate terms of an interaction between two shaved apes, makes the fact of an abstract teacher-pupil relationship rather less than the be-all and end-all that you seem to imagine it to be.

I mean, plantation foremen had a whip and a gun, ferchrissake. Kinda not the same thing.

PhoenixAsh

8th June 2011, 18:18

Yeah, just like foremen on southern plantations were disempowered, too. You know, like the slaves were. Give me a break. Relative to students, teachers obviously have far more power, and that power is directly over students.

Really? Could you get any more ridiculous? Equating teachers with slave holders and students with slavey? Seriously?

Not true. A student who no longer wishes to accept the teacher's authority is still bound to that teacher's authority according to the rules of the institution. A teacher's authority is in no way premised on whether students agree with it. It is not mutual at all.

So tell me Lucretia, how could the teacher have enacted that o so prevalent authority in gthe given situation at the start of the video? Because we are there...pretty much outside any relevancy of that authority and its effectiveness to subjegate the child slaves.

The problem here is she was not backed into a corner. She was standing directly in front of an unlocked door. The other problem is that, according to this definition of violence, a husband is justified in attacking his wife physically if she gets in his face and starts yelling. Or if you want to bring size into it, a diminutive husband would be justified in slamming his tall, obese wife around.

Yeah because we are waaaaay outside the bound of reality with you. I am not going to answer your strawman argument.

You could not possibly believe this, which is why I am emphasizing that these abstract proposals about "backing into a corner" being the equivalent of "violence" are just desperate attempts to find supposedly principled ways to arrive at supporting an action which you intuitively think is right because brutalizing and controlling young people is viewed as natural in present-day society.

You should do stand up comedy. You would be great hit.

Yeah...it absolutely is the equivalence of violence.

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 18:19

Seriously? You are seriously making this argument? About false generalisations? After you just argued that all threats towards teachers are warranted and excusable?

And I find the reverse sexist argument very, very odious.

How can I have a reasonable discussion with somebody who is incapable of basic reading comprehension? Read the post you just quoted again. Now read it again. Do you now understand that I was arguing against the position you are quoting and getting all outraged about? I obviously do NOT think that all men are more physically powerful than all women. That was the point I was making to the other participant: that we cannot justify somebody hitting somebody else just because the attacker is a woman, and the attacked person a man.

Yeah because we are waaaaay outside the bound of reality with you. I am not going to answer your strawman argument.You claimed that the teacher was backed into a corner from which there was no escape. In response, I noted she was standing in front of an unlocked door. Then you respond by saying I am outside the bounds of reality and am attacking strawmen. Are you suggesting that the teacher was not standing in front of an unlocked door? Or are you suggesting that we should not take this fact into consideration when people make the claim that the woman was cornered and had no place to go?

You also keep dodging the basic question: if aggressively getting into somebody's face is an act of violence warranting being punched in the face, does a diminutive husband have a right to knock his taller, obese wife if she gets in his face and starts yelling at him about infidelity?

It's a very simple question. Why do you keep dodging it?

PhoenixAsh

8th June 2011, 18:26

Blaming teachers? Get a grip and actually read what's being said before you start your fanaticism.

There are a number of comments I have made that I stand behind.

1) Teachers have more power than students in the school.

Really? Because all a teacher can do is run to the priciple. In my experience school teachers were pretty much powerless. All they could do was send me to the principle who then either gave me punishment or send me back into class overruling the teacher.

if I refused to go the teacher had no power what so ever to enforce the rules other than...getting the principle. Who would...if I absolutely refused to do as he said get the cops.

The most a teacher could do was refuse me access to the class. Which I then ran to the principle about and he would then force the teacher to enact the law.

Or he could give me lines or essays. Which I either did or didn't do...depending on my mood. Not doing them would send me....to the principles office.

2) Teachers have power over students.

No. THey have a legal contract with the school which requires them to abide by the rules of the school.

3) The power teachers have over students is not premised on students' acceptance of that authority.

Actually it is. If a student refuses to go to the principle the teacher pretty much can not do anything. THey are not allowed to use firce (except in self defence)...and the only way a teacher could sway ANY kind of authority was by getting the principle or by cleverly instigating the class to ensure conformity.

Only the illiterati can view these statements and interpret them to mean that I think:

1) Teachers have absolutely authority and control over what they do.
2) Teachers have unrestricted authority over students
3) The root problem in education is the abusive teachers.

But feel free to pretend you're some sort of expert in education because your parents were teachers. My late parents were both accountants, but that doesn't make me an expert in accounting. Does it?

weren't y9ou the one who equated teachers with slave holders?

praxis1966

8th June 2011, 18:28

1) Teachers have absolutely authority and control over what they do.
2) Teachers have unrestricted authority over students
3) The root problem in education is the abusive teachers.

First of all, that's not what I was saying at all. You've deliberately misinterpreted it because you obviously have an axe to grind here. My point was that teachers have far less authority over how their classrooms are run than you seem to think. Your entire argument is based on an outside perception of education. I'm telling you, from an insider's perspective, that they have far less control than you think they do. I'm not saying that the students have as much control as teachers do, but that doesn't automatically mean that teachers are oppressors by default.

But feel free to pretend you're some sort of expert in education because your parents were teachers. My late parents were both accountants, but that doesn't make me an expert in accounting. Does it?

Not necessarily, but I'd say that you probably would know more about it than I do... just as if Person X had parents who were physicists would be more likely to know more about physics. But, that's ignoring the fact that, as I've already stated, I've worked in classrooms...

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 18:28

I think that you really need to get away from this simplistic image of power disparities as purely realised in terms of institutional authority. If you actually look at the incident as an encounter of human beings, and not of mechanical work-units, it becomes a lot more ambiguous. As Hindsight has tried to point a good few times now, the incident clearly involved a large, stronger, aggressive male physically and verbally dominating a smaller, weaker, non-aggressive female (and, as he has also pointed out, pretending that gendered power dynamics do not exist is not anti-sexist, it's just silly), pushing her back, intruding into her space, shouting at her, and so on, which, in the very immediate terms of an interaction between two shaved apes, makes the fact of an abstract teacher-pupil relationship rather less than the be-all and end-all that you seem to imagine it to be.

I mean, plantation foremen had a whip and a gun, ferchrissake. Kinda not the same thing.

This is just more dishonesty. The male student was not "physically dominating" the teacher and was not "pushing her back." He was in her face, yelling at her. Such activity happens all the time in disputes between people of varying sizes, sexes, etc. But only when the person who is hit is a minor and a student, and the aggressor an adult teacher, do we find the principled outrage to stand up for "self-defense." What a transparent joke.

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 18:33

First of all, that's not what I was saying at all. You've deliberately misinterpreted it because you obviously have an axe to grind here. My point was that teachers have far less authority over how their classrooms are run than you seem to think.

How do you know how much power I think teachers have in the classroom? The only points I made were the three in my response to you. The fact that I recognize that teachers have a lot more power in schools than students is not a sign that I am over-estimating teachers' authority. It's a sign that I am not turning the perpetrator of a violent crime into a victim of "the system" that gives her the mindset to think she could do what she did.

Your entire argument is based on an outside perception of education. I'm telling you, from an insider's perspective, that they have far less control than you think they do.How much control do you think I think teachers have? Apart from the three points I made above, where do I make ANY claims about teacher's authority in the classroom?

I'm not saying that the students have as much control as teachers do, but that doesn't automatically mean that teachers are oppressors by default.I never said teachers are oppressors "by default" (whatever that means). I said that teachers are agents of control over students in a system that, by and large, is designed to condition students into accepting arbitrary authority for extended periods of time. You can respond by noting that teachers are just doing what they are told, have limited control over how to exercise their authority over students, etc. But my response is: of course! Just as foremen were given ground rules by the planter. Just as police officers have to do what the lieutenant says.

Not necessarily, but I'd say that you probably would know more about it than I do... just as if Person X had parents who were physicists would be more likely to know more about physics. But, that's ignoring the fact that, as I've already stated, I've worked in classrooms...Everybody here has experiences in a classroom. I don't know why you think the dynamics inside a public school classroom are so enigmatic and hidden that only the chosen few who have experiences with being in authority understand the nature of that power dynamic.

PhoenixAsh

8th June 2011, 18:35

How can I have a reasonable discussion with somebody who is incapable of basic reading comprehension? Read the post you just quoted again. Now read it again. Do you now understand that I was arguing against the position you are quoting and getting all outraged about? I obviously do NOT think that all men are more physically powerful than all women. That was the point I was making to the other participant: that we cannot justify somebody hitting somebody else just because the attacker is a woman, and the attacked person a man.

Never mind. You obviously do not get it.

You claimed that the teacher was backed into a corner from which there was no escape. In response, I noted she was standing in front of an unlocked door.

And I replied by saying why that door being locked or unlocked is irrelevant.

Then you respond by saying I am outside the bounds of reality and am attacking strawmen. Are you suggesting that the teacher was not standing in front of an unlocked door? Or are you suggesting that we should not take this fact into consideration when people make the claim that the woman was cornered and had no place to go?

Yes...I am saying that the door was irrelevant. I explained why the door was irrellevant...

1). Cognitive processes which you require by proposing to take the door take physically longer than the time she had to react to a sudden and very obvious attempt at aggressive violence.

2). Turning your back in threatening situations is universally tought to be the stupidest idea ever. I will expand on that.

* Not only does it limit the possibility to fight back.
* It also aggravates a situation. Turning your back is a sign of dismissal and NOT one of diffusion. Hence the angry phrase: Do not turn your back on me.
* It also exposes you to being completely unable to react or fend of imminent attack...making you defenseless.

You also keep dodging the basic question: if aggressively getting into somebody's face is an act of violence warranting being punched in the face, does a diminutive husband have a right to knock his taller, obese wife if she gets in his face and starts yelling at him about infidelity?

It's a very simple question. Why do you keep dodging it?[/QUOTE]

Because:
1). It is a strawman argument
2). It is not visualised so I can not see her behaviour and body language
3). It is a dishonest question

Tim Finnegan

8th June 2011, 18:43

This is just more dishonesty. The male student was not "physically dominating" the teacher and was not "pushing her back." He was in her face, yelling at her.
If you're going to reduce what was quite clearly an physical confrontation carrying the implicit threat of violence- on an emotional level, if not intellectual one- to a simplistic description like that, then you're rendering yourself incapable of actually comprehending the emotional content of incident, and so the power dynamics which were in place. Hence your inability to move outside of the abstract template of the teacher-pupil relationship and address this incident as a real conflict between real individuals.

For somebody so vehement in their opposition to bourgeois institutional relationships, you accept their falsely proclaimed absoluteness with a surprising lack of criticism.

Such activity happens all the time in disputes between people of varying sizes, sexes, etc. But only when the person who is hit is a minor and a student, and the aggressor an adult teacher, do we find the principled outrage to stand up for "self-defense." What a transparent joke.I assure you, my opinion would be much the same if the same encounter was repeated in the absence of the teacher-pupil relationship. I don't know where it has been suggested, by anyone, that it should be otherwise.

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 18:44

In my experience school teachers were pretty much powerless.

Really? Teachers had no authority over students at all? They were pretty much powerless?

if I refused to go the teacher had no power what so ever to enforce the rules other than...getting the principle. Who would...if I absolutely refused to do as he said get the cops.

Ok. So now you're confusing the power to make decisions about students behavior in the classroom (a power the teacher has) with the ability to enforce them over a non-compliant student (which a teacher might not have). If a student is non-compliant, the teacher as you note goes up the chain of command. Ultimately, if the student is disreputive, the police get involved and can forcibly remove the student. But only because of the initial decision the "pretty much powerless" teacher made.

No. THey have a legal contract with the school which requires them to abide by the rules of the school.

Yes, and guess what the rules of virtually every school indicate? That within broad limitations, teachers have authority to set rules within their classroom and the discretion to apply them (or if they are unable to enforce them, to seek outside assistance in doing so).

weren't y9ou the one who equated teachers with slave holders?

Foremen. Not slaveholders.

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 18:47

If you're going to reduce what was quite clearly a physical confrontation to a crude, simplistic description, then you're rendering yourself incapable of actually comprehending the emotional content of incident, and so the power dynamics which were in place. Hence your inability to move outside of the abstract template of the teacher-pupil relationship and address this incident as a real conflict between real individuals.

Give me a break. Everybody with two eyes and ears can understand that the confrontation was heated, emotional, and involved the invasion of personal space. What should also be clear to every thinking person is that having such a confrontation is different than having one where, in addition to all those characteristics, punches are thrown. Why do you insist on collapsing one into the other? On insisting that invading personal space, or yelling, is the moral or legal equivalent of punching so that one justifies the other? If that's not what you are doing, how do you justify what the teacher did?

praxis1966

8th June 2011, 18:51

How do you know how much power I think teachers have in the classroom?

The truth is I don't because that's an empirically unknowable quantity. However, it's obvious from your arguments you seem to think they have a lot more authority than they actually do.

The only points I made were the three in my response to you. The fact that I recognize that teachers have a lot more power in schools than students is not a sign that I am over-estimating teachers' authority.

Yes it is. I'm telling you that the perception that teachers have an absolute authority in the classroom is an illusion. What I'm challenging here is this basic factual assumption.

It's a sign that I am not turning the perpetrator of a violent crime into a victim of "the system" that gives her the mindset to think she could do what she did.

You've already been proven wrong that the teacher was the perpetrator of a violent crime. End of.

How much control do you think I think teachers have? Apart from the three points I made above, where do I make ANY claims about teacher's authority in the classroom?

Well, I haven't used my crystal ball for mind reading purposes in a long time so forgive me if I'm a bit rusty... But it's telling me that you're overestimating things.

I never said teachers are oppressors "by default" (whatever that means). I said that teachers are agents of control in a system that, by and large, is designed to condition students into accepting arbitrary authority for extended periods of time.

You're right, you didn't explicitly say that "teachers are oppressors 'by defaut...'" But you damned sure implied it in the very next sentence of the excerpt quoted above.

Everybody here has experiences in a classroom. I don't know why you think the dynamics inside a public school classroom are so enigmatic and hidden that only the chosen few who have experiences with being in authority understand the nature of that power dynamic.

And I don't know why you think the experiences that have lead you to your conclusion make your argument more valid than all the other people here disagreeing with you. This is a bullshit, relativist argument and you know it.

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 18:52

Because:
1). It is a strawman argument
2). It is not visualised so I can not see her behaviour and body language
3). It is a dishonest question

My question is not a strawman at all. Your entire argument is that the teacher was justified in striking the student because the student, as somebody who was larger than she was, had committed an act of violence by angrily invading her personal space.

According to your principle, a large wife who angrily invades the personal space of her skinny, short husband to yell at him about his infidelities by sticking her finger in his face is committing an act of violence that warrants the husband decking her in the face.

The two situations are identical regarding the criteria you lay out for why the teacher was justified in punching the student.

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 18:54

The truth is I don't because that's an empirically unknowable quantity. However, it's obvious from your arguments you seem to think they have a lot more authority than they actually do.

Yes it is. I'm telling you that the perception that teachers have an absolute authority in the classroom is an illusion. What I'm challenging here is this basic factual assumption.

You've already been proven wrong that the teacher was the perpetrator of a violent crime. End of.

Well, I haven't used my crystal ball for mind reading purposes in a long time so forgive me if I'm a bit rusty... But it's telling me that you're overestimating things.

You're right, you didn't explicitly say that "teachers are oppressors 'by defaut...'" But you damned sure implied it in the very next sentence of the excerpt quoted above.

And I don't know why you think the experiences that have lead you to your conclusion make your argument more valid than all the other people here disagreeing with you. This is a bullshit, relativist argument and you know it.

Right. So in others words, after accusing me of thinking teachers have more power than they really do, you now admit that you have no idea how much power I think teachers have. Except you know I over-estimate a teacher's power because I think a teacher has greater power in the classroom than a student. Just wow.

And I am not the one who is claiming my personal experiences make my views more valid. That was you.

Tim Finnegan

8th June 2011, 18:55

Give me a break. Everybody with two eyes and ears can understand that the confrontation was heated, emotional, and involved the invasion of personal space. What should also be clear to every thinking person is that having such a confrontation is different than having one where, in addition to all those characteristics, punches are thrown. Why do you insist on collapsing one into the other? On insisting that invading personal space, or yelling, is the moral or legal equivalent of punching so that one justifies the other? If that's not what you are doing, how do you justify what the teacher did?
I make no such insistences, nor am I defending the actions of the teacher in themself; you must be imagining things. I'm merely observing that your blether overlooks the actual human power-dynamic involved in the incident in favour of abstract institutional relationships.

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 19:02

I make no such insistences, nor am I defending the actions of the teacher in themself; you must be imagining things. I'm merely observing that your blether overlooks the actual human power-dynamic involved in the incident in favour of abstract institutional relationships.

I am not overlooking the fact that the student was physically larger than the teacher at all. I am looking at the fact, and arriving at a different conclusion.

praxis1966

8th June 2011, 19:02

Right. So in others words, after accusing me of thinking teachers have more power than they really do, you now admit that you have no idea how much power I think teachers have. Except you know I over-estimate a teacher's power because I think a teacher has greater power in the classroom than a student. Just wow.

See what he did there everybody? He retreated into the only portion of his argument that he's refused to state in finite terms as if that were somehow evidence that he's right. Intellectual dishonesty at it's finest.

And I am not the one who is claiming my personal experiences make my views more valid. That was you.

I didn't say they were more valid. I was trying to explain that I have a bit of inside knowledge of how the whole thing works because I've actually been there. But while we're at it, that basically is what you're saying by dismissing out of hand the arguments of all the respondents who disagree with you.

Tim Finnegan

8th June 2011, 19:04

I am not overlooking the fact that the student was physically larger than the teacher at all. I am looking at the fact, and arriving at a different conclusion.
Then why your persistence in harping on about the teacher-pupil relationship? It seems to me that you are, even if you acknowledging physical factors, dismissing them as secondary to abstract institutional relationships.

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 19:07

See what he did there everybody? He retreated into the only portion of his argument that he's refused to state in finite terms as if that were somehow evidence that he's right. Intellectual dishonesty at it's finest.

I have stated my argument in finite terms multiple times. Open your eyes, comrade.

I didn't say they were more valid. I was trying to explain that I have a bit of inside knowledge of how the whole thing works because I've actually been there. But while we're at it, that basically is what you're saying by dismissing out of hand the arguments of all the respondents who disagree with you.

No, what you said was that I should stop pretending that my personal experiences make my positions more valid than other people's. What's wrong with this statement is that I never brought my own classroom experiences into the discussion at all. To the contrary, a couple of people in this thread keep claiming that their experience in classrooms gives them a special kernel of insight into this situation. If that's not what you were doing, why mention them at all? We're not discussing your personal experiences. We're discussing a teacher who punched a student who was yelling in her face.

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 19:14

Then why your persistence in harping on about the teacher-pupil relationship? It seems to me that you are, even if you acknowledging physical factors, dismissing them as secondary to abstract institutional relationships.

Do I need to point out how absurd your dismissive statement about "abstract institutional relationships" as if to imply that if power is bestowed by an abstract institution that it cannot take insidious, even physical forms? Look at physical abuse security guards mete out in prisons. The deformities and illnesses that workers develop in unsafe workplaces they are relegated to because of "abstract institutional relationships."

I am not dismissing the physical element. I think it's perfectly reasonable to be uneasy at somebody larger than you approaching you and yelling in your face. I know I sure would be. But that doesn't excuse responding by punching the person in the face.

Where the student-teacher power dynamic enters into the situation is in how, because teachers are not in any way accountable to students in public schools, we should not assume that a kid angrily yelling at a teacher is just a behavioral problem springing from brattiness. It might very well be the result of a real inequity or lack of fairness that a student has no means of redressing through other channels besides acting out. It also enters the equation in endowing the teacher with a sense of detached control over the students (the students, after all, have not democratically given this control to the teacher). With this mentality, I find it much easier to believe a teacher would strike a student than the other way around.

You'll notice, for example, that the student did NOT punch back after being struck. Despite the fact that, as many of you tirelessly repeat, he was much larger and probably could have beaten her pretty badly.

Many of you seem bent on interpreting my statement about teacher's power over students as if I am trying to claim that teachers can do what they want. In fact, I think this episode is entirely explainable in terms of the myriad and complex consequences of the teacher acting as agents of a bourgeois education system designed to break down and condition young people. The sense of frustration, lack of control over the process, lack of real reward or meaning in the process must be great for any of the participants. Particularly those who are the direct agents of control. The teacher's action is understandable in these terms as well, though not excusable at all.

praxis1966

8th June 2011, 19:26

I have stated my argument in finite terms multiple times. Open your eyes, comrade.

Using the word "more" to describe the amount of power teachers have relative to students in the classrooms doesn't qualify as finite. On the contrary, as a relative term, it is by definition inherently infinite. What you did do, however, was try to bait me into guessing what your specific thoughts were so that no matter what I said, you could say that's not what you had in mind... A tactic designed less to prove an argument than it was to score points in a debate over the interwebz.

No, what you said was that I should stop pretending that my personal experiences make my positions more valid than other people's. What's wrong with this statement is that I never brought my own classroom experiences into the discussion at all.

Wrong again. Here's where you did.

Everybody here has experiences in a classroom.

To the contrary, a couple of people in this thread keep claiming that their experience in classrooms gives them a special kernel of insight into this situation. If that's not what you were doing, why mention them at all?

It does because I've been privy to the other end of the dynamic. You, on the other hand, haven't.

We're not discussing your personal experiences. We're discussing a teacher who punched a student who was yelling in her face.

Wrong. We're discussing a female senior citizen who had a perception that she was about to be physically attacked by a young, able bodied male.

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 19:38

Wrong. We're discussing a female senior citizen who had a perception that she was about to be physically attacked by a young, able bodied male.

You are hilarious. Yes, a young menacing tough was threatening granny on the sidewalk. Or at least that's how most people would envision the situation if they heard you describe it.

A middle-aged woman in a position of institutional authority responded to being yelled at and having her personal space violated by somebody over whom the institution gives her authority. She responded by punching the person who had not physically touched her. Somehow, because teachers do not have the authority to do everything they want inside a classroom, you think that authority is irrelevant in explaining why a teacher would punch a student larger than she is. I think the punch, both the anger of the student and the willingness of a "senior citizen" to deck a person much larger than she is, is incomprehensible without taking into consideration the classroom power dynamics.

praxis1966

8th June 2011, 20:05

A middle-aged woman in a position of institutional authority responded to being yelled at and having her personal space violated by somebody over whom the institution gives her authority. She responded by punching the person who had not physically touched her. Somehow, because teachers do not have the authority to do everything they want inside a classroom, you think that authority is irrelevant in explaining why a teacher would punch a student larger than she is. I think the punch, both the anger of the student and the willingness of a "senior citizen" to deck a person much larger than she is, is incomprehensible without taking into consideration the classroom power dynamics.

Institutional authority, whether it exists on the scale that I describe it or you describe it, isn't the only variable at play here. You're intentionally being reductionist because the rest of the facts don't play into your Procrustean bed of an argument.

A much better explanation for the incident than "classroom power dynamics" is that the teacher in question was in fear for her safety and reacted accordingly. The only reason to characterize it differently, near as I can tell, is that you had a conclusion before you even waltzed into this thread and are reverse engineering an argument to fit your version of the facts.

Lucretia

8th June 2011, 20:17

Institutional authority, whether it exists on the scale that I describe it or you describe it, isn't the only variable at play here. You're intentionally being reductionist because the rest of the facts don't play into your Procrustean bed of an argument.

A much better explanation for the incident than "classroom power dynamics" is that the teacher in question was in fear for her safety and reacted accordingly. The only reason to characterize it differently, near as I can tell, is that you had a conclusion before you even waltzed into this thread and are reverse engineering an argument to fit your version of the facts.

It's not like we have to pick only one reason or the other. I never said the teacher did not feel threatened. In fact, I said that I would have felt threatened in such a situation (a larger person yelling at me to my face). My claim is that the punch is only understandable in light of how the classroom power dynamics and the institutional control and authority schools give teachers over students made her willing to respond to the threatening situation in a way that I doubt she would have in any other context where a larger person were yelling at her from nearby. In any case I don't think it's right to hit somebody just because that somebody is yelling at you in close proximity. Whether you feel threatened or not. And I think we acknowledge that in almost any other context. What's different about this context is that it's a "bratty student" getting smacked, instead of a spouse or a stranger.

To the best of my knowledge, nobody here is arguing in bad faith. I simply think that my argument aligns more closely with an understanding of the dynamics of the situation, and how a leftist should respond to those dynamics and actions emanating therefrom.

We'll just have to agree to disagree and move on.

praxis1966

8th June 2011, 20:57

It's not like we have to pick only one reason or the other. I never said the teacher did not feel threatened. In fact, I said that I would have felt threatened in such a situation (a larger person yelling at me to my face).

Fair enough, but I wasn't interpreting your comments that way. I was simply positing an alternative explanation.

My claim is that the punch is only understandable in light of how the classroom power dynamics and the institutional control and authority schools give teachers over students made her willing to respond to the threatening situation in a way that I doubt she would have in any other context where a larger person were yelling at her from nearby.

You don't know that, though. You have no idea what was going on in her head at the time. Frankly, I don't either, but my guess would be that it was as simple as base instinct, fight or flight as they say. Or, and perhaps more accurately, fight until you get the chance to fly. To make an analogy, it's kind of like (to me) what gets taught by martial arts instructors to women in self-defense courses specifically geared to their needs... Women don't get taught to win a fight, per se, only stun the attacker long enough in order to get the fuck outta there.

Furthermore, I've yet to see anything coming from you that would convince me that your perspective on the event is the only correct one.

In any case I don't think it's right to hit somebody just because that somebody is yelling at you in close proximity. Whether you feel threatened or not. And I think we acknowledge that in almost any other context.

We? Speak for yourself. What you're stating here is an opinion. To be frank, I don't think you have any idea how you would've reacted given that you weren't in the situation.

What's different about this context is that it's a "bratty student" getting smacked, instead of a spouse or a stranger.

A "bratty student" who happened to be younger, larger, more physically able bodied, and male. And, not for nothin', but for all you know this kid has a history of violence.

I simply think that my argument aligns more closely with an understanding of the dynamics of the situation, and how a leftist should respond to those dynamics and actions emanating therefrom.

I was wondering when the prolier-than-thou ad hominem was going to sneak into this thing and here it is, veiled though it may be.

PhoenixAsh

8th June 2011, 22:01

My question is not a strawman at all.

Yes it is. And I will illustrate this by aksing a similar strawman question:

Are you arguing that a diminituive woman can not fight back and defend herself from a bigger and stronger man who is abusive and dominating?

This is also a fair question based on your arguments and your earlier argument:

On the contrary, I am the person who is arguing that NOBODY should have the authority to inflict physical violence on another person.

But...its not.

Not only because of the inherrent implicit conclusions that lead the question itself. But also because it extrapolates one social interaction on another social interaction in which there are very different components. Prior intimate knowledge of behavioural patterns. And these seriously alter the nature of the interaction and the validity and accuracy of threat asssesment.

There are also other reasons which I will point out when we get to them.

Your entire argument is that the teacher was justified in striking the student because the student, as somebody who was larger than she was, had committed an act of violence by angrily invading her personal space.

No. My entire argument is based on the fact that the student displayed rapidly escalating aggressive behaviour and was adopting the bodylanguage
of imminent attack and violence and took intention actions towards it. Both by verbal, bodyposition and transgressive behaviour into personal space. Based on the behavioural clusters his attitude and behaviour indicate an imminent escalation towards violence and intent to do so.

Size and gender play a role in this in so far they influence the threat assesment of the person under attack and the appropriacy of response that follows from this assessment.

According to your principle, a large wife who angrily invades the personal space of her skinny, short husband to yell at him about his infidelities by sticking her finger in his face is committing an act of violence that warrants the husband decking her in the face.

And here is such a reason which I indicated above. We no have infidelities....and sticking a finger in her face. You are adding or substracting to the situation to suit your needs. And since we therefore do not deal with a fixed and observable situation any answer I am going to give will be not evaluated on the basis of that but on the basis of how YOU perceive the situation in your mind to validate any following counter arguments.

The two situations are identical regarding the criteria you lay out for why the teacher was justified in punching the student.

No...they are not. They are radically different. The fact that you paint them as being identical means you have no idea what you are talking about regarding human interaction and perception.

This same behaviour in a situation where people know each other intimately and therefore can better assess their partners motivations, escalation and body language radically alters that very same situation. The emotional tie they have does the same....as does the absence or presence of onlookers and their interjections and comments.

If my spouse would come at me like that my response would be radically different then when a friend would come at me like that and again that would both be radically different from a stranger of acquintance comming at me like that.

PhoenixAsh

8th June 2011, 22:10

Really? Teachers had no authority over students at all? They were pretty much powerless?

Yes.

Ok. So now you're confusing the power to make decisions about students behavior in the classroom (a power the teacher has) with the ability to enforce them over a non-compliant student (which a teacher might not have).

Teachers can not make decisions over the behaviour of the students. They can say what they want the behavior to be. This is entirely based on the willingness of the student to cooperate and submit to the directions of the teacher....and the perception of authority.

If I did not follow the instructions of the teacher the ONLY authoritative tools he had was either yell at me or get in a person who DID have decisive authority and could make decisions.

Otherwise it pretty much dependent on fear of being sent to the principle who was basically the only one who could effectively with any authority enforce rules.

If a student is non-compliant, the teacher as you note goes up the chain of command. Ultimately, if the student is disreputive, the police get involved and can forcibly remove the student. But only because of the initial decision the "pretty much powerless" teacher made.

You mean...the decision to call in higher authority? Like civilians with the police?

Yes, and guess what the rules of virtually every school indicate? That within broad limitations, teachers have authority to set rules within their classroom and the discretion to apply them (or if they are unable to enforce them, to seek outside assistance in doing so).

And there you have it. If they are able to enforce them. They are not if the student does not comply. Teachers can yell and stomp their feet all they want but to enforce rules they need a higher authority.

Sure they can set rules...within the guidelines of the school. But by law they can not touch, use force or even expell a student for attending the class unless a higher authority decides this.

In fact...a teacher using foul language or adopting intimidating body language is pretty much fineable....or subject to authority him or herself.

Foremen. Not slaveholders.

fair enough

praxis1966

8th June 2011, 23:21

If I did not follow the instructions of the teacher the ONLY authoritative tools he had was either yell at me or get in a person who DID have decisive authority and could make decisions.

Otherwise it pretty much dependent on fear of being sent to the principle who was basically the only one who could effectively with any authority enforce rules.

Hindsight, I'm gonna go ahead and totally agree with you here, but I would like to add one caveat to the portion above. In most [non-extreme] cases, principals don't have or won't exercise the authority to discipline students in the face of parental objection. In other words, if a parent comes in to complain about how their child was disciplined, most of the time administrators will roll over and accede for one reason or another.

tachosomoza

8th June 2011, 23:29

Hindsight, I'm gonna go ahead and totally agree with you here, but I would like to add one caveat to the portion above. In most [non-extreme] cases, principals don't have or won't exercise the authority to discipline students in the face of parental objection. In other words, if a parent comes in to complain about how their child was disciplined, most of the time administrators will roll over and accede for one reason or another.

They better accede, the parents pay taxes and whatnot.

praxis1966

8th June 2011, 23:37

They better accede, the parents pay taxes and whatnot.

*Sigh* That's individualistic nonsense, though. If a child is being disruptive in the classroom, that hurts all the other kids as well because it hinders their ability to learn. Forgetting about whether the parents or administration is correct in this or that hypothetical case, as a general rule it's unfair to the other students to let one or two people serve as a blockade to learning for the rest of the class.*

*Note: I'm not saying administrators are always right because that would be, well, stupid... And in the cases where the administration is wrong of course they should back down.

EDIT: As an aside, this whole point is kind of moot. Most school districts of which I'm aware have something called "school choice" (or at least that's what they called it in the district where I worked) where a parent can have their child sent to any school they like for whatever reason or no reason at all. It's a simple matter of filling out some paperwork. Therefore, if a parent decides they don't like how a school is run, they can always pull them and send them someplace else.

coda

9th June 2011, 02:49

I watched the video and commentary without sound.. I don't need it--- I'm 100% with the student. It's very doubtful any argument could change my mind...

Demogorgon

9th June 2011, 10:56

Lucretia

9th June 2011, 18:20

No. My entire argument is based on the fact that the student displayed rapidly escalating aggressive behaviour and was adopting the bodylanguage of imminent attack and violence and took intention actions towards it. Both by verbal, bodyposition and transgressive behaviour into personal space. Based on the behavioural clusters his attitude and behaviour indicate an imminent escalation towards violence and intent to do so.

Let's eliminate all your bullshit reasons why you can't answer the question and simplify this greatly. If this were an adult education class, and the person angrily confronting the teacher were a large, obese young woman, and the teacher a geeky skinny old man, would you be okay with the man striking the woman? Now remember, we're talking about a hypothetical situation in which all those "behavioural clusters" you identify in the video are present. The only differences are in the ages of the participants and in their genders (in the hypothetical example, the student is an adult woman).

And don't give me the stupid excuse about how I am trying to rule out size, because I am making it perfectly clear that there is a size disparity between the larger, aggressive woman and the man being confronted.

Lucretia

9th June 2011, 18:27

Teachers can not make decisions over the behaviour of the students.

Nobody said that teachers are puppetmasters capable of making students obey their rules magically. You seem to be under the impression that if students are capable of disobeying teachers, then teachers have no authority. But that makes just about as much sense as saying that, if suspected bank robbers can fail to stop for police sirens, then the police have no authority to stop the suspect. Of course they do, just as a teacher has authority over students, whether students sometimes choose to disobey that authority or not. If a student disobeys that authority, a teacher can assign detention, refer the student to an administrator, etc. You might think these are not particularly effective means a teacher has at her disposal, but they are signs of authority nevertheless. It's the reason a teacher has them, and not the student.

To pretend that a teacher has no authority over a student in the classroom is about the most idiotic thing I ever thought I would hear from somebody on this forum. Congratulations on setting an unflattering precedent.

Lucretia

9th June 2011, 18:44

I've read through every post here before commenting and I think some people here don't have the first clue about schools. Teachers do have authority in the classroom but to claim that that is akin to workplace authority or even plantation(!) authority is absurd. Teachers are there to teach children and it is natural for children and teenagers to act up sometimes so teachers need to be able to keep them under control so that they and others can learn.

You need to seriously consider the analogy before dismissing it. Obviously a teacher is not literally a foreman. A teacher, for example, does not work on a plantation, and does not supervise workers who are producing a surplus for a member of the ruling class. As you note, a teacher is (ideally) "there to teach children." All of these are clear differences. But they are similar in an important respect: that a teacher is an employee of a state that tightly regulates her authority at the same time that it grants her authority over students in her classroom for the purpose of fulfilling a task the state wishes to achieve. Just as a foreman is an employee of a slaveholder with a definite end in mind, who grants the foreman limited authority over slaves to achieve that end purpose. They are also similar in another way: that they are supervising individuals (slaves in one case, students in the other) who have been forced into institutions over which they have very little control. Now only an idiot would say the institutions themselves are identical. Obviously a foreman could whip a slave to the point of near-death in some instances, whereas a teacher does not have that authority. But such differences are completely beside the point. The point is that we are talking about a situation in which an oppressed group of people are being forced into an institution over which they have very little control. And, as different as those institutions might be, both institutions have people directly in charge of supervising and controlling those unlucky individuals. In one case, it's a foreman. In the other, it's a teacher. But the point stands that a teacher, like a foreman, is performing a duty at the behest of the relatively powerful to control the relatively powerless. Even if the relatively powerless benefit in some ways (like actually learning things in the classroom). Nobody here is saying that teachers don't do good things, and that there are not positive aspects to public education. Indeed, historians have long pointed out that slavery was a contradictory institution in which the slaves had a modicum of control to derive benefits.

Teachers should absolutely not be able to use any kind of physical discipline of course and fortunately it is banned most places including most of the US, in public sector schools anyway, but they should definitely be able to keep order in the classroom.You mean a teacher by definition should be able to "maintain order"? You mean have some degree of authority over what takes place in the classroom? As in, have control and authority over the students?

Very strange then that hindsight approves of your post, since hindsight apparently thinks that teachers have no authority over students.

Some people have claimed that the pupil had not actually attacked. Rapidly cornering someone while raising your fists and screaming abuse is attacking someone and if an adult does it they are going to be charged for it.The teacher was not in a corner. She was standing in front of a door, and the student at no time raised a fist. In fact, he never raised a fist or made any indication he was considering retaliating physically even after the teacher struck him. I'm amazed at how people keep inventing information about the scenario to justify the teacher's act of violence. It's almost like people feel they have to invent a justification because one would not exist otherwise.

To those still not convinced, I ask you what your reaction would be if a teacher cornered a pupil screaming abuse? They would be fired and likely charged with assault.What? You think a teacher would be fired for screaming at a pupil, when in this case she could punch a pupil and apparently face no consequences?

Look, I think you're making a good-faith effort to think about this issue. So I'll ask you the question hindsight has been developing excuses not to answer:

If the situation played out exactly the same way, except that this were an adult education class where the aggressive, larger student were an adult female instead of a teenage male, and the teacher were a fragile, tiny old man instead of a middle-aged woman, would you justify the man striking the woman "in self-defense"?

If not, I think you should re-evaluate the reasons why you think it's okay for the teacher to hit the student in the video.

pastradamus

9th June 2011, 18:53

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvvTkVvwThg&feature=player_embedded#at=103

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_teacher_punches_student

This is horrible. Kids over here have no fucking rights.

I've seen two teachers punch kids in my lifetime (im 25).
One was a member of the Christian brother (a catholic order). The other was a young teacher (about 27 or 28 at the time).

The second of which broke a students nose and is still teaching.

pastradamus

9th June 2011, 19:01

They better accede, the parents pay taxes and whatnot.

That right there is a pretty bad argument.

If a teacher is trying to teach a class of students and one student in particular keeps disrupting the class it interferes with the education of the rest of the class. The teacher therefore should have the right to discipline that student.

Disciplining that student does not mean physical harm. It can be done by other means and within reason.

A friend of mine is a teacher in a private bourgeois school. She says the most disruptive person in the class also has the nastiest parents. She is in a position whereby every disciplinery measure is overruled by the parent and she is left with an uncontrolable teenager who is driving her to her wits end and as such she is considering leaving that school because of one student.

I dont think any working person should have to submit to such conditions. So forget about taxes, taxes dont have to put up with 30+ teenagers every day.

pastradamus

9th June 2011, 19:07

In other words, if a parent comes in to complain about how their child was disciplined, most of the time administrators will roll over and accede for one reason or another.

Because the principle is just another working-class person who is trying to get on with the day-to-day job of running a school. He dosent want to have to put up with an angry parent trying to tell him who is boss. A lot of parents out there think the sun shines out of their kids ass and a lot of teachers out there are authoritarian bullies. It all comes down to the actual individual really.

Being a school principle is a job that I would never like to do personally. First, you got an angry parent questioning the reason behind a students discipliary measure from a teacher and on the other hand you have a teacher - whom you have to share a staff room with every day telling you his side of the story and then you must sit down and attempt to make a balenced decision based on both stories - that would fry my brain.

chegitz guevara

9th June 2011, 20:32

The student is towering over her, screaming, with his arms back. It's clearly a threatening posture. Whether or not the student intended to hit her, he is clearly sending a message of physical aggression sufficient to make a normal person fear for her/his physical safety. And while students in the class were shocked by the teacher's actions, some of them were worried enough that they ran up to grab the student.

While she was up against the door, and might well have been able to escape the class room if necessary, you are making the assumption that she was aware of her surroundings, as opposed to being backed against a wall. She may have been against the door, but not in a position to grab the door handle without exposing herself to injury. Don't assume everyone has had defense training and knows how/is able to think coolly under threat.

PhoenixAsh

9th June 2011, 21:34

Nobody said that teachers are puppetmasters capable of making students obey their rules magically. You seem to be under the impression that if students are capable of disobeying teachers, then teachers have no authority. But that makes just about as much sense as saying that, if suspected bank robbers can fail to stop for police sirens, then the police have no authority to stop the suspect. Of course they do, just as a teacher has authority over students, whether students sometimes choose to disobey that authority or not. If a student disobeys that authority, a teacher can assign detention, refer the student to an administrator, etc. You might think these are not particularly effective means a teacher has at her disposal, but they are signs of authority nevertheless. It's the reason a teacher has them, and not the student.

To pretend that a teacher has no authority over a student in the classroom is about the most idiotic thing I ever thought I would hear from somebody on this forum. Congratulations on setting an unflattering precedent.

O...I don't know. I'd say equating teachers with plantation foremen pretty much out does my opinion on the matter,

Stop shifting. Your entire line of argument is based on the subjegation of childrens to the will of the teacher. Subtilly changing your position as is required by the lack of arguments you have to maintain it is already noticed.

As is your feeble attempt to put words in my mouth. Because I never said teachers did not have authority over students. Read carefully again and stop trying to shift positions.

Eqauting that authority of teachers to an organisation of people who have been granted the right to use violence and force, leathal if necessary, is utterly perplexing and is proof enough of what I stated above.

PhoenixAsh

9th June 2011, 21:44

Let's eliminate all your bullshit reasons why you can't answer the question and simplify this greatly.

So. You think changing all the variables and making the situation entirely different is a bullshit reason for me not to answer your question? :rolleyes:

If this were an adult education class, and the person angrily confronting the teacher were a large, obese young woman, and the teacher a geeky skinny old man, would you be okay with the man striking the woman? Now remember, we're talking about a hypothetical situation in which all those "behavioural clusters" you identify in the video are present. The only differences are in the ages of the participants and in their genders (in the hypothetical example, the student is an adult woman).This realy has been answered already. Everybody has a right to self defence...and the way they defend themselves is entirely dependent on the threat assessment of the situation.

Now that I have answered your question...answer me these two questions:

1). Based on your assessment that nobody has the right to use violence and the fact that you advocate the fact that she could have removed herself from the hostile situation if she so chose and therefore bears guilt and responsibility for her actions....would you likewise argue that continued abuse of a woman by her husband is her own fault and responsibility?

2). For reasons expained in an earlier post...Are you arguing that a diminituive woman can not fight back and defend herself from a bigger and stronger man who is abusive and dominating?

Demogorgon

9th June 2011, 22:27

You need to seriously consider the analogy before dismissing it. Obviously a teacher is not literally a foreman. A teacher, for example, does not work on a plantation, and does not supervise workers who are producing a surplus for a member of the ruling class. As you note, a teacher is (ideally) "there to teach children." All of these are clear differences. But they are similar in an important respect: that a teacher is an employee of a state that tightly regulates her authority at the same time that it grants her authority over students in her classroom for the purpose of fulfilling a task the state wishes to achieve. Just as a foreman is an employee of a slaveholder with a definite end in mind, who grants the foreman limited authority over slaves to achieve that end purpose. They are also similar in another way: that they are supervising individuals (slaves in one case, students in the other) who have been forced into institutions over which they have very little control. Now only an idiot would say the institutions themselves are identical. Obviously a foreman could whip a slave to the point of near-death in some instances, whereas a teacher does not have that authority. But such differences are completely beside the point. The point is that we are talking about a situation in which an oppressed group of people are being forced into an institution over which they have very little control. And, as different as those institutions might be, both institutions have people directly in charge of supervising and controlling those unlucky individuals. In one case, it's a foreman. In the other, it's a teacher. But the point stands that a teacher, like a foreman, is performing a duty at the behest of the relatively powerful to control the relatively powerless. Even if the relatively powerless benefit in some ways (like actually learning things in the classroom). Nobody here is saying that teachers don't do good things, and that there are not positive aspects to public education. Indeed, historians have long pointed out that slavery was a contradictory institution in which the slaves had a modicum of control to derive benefits.
With all due respect this is completely ludicrous. Slaves were on plantations to be worked half to death for their masters. Workers are at the workplace to make a profit for their employers. Children are in school to be given the benefit of an education. Spot the difference? In the first two cases people are being exploited. In the third they are being given something to benefit them.

Moreover teachers are not nasty exploiters. They are workers who have chosen the profession to benefit others. Given the level of education teachers normally require to get the job they can almost certainly get considerably better paying jobs elsewhere but choose a lower paying and generally speaking more stressful job because they want to help. It is insulting to make the comparison you have made.

It is not oppression to make children attend school. Universal education was one of the greatest progressive victories ever won. Now if you want to argue that current schooling, particularly in America, is inadequate and often does harm to children, then I fully agree. I will also note that a large part of the reason why American schooling is often so inadequate compared to many other countries is that teachers are overly constrained by education authorities, but that is another story.

You mean a teacher by definition should be able to "maintain order"? You mean have some degree of authority over what takes place in the classroom? As in, have control and authority over the students?

Of course they should. Children and teenagers sometimes misbehave and try to disrupt lessons. That is just the way young people are and does not mean they are "bad" unless the behaviour is extremely bad, but nonetheless it stops other children from learning. Teachers have to stop that from happening. Or do you propose that no teacher should ever be able to tell a child to be quiet or to sit down or whatever?

The teacher was not in a corner. She was standing in front of a door, and the student at no time raised a fist. In fact, he never raised a fist or made any indication he was considering retaliating physically even after the teacher struck him. I'm amazed at how people keep inventing information about the scenario to justify the teacher's act of violence. It's almost like people feel they have to invent a justification because one would not exist otherwise.

Having your back against a door is not akin to standing in front of it. Moreover let us remind ourselves of what happened. The boy was standing fists clenched in a fighting posture screaming abuse. He then advanced on her. Taking such a stance indicates a threat of violence. It is the stance we instinctively take when we are squaring off at people.

Moreover the boy had plainly lost control of his emotions. There was no telling what he might do in such a state. It is extremely frightening to be faced with that. Our instincts make us defend ourselves.

What? You think a teacher would be fired for screaming at a pupil, when in this case she could punch a pupil and apparently face no consequences?Teachers regularly get dismissed for aggression against pupils. Including much milder forms than what we are discussing here. I know a teacher who got dismissed simply for telling a student to "fuck off" without any particular threat behind it.

If the situation played out exactly the same way, except that this were an adult education class where the aggressive, larger student were an adult female instead of a teenage male, and the teacher were a fragile, tiny old man instead of a middle-aged woman, would you justify the man striking the woman "in self-defense"?

Of course I would. Do "tiny old men" forfeit the right to safety? Unless you hold to a form of absolute pacifism whereby it is wrong to ever use retaliatory force you must accept the right to self defence under certain circumstances. In the face of that level of aggression from someone larger than her a punch is fairly proportionate and certainly falls into the category of self defence.

If you do hold to such pacifism I can see why you believe what you do and there is little point in further debate so I will simply say I respect such a belief but think it is wrong. If however-as I suspect-you do not hold such a belief you really need to ask yourself whether you honestly believe there is no right to self defence in that kind of situation.

praxis1966

9th June 2011, 22:28

Because the principle is just another working-class person who is trying to get on with the day-to-day job of running a school. He dosent want to have to put up with an angry parent trying to tell him who is boss. A lot of parents out there think the sun shines out of their kids ass and a lot of teachers out there are authoritarian bullies. It all comes down to the actual individual really.

Right, well first off, I'd never make the argument that all teachers are good teachers. They're really no different than any other person doing a job in the respect that some of them are going to suck at it. But I don't think that's what you were getting at...

Anyway, I more or less agree with your assessment of what it means to be an administrator. I didn't want to get into that business because it was tangential to the discussion at the time, but my father (later in his career) was actually an administrator. He had to deal with exactly the kinds of parents you're talking about and I'll tell you a secret: Most of them were bourgeois.

He was the kind of guy who never liked to brag about his academic accomplishments so he never bothered to hang his degrees on the wall of his office. His ego wasn't big enough for the job I suppose. Eventually, he got sick of the condescending attitudes of wealthy doctors and lawyers who acted as if he didn't know shit because they had more education... As soon as he hung his Ed.D. (doctorate of education) diploma on the wall, all that shit stopped.

Anyhow, these same people, when they found he actually had a spine and wasn't going to reverse himself, wound up literally calling the superintendent of the whole damned district. Nine times out of 10 they had contributed to the superintendent's campaign (ours were actually elected officials, not appointed) so the end result was a personal phone call from the superintendent threatening him with this job.

Long story short, not all administrators are spineless by choice.

#FF0000

9th June 2011, 22:39

Man, Lucretia. I rarely see someone try so hard and manage to still be so wrong.

Die Rote Fahne

9th June 2011, 23:09

I'm changing my opinion:

It's highschool, you have no right anywhere to threaten, verbally abuse, intimidate or physically show aggression against someone. If you are an ungrateful little ****, then get the fuck out, you do what this kid did, you get smacked, you deserve to get smacked and you deserve to be expelled and sent to anger management. I'm 19, I know what highschool is like, and not once have I seen a teacher be threatened, or intimidated by a student.

He was old enough to fucking know better. The teacher is there for his benefit, he is there to learn and get an education, not so he can fucking rage at a teacher because he's a fucking asshole.

To tell you the truth, if I was there, I would have took him down and beat respect into him. This video made me fucking rage.

If your opinion is that she was wrong, then you are an apologetic asshat.

End of thread, k, thanks, goodbye.

La Comédie Noire

9th June 2011, 23:24

The kid would make a great pig. Threaten and hurl insults at people because you know they'd get in trouble if they fought back.

#FF0000

9th June 2011, 23:35

tachosomoza

9th June 2011, 23:49

A lot of people here are making a very very basic misunderstanding and are saying some shit that is reaaaaallly crazy.

This is not a discipline issue. If it was, the teacher would be 100% in the wrong.

It was a self-defense/flight or fight thing.

I guess I can see where you fellas are coming from. I know if I was in that position I would have decked the kid. I just tend to show support towards the biggest underdog, which in this case I initially perceived as the kid. But I support the right of teachers to instruct in an environment free from bullshit. I also support the right of other students to learn in an environment free from bullshit. But, like I have said, I think that school districts should train teachers to deal with obviously emotionally disturbed types like that kid.

pastradamus

10th June 2011, 02:47

Right, well first off, I'd never make the argument that all teachers are good teachers. They're really no different than any other person doing a job in the respect that some of them are going to suck at it. But I don't think that's what you were getting at...

Anyway, I more or less agree with your assessment of what it means to be an administrator. I didn't want to get into that business because it was tangential to the discussion at the time, but my father (later in his career) was actually an administrator. He had to deal with exactly the kinds of parents you're talking about and I'll tell you a secret: Most of them were bourgeois.

He was the kind of guy who never liked to brag about his academic accomplishments so he never bothered to hang his degrees on the wall of his office. His ego wasn't big enough for the job I suppose. Eventually, he got sick of the condescending attitudes of wealthy doctors and lawyers who acted as if he didn't know shit because they had more education... As soon as he hung his Ed.D. (doctorate of education) diploma on the wall, all that shit stopped.

Anyhow, these same people, when they found he actually had a spine and wasn't going to reverse himself, wound up literally calling the superintendent of the whole damned district. Nine times out of 10 they had contributed to the superintendent's campaign (ours were actually elected officials, not appointed) so the end result was a personal phone call from the superintendent threatening him with this job.

Long story short, not all administrators are spineless by choice.

Dont get me wrong, I wasn't disagreeing with you. I was simply developing what you said to make a point. But I would say that to even be an administrator in such a position as your father would by definition almost imply that he was anything but spineless.

praxis1966

10th June 2011, 04:17

Dont get me wrong, I wasn't disagreeing with you. I was simply developing what you said to make a point. But I would say that to even be an administrator in such a position as your father would by definition almost imply that he was anything but spineless.

Yeah, I figured... I was more or less doing the same thing. And I appreciate the affirmation.:)

Demogorgon

10th June 2011, 08:47

A lot of people here are making a very very basic misunderstanding and are saying some shit that is reaaaaallly crazy.

This is not a discipline issue. If it was, the teacher would be 100% in the wrong.

It was a self-defense/flight or fight thing.
Absolutely. Corporal punishment is never justified and any notion that the biy "deserved" to be hit is wrong. The issue is that the teacher had the right to defend herself from being attacked.

Lucretia

10th June 2011, 16:23

So. You think changing all the variables and making the situation entirely different is a bullshit reason for me not to answer your question? :rolleyes:

It was changing variables to account for points which you had not professed to be relevant to your argument, but which magically became important when I started trying to ask you my question. Hardly a sign of bad faith. When you suddenly announced that those variables (whether the people involved knew each other well, etc.) were pivotal to your assessment of the situation, I changed the scenario to account for those variables and make the hypothetical situation as close to the original scenario as possible. Why would you have some sort of problem with that, apart from your inability to understand basic rational processes?

This realy has been answered already. Everybody has a right to self defence...and the way they defend themselves is entirely dependent on the threat assessment of the situation. That's not what I asked you. I asked you that if the situation were the same, except the age of the person being hit and the genders of both parties were changed, would you support the right of the smaller man to strike the larger woman?

I wonder what it means that you will not come right out and directly answer the question.

1). Based on your assessment that nobody has the right to use violence and the fact that you advocate the fact that she could have removed herself from the hostile situation if she so chose and therefore bears guilt and responsibility for her actions....I have never said that people do not have a right to use violence. Why do you keep inventing things I never said, then attributing those things to me? Either it's maliciously dishonest, or you are again proving an inability to read and comprehend information that is clearly being presented to you.

I have maintained consistently throughout this thread that people have a right to self-defense, and that that right includes the use of physical force once physical force has been used or once it is obvious that a person is intending to use physical force (somebody is pointing a gun at you, for example, not just yelling at you in your face). Where we disagree about this situation is that I think there are other factors to consider in determining whether a person is being physically endangered and therefore has a right to pre-emptively hit. In this case, simply being yelled at to your face in close quarters by somebody over whom you have direct institutional authority, and somebody who has no weapons, is not a justification for hitting him. Whether the kid was actually showing "behaviour clusters" indicating an intentionality toward violence is not something we need to speculate about here. It's obvious the kid did not intent to hit the teacher. If he was seriously considering hitting her when she was just standing in front of him, he most certainly would have nailed her the second she threw her punch.

would you likewise argue that continued abuse of a woman by her husband is her own fault and responsibility?This is a question I think you had better ask yourself.

Unlike you, I don't think a person has a right to strike another person flimsy pretexts of "feeling angry" or "feeling threatened." Whether that person is a middle-aged woman or a teenage student. You are the person in this thread who has justified the use of violence. So if anybody here is likely to apologize for the abuse of spouses, or insist that a physically abused wife accept the blame for her being battered, that person is more likely to be you.

2). For reasons expained in an earlier post...Are you arguing that a diminituive woman can not fight back and defend herself from a bigger and stronger man who is abusive and dominating?It depends on how you define "abusive" and "dominating." I laid out clearly in this post the circumstances under which I think it is okay to use physical violence in self-defense. Getting yelled at to your face is not one of them.

Lucretia

10th June 2011, 16:32

The kid would make a great pig. Threaten and hurl insults at people because you know they'd get in trouble if they fought back.

The only problem with this, of course, is that the teacher did not get in the trouble, while the student most probably did.

Demogorgon

10th June 2011, 16:42

The only problem with this, of course, is that the teacher did not get in the trouble, while the student most probably did.
She has been suspended for her job and may be dismissed. How is that not getting into trouble?

Lucretia

10th June 2011, 16:48

With all due respect this is completely ludicrous. Slaves were on plantations to be worked half to death for their masters. Workers are at the workplace to make a profit for their employers. Children are in school to be given the benefit of an education. Spot the difference? In the first two cases people are being exploited. In the third they are being given something to benefit them.

Are you even reading the posts you think you are responding to? I clearly highlighted these differences when comparing the two institutions, then I noted that, in spite of these clear differences, there are definite similarities. The point of making a comparison, rather than simply equating two things, is to point out that similarities in spite of obvious differences.

Moreover teachers are not nasty exploiters. They are workers who have chosen the profession to benefit others. Given the level of education teachers normally require to get the job they can almost certainly get considerably better paying jobs elsewhere but choose a lower paying and generally speaking more stressful job because they want to help. It is insulting to make the comparison you have made.I have also addressed these points, noting explicitly that public teachers are not part of a profit-making venture by which students are exploited by producing surplus value. I also conceded that teachers in all likelihood have noble intentions, and that they do help students in some ways. But, as I argued, a teacher's noble intentions does not alter the fact that she is still presiding as the direct supervisor within an undemocratic institution that serves the purpose of reproducing capitalist relations by breaking young people down and acclimating them to authoritarian structures and the like. Again, seriously consider the analogy and the larger point I am trying to make by presenting the analogy. Nobody is saying that there are no important differences between the two institutions. What I am saying is that those important differences do not have a bearing on the point I am attempting to make by invoking the analogy.

It is not oppression to make children attend school. Universal education was one of the greatest progressive victories ever won.If you think this, then you have absolutely no understanding of the history of education or the people who were making arguments for mandatory public schooling. You are just repeating feel-good liberal boilerplate. I advise you to actually read a couple of books on this subject before you start proclaiming things to be some of the "greatest progressive victories ever won."

Now if you want to argue that current schooling, particularly in America, is inadequate and often does harm to children, then I fully agree.You act like this is an aberration, purely incidental to the way public education is designed to run, just like liberals argue that the economic crisis was a purely incidental phenomenon that can be attributed to a few bad apples becoming too greedy. It's not. The litany of problems we can spend pages and pages listing are built into the way public education is designed to function. To a greater or lesser degree, they are problems that plague almost all public education systems in countries with modern economies.

I will also note that a large part of the reason why American schooling is often so inadequate compared to many other countries is that teachers are overly constrained by education authorities, but that is another story.This is just more liberal boilerplate that wants to pretend that American education is in a uniquely bad spot because unions have been busted and a European-style social-welfare state does not exist. (O, if we could only have FDR back, public schooling would be incredible!)

School shootings, violence in classrooms, disinterest, etc., are problems throughout the world. Certainly America has some peculiarities, a more violent culture and an easier availability of guns, that exaggerate the incidence of some these problems. It's just wrong, though, to pretend that these problems are unique to the US are not a byproduct of the role public education is at least partially fulfilling in the reproduction of capitalist relations. I am not just inventing half-cocked assertions here. This point is pretty universally agreed upon in leftist literature on modern education regimes. That you are unaware of it shows how poorly versed you on the topic.

Of course they should. Children and teenagers sometimes misbehave and try to disrupt lessons. That is just the way young people are and does not mean they are "bad" unless the behaviour is extremely bad, but nonetheless it stops other children from learning. Teachers have to stop that from happening. Or do you propose that no teacher should ever be able to tell a child to be quiet or to sit down or whatever?I am not disagreeing with your point that teacher need (and have) the authority to maintain order in the classroom. I simply wanted to point out that this position puts both of us at odds with hindsight. I would also note that the maintenance of order should never include the use of physical violence unless in self-defense, though as I have noted elsewhere I do not think self-defense was a justification for violence here.

Having your back against a door is not akin to standing in front of it. Moreover let us remind ourselves of what happened. The boy was standing fists clenched in a fighting posture screaming abuse. He then advanced on her. Taking such a stance indicates a threat of violence. It is the stance we instinctively take when we are squaring off at people.So because sometimes people starting punching others after yelling at them to their faces, it's now okay to punch people just for yelling at you in your face? A weak argument.

Of course I would. Do "tiny old men" forfeit the right to safety? Unless you hold to a form of absolute pacifism whereby it is wrong to ever use retaliatory force you must accept the right to self defence under certain circumstances. In the face of that level of aggression from someone larger than her a punch is fairly proportionate and certainly falls into the category of self defence.Thank you for actually answering the question.

If you do hold to such pacifism I can see why you believe what you do and there is little point in further debate so I will simply say I respect such a belief but think it is wrong. If however-as I suspect-you do not hold such a belief you really need to ask yourself whether you honestly believe there is no right to self defence in that kind of situation.I am not a pacifist. I have explained in response to other posters the circumstances under which I would sanction the use of physical force as self-defense.

Lucretia

10th June 2011, 16:58

She has been suspended for her job and may be dismissed. How is that not getting into trouble?

She has been suspended with pay. This is not uncommon when a workplace investigation is taking place. In light of how what the teacher did was not even considered criminal, and that Florida sanctions corporal punishment, I highly doubt she will lose her job. If she does, then it's fair to say that she is "in trouble."

Lucretia

10th June 2011, 17:11

PhoenixAsh

10th June 2011, 17:26

It was changing variables to account for points which you had not professed to be relevant to your argument, but which magically became important when I started trying to ask you my question.

The argument was made to specific context. If you change the context naturally the argument changes. There is nothing magical about it and its a logical thing really.

Its like cooking pork. If you cook it it will taste completely different than if you bake it.

Hardly a sign of bad faith.Fair enough. See below.

When you suddenly announced that those variables (whether the people involved knew each other well, etc.) were pivotal to your assessment of the situation, I changed the scenario to account for those variables and make the hypothetical situation as close to the original scenario as possible. Why would you have some sort of problem with that, apart from your inability to understand basic rational processes?I do. I just think it is strange that you chaged the variables using subjective language descriptors. If you have just said the situation would be exactly the same only reversed the issue could have been avoided.

You chose in stead to change the entire context and since context related arguments which was pretty clear I was making...are dependent on context...yes changing the context is something that cues alarm bells.

Especially given the nature of your question.

That's not what I asked you. I asked you that if the situation were the same, except the age of the person being hit and the genders of both parties were changed, would you support the right of the smaller man to strike the larger woman?I think I made it clear that I would support the right to self defence.

I wonder what it means that you will not come right out and directly answer the question....maybe I just don't trust you enough...maybe that is caused because you entered the debate by declaring everybody reactionary who did not agree with you questioning their socialist ideals and socialism.

...or maybe its caused by a culture on the board used by soem users to twist things and then use them against somebody in personal score settling maybe I am falsely including you into that perception of behavioural attitudes on the board but from what you say below my assessment was completely warranted.

Whatever the case I am wary of questions which involve asking a man if its ok for another man to hit a woman because an answer out of context it is all to easilly mistaken for sexism and advocacy of abuse especially on this board...and yes...this is exactly descrbing you.

I have never said that people do not have a right to use violence. Why do you keep inventing things I never said, then attributing those things to me? Either it's maliciously dishonest, or you are again proving an inability to read and comprehend information that is clearly being presented to you.I was refering to this and I think it is pretty clear that I was from the description of my question.

My argument is that nobody should have the authority to strike another human being unless one has been struck first, and is therefore acting in self-defense.

I for one think it is not necessary to wait untill violence is commenced but to be able to act preemptively when violence is expected.

I have maintained consistently throughout this thread that people have a right to self-defense, Me too. So there does not lie the basis of our dispute.

and that that right includes the use of physical force once physical force has been used or once it is obvious that a person is intending to use physical force (somebody is pointing a gun at you, for example, not just yelling at you in your face). You bring up an exellent point here. And I agree completely except for the fact that I think this specific case did not involve somebody just yelling in somebodies face.

Where we disagree about this situation is that I think there are other factors to consider in determining whether a person is being physically endangered and therefore has a right to pre-emptively hit. In this case, simply being yelled at to your face in close quarters by somebody over whom you have direct institutional authority, and somebody who has no weapons, is not a justification for hitting him. Whether the kid was actually showing "behaviour clusters" indicating an intentionality toward violence is not something we need to speculate about here. It's obvious the kid did not intent to hit the teacher. If he was seriously considering hitting her when she was just standing in front of him, he most certainly would have nailed her the second she threw her punch.I do not agree with your assessemt here. It is very relevant. We are not talking about merely yelling in somebodies face.

We are talking about displaying threatening behaviour to such an extend somebody feels the need to back up because you keep approaching them with clenched fists. And every attempt to diffuse the situation is met by escalation of agression to such an extend somebody feels the need to tell sombody to step back. Then there is a jump...a quick move in the blink of an eye towards body contact or extreme near body contact.

I have NEVER encountered a situation in which that did not lead to the intend to use violence and I never met a person who did not feel the need to take a definsive posture or act either by shrinking completely or by fighting back. Such behavioural display is universally seens as prelude to escalation towards imminent physcial violence. In fact most people see it as violence in itself and warrants (preemptive) self defence.

In this case institutional authority is completely meaningless. Its not a shield and its not some forcefield that protects your body. It doesn't deflect blows and it doesn't deflect harm. The teacher here was under threat. She perceived it as such and I completely agree with her assessment. If she hadn't acted he would have escalated within seconds to giving her a head butt or something else.

This is a question I think you had better ask yourself.I definately know the answer to this. My question is if you do? Because I think even emotional and dominating abuse constitutes if severe enough a reason to escalate. And I think a woman who is put under such abuse is completely within her rights to fight off abuse in whatever way she can and this include physical force and, depending on several factors, this even may include lethal force, if she sees no other way out.

Unlike you, I don't think a person has a right to strike another person flimsy pretexts of "feeling angry" or "feeling threatened." Whether that person is a middle-aged woman or a teenage student. You are the person in this thread who has justified the use of violence. So if anybody here is likely to apologize for the abuse of spouses, or insist that a physically abused wife accept the blame for her being battered, that person is more likely to be you.And this is exactly the reason why I do not answer your question negatively or positively. Because of insane accusations and non sequentors like this bullshit here. Your level of argumentative dishonesty is astounding and it says a lot about the person you are.

Now...it was definately NOT me who argued that a door is always the way out and that there is a duty to take the way out to remove oneself from imminent violence. That was you, in fact.

In fact I would argue that such a position is most easilly an most often used by abuse apologetics that claim that a woman who does not remove herself fro an abusive relationship is asking for it and is really herself to blame for continued abuse. And that is pure horse shit.

And THAT dishonesty you display here and the complete and utter hypocracy of your position and your subsequent leading question was what I was indicating when I stated that I did not want to answer your question and what I was indicating by stating I would be asking you a similarly leading question to show you why I thought it was leading.

So yes...Lucretia, you are dishonest and you did ask that question to lead. your little paragraph here uncovered your true intention splendidly.

Thank you for showing that.

Now lets cut the crap about who is the least sexist and cut the blame shifting and witchhunting. I assume we neither advocate abuse nor do we condone it. So don't try to twist this shit.

It depends on how you define "abusive" and "dominating." I laid out clearly in this post the circumstances under which I think it is okay to use physical violence in self-defense. Getting yelled at to your face is not one of them.So do you deny that psychological abuse exists? Or that it is a serious threat to well being? Clear this up for me. Because so far you have only recognized the seriousness of physical violence instead of emotional violence.

praxis1966

10th June 2011, 17:50

She has been suspended with pay. This is not uncommon when a workplace investigation is taking place. In light of how what the teacher did was not even considered criminal, and that Florida sanctions corporal punishment, I highly doubt she will lose her job. If she does, then it's fair to say that she is "in trouble."

Fail. Florida doesn't "sanction" corporal punishment. It can be used, but only with parental consent per state statute. There's a huge difference between the reality and how you make it sound... which is to say you seem to be suggesting that school officials can just haul off and whack a kid without any consideration.

Demogorgon

10th June 2011, 18:11

Are you even reading the posts you think you are responding to? I clearly highlighted these differences when comparing the two institutions, then I noted that, in spite of these clear differences, there are definite similarities. The point of making a comparison, rather than simply equating two things, is to point out that similarities in spite of obvious differences.You cannot make a comparison between two things that are completely unrelated. It is like saying that going to the cinema and dying in the electric chair both involve sitting down so we can make comparisons. It is not good enough to say that you are not claiming the situations are identical when you are trying to draw equivalence between two things that have nothing whatsoever to do with one another.

I have also addressed these points, noting explicitly that public teachers are not part of a profit-making venture by which students are exploited by producing surplus value. I also conceded that teachers in all likelihood have noble intentions, and that they do help students in some ways. But, as I argued, a teacher's noble intentions does not alter the fact that she is still presiding as the direct supervisor within an undemocratic institution that serves the purpose of reproducing capitalist relations by breaking young people down and acclimating them to authoritarian structures and the like. Again, seriously consider the analogy and the larger point I am trying to make by presenting the analogy. Nobody is saying that there are no important differences between the two institutions. What I am saying is that those important differences do not have a bearing on the point I am attempting to make by invoking the analogy.

Just because I do not agree with your analogy does not mean I haven't considered it. Indeed I suspect my teenage self thought something rather similar in a mangled sort of way. The reason your analogy does not work is very simple. Teachers are not oppressors.

If you think this, then you have absolutely no understanding of the history of education or the people who were making arguments for mandatory public schooling. You are just repeating feel-good liberal boilerplate. I advise you to actually read a couple of books on this subject before you start proclaiming things to be some of the "greatest progressive victories ever won."Oh and what reading of history are you going to regale us with? Certainly in Britain, more in England than in Scotland, proper universal education was more or less imposed on the Government by the trade unions. Perhaps the actual progressive forces were those that preferred to send children down the mines but that would be an unorthodox interpretation.

You act like this is an aberration, purely incidental to the way public education is designed to run, just like liberals argue that the economic crisis was a purely incidental phenomenon that can be attributed to a few bad apples becoming too greedy. It's not. The litany of problems we can spend pages and pages listing are built into the way public education is designed to function. To a greater or lesser degree, they are problems that plague almost all public education systems in countries with modern economies.

This is just more liberal boilerplate that wants to pretend that American education is in a uniquely bad spot because unions have been busted and a European-style social-welfare state does not exist. (O, if we could only have FDR back, public schooling would be incredible!)

School shootings, violence in classrooms, disinterest, etc., are problems throughout the world. Certainly America has some peculiarities, a more violent culture and an easier availability of guns, that exaggerate the incidence of some these problems. It's just wrong, though, to pretend that these problems are unique to the US are not a byproduct of the role public education is at least partially fulfilling in the reproduction of capitalist relations. I am not just inventing half-cocked assertions here. This point is pretty universally agreed upon in leftist literature on modern education regimes. That you are unaware of it shows how poorly versed you on the topic./quote]In your rush to call me a liberal several times, I fear you may well have missed a crucial point: I am not actually American. I am basing the claim that American schools are particularly bad on the fact that I have knowledge of much better education systems. Here in Scotland the education system is simply better than it is in America/ There are many countries that have much better than Scotland. All have problems in their education systems, but it is nonsense to claim that all the difficulties in the American education system are intrinsic to it.
[quote]
So because sometimes people starting punching others after yelling at them to their faces, it's now okay to punch people just for yelling at you in your face? A weak argument.Well it would be if it bore the remotest resemblance to what I wrote, but it does not. The boy was not simply "yelling" at the teacher, he was adopting an extremely aggressive posture, the one that humans instinctively make to threaten violence. It is exactly the same as a cat arching its back or similar. On an instinctual level the boy was communicating a clear intention to violence and the teacher responded also according to instinct.

Lucretia

10th June 2011, 18:23

The argument was made to specific context. If you change the context naturally the argument changes. There is nothing magical about it and its a logical thing really.

I understand that, but what you don't seem to understand is that if you are making a principled argument about what is happening in this context, it is perfectly fair for me to take those justificatory principles you cite, and transfer them into another context to determine whether those principles you cite really are the reasons you are taking the position you have. It's perfectly logical.

It's like if I asked why you don't want to eat pork for dinner, and you responded by saying you don't want to because you don't like eating meat. Would it not then be perfectly fair for me to follow up with, "Well, just for purposes of clarification, would you not want to eat hamburgers either?" If the operative principle you cite is an aversion to eating meat, it shouldn't matter which meat we're discussing. Similarly, if the operative justificatory reasons for supporting the teacher's violence is that she was presented with certain signs of aggression by a larger person she did not know very well, it's perfectly reasonable for me to change the non-operative variables like eye color, hair color, age, etc.

It's not difficult to understand, comrade.

I just think it is strange that you chaged the variables using subjective language descriptors.

What the hell does this mean? All language consists of "subjective descriptors." I just explained above how my "linguistic" changing of the scenario was designed to take your operative principles and apply them in a different context to determine whether those were the actual reasons for arriving at your conclusion.

You chose in stead to change the entire context and since context related arguments which was pretty clear I was making...are dependent on context...yes changing the context is something that cues alarm bells.

What you seem incapable of understanding is that there were two different sets of "contextual variables" in the situation: those which you cite as being determinative of your conclusion, and those which were extraneous. You explained to me which were determinative, so it is perfectly fair for me to take those variables, and apply them in a context with different non-determinative variables.

I think I made it clear that I would support the right to self defence.

That is very noble of you, except I did not ask you whether you support the right to self defense in the abstract. I asked you about a specific hypothetical situation, and you continue to refuse to answer the question. I wonder why.

...maybe I just don't trust you enough...maybe that is caused because you entered the debate by declaring everybody reactionary who did not agree with you questioning their socialist ideals and socialism.

Trust has nothing to do with this. I asked you a clear and direct question that everybody on this forum can read. If you're afraid that you'll answer, and then I'll respond by unloading all sorts of hidden information to make you look bad, then it will be obvious for everybody here. As it stands now, though, you just appear afraid to engage in a good-faith exchange about the principles you're using to excuse what the teacher did.

Whatever the case I am wary of questions which involve asking a man if its ok for another man to hit a woman because an answer out of context it is all to easilly mistaken for sexism and advocacy of abuse especially on this board...and yes...this is exactly descrbing you.

I am not asking you whether it's okay for men in general to hit women, without any context. This is a dishonest representation of the question. I asked you a much more specific question in which all the variables you cite as determinative of your support for the older female teacher are operative, except with the age and sex changed around.

Is the reason you don't want to answer the question because you don't want to admit that the main reason you support the teacher hitting the student was sex rather than size or aggressiveness? (As I said, in my hypothetical example, it's the larger woman being the aggressor against a smaller man.) The longer you refuse to answer the question, the more likely it seems that this is the reason you don't want to answer the question.

We are talking about displaying threatening behaviour to such an extend somebody feels the need to back up because you keep approaching them with clenched fists.

There were no visible clenched fists in the video. It's amazing to me how new things keep being invented about what the footage actually contains. We are talking about "threatening behavior" which consists exactly in what I said: somebody approaching a person, getting in their face, and yelling at them.

And every attempt to diffuse the situation is met by escalation of agression to such an extend somebody feels the need to tell sombody to step back.

How do you know anything about what happened prior to the 30-second video clip shown? You're talking like you know all about the prior five minutes, and how the teacher tried multiple times to diffuse the situation. You're once again just making things up to depict the teacher in the best possible light.

In this case institutional authority is completely meaningless. Its not a shield and its not some forcefield that protects your body. It doesn't deflect blows and it doesn't deflect harm.

Nobody said that her authority does act as a physical forcefield. What it does is create a psychological effect in the minds of both parties, emboldening the teacher to do things she might not otherwise do, and preventing the student from doing things he might otherwise do (like hit somebody back when that person hit him first).

I definately know the answer to this. My question is if you do? Because I think even emotional and dominating abuse constitutes if severe enough a reason to escalate. And I think a woman who is put under such abuse is completely within her rights to fight off abuse in whatever way she can and this include physical force and, depending on several factors, this even may include lethal force, if she sees no other way out.

Huh? So now you're saying that it's okay to hit somebody if you're "emotionally abused"? Again the pretexts for violence keep getting flimsier and flimsier. If anybody is likely to justify physically battering a spouse, it sounds like that person is you.

Now lets cut the crap about who is the least sexist and cut the blame shifting and witchhunting. I assume we neither advocate abuse nor do we condone it. So don't try to twist this shit.

So then why ask me a fucked up question about whether I would justify the battering of a spouse, or encourage a person to stay with a battering spouse? What sanctimonious outrange. Too bad you should be directing it at yourself.

So do you deny that psychological abuse exists? Or that it is a serious threat to well being? Clear this up for me. Because so far you have only recognized the seriousness of physical violence instead of emotional violence.

I think psychological abuse exists. I just (a) don't think that it is a justification for hitting somebody and (b) was not under the impression that "psychological abuse" had anything to do with your support for the teacher's violence.

It's nice to know, though, that you feel so insecure in your previous argument that you are now randomly adding things into to it in a failed attempt to bolster it.

Die Rote Fahne

10th June 2011, 18:26

Hindsight: Quoted for you, as an illustration of which side of this argument sounds strikingly like an abusive husband saying that "the woman deserved it and I would do it again if she doesn't shut her mouth!"
Let me educate you. You seem to be lacking in the intellect department.

This is NOT comparable to a domestic abuse situation. Domestic abuse isn't the wife screaming and intimidating the husband into a corner and then the husband had to hit her. No, domestic abuse is when a partner assaults the other over anything, and is rarely ever a single occurrence. It could be over dinner not being salty enough, over the wife looking at another man, over the husband being drunk, anything. This happened at a school between a student and a teacher. This was not a recurring thing, there was no ongoing assaults by this teacher on that student. The student was verbally and physically threatening/intimidating the women. She was backed into a corner. Are you suggesting that this is the case in domestic abuse cases? That the husband only hits the wife because he's backed into a corner and being threatened/intimidated?

This case in the school was a larger person, backing a older, smaller person into a corner, threatening her, yelling at her. She had every right to smack him. Let me turn this around, if the student was a husband, and the teacher his wife, do you think she should have "not hit him"? She should have took the verbal abuse? Took the fear and threat? Let me play the feminist for a moment, you are actually suggesting to me, that a women being abused by her husband has no right to fight back.

Please, stop making yourself look like an idiot.

Invader Zim

10th June 2011, 18:33

This teacher acted in a manner that is perfectly understandable. Physically harrass me, back me into a corner and push me up against a wall like that kid did and you are going to leave with something a lot worse than a light punch or two from a pensioner.

Lucretia

10th June 2011, 18:45

You cannot make a comparison between two things that are completely unrelated. It is like saying that going to the cinema and dying in the electric chair both involve sitting down so we can make comparisons. It is not good enough to say that you are not claiming the situations are identical when you are trying to draw equivalence between two things that have nothing whatsoever to do with one another.

I explained in the analogy how they are related. Sitting in the electric chair and sitting in a movie theater seat are also both very broadly related in that they both involve the bending of knees. The question of whether that similarity has any analytical purchase depends purely on the point somebody might be trying to make. I am sorry you cannot wrap your mind around this point.

Just because I do not agree with your analogy does not mean I haven't considered it.If you think that there are NO similarities between teachers and foremen, then, yes, you have definitely not considered the comparison.

Indeed I suspect my teenage self thought something rather similar in a mangled sort of way. The reason your analogy does not work is very simple. Teachers are not oppressors.Why can't teachers be oppressors? Because they idealistically think their job consists entirely in educating young people? They function as direct supervisors in an institution that is designed to oppress and break down young people. As Marx noted over a hundred years ago, we do not judge people based on their opinions of themselves.

Oh and what reading of history are you going to regale us with? Certainly in Britain, more in England than in Scotland, proper universal education was more or less imposed on the Government by the trade unions. Perhaps the actual progressive forces were those that preferred to send children down the mines but that would be an unorthodox interpretation.You once again seem averse to thinking in terms of complexity in contradiction. Either an institution has to be entirely noble and good, or it has to be entirely bad and oppressive. Did you consider the possibility that, while public education (like the capitalist economy itself) fulfills certain positive functions, it simultaneously fulfills oppressive ones? Or that, while mandatory public education had some positive consequences, it also had many negative ones? The purpose is to transcend the negative while elevating the positive, not to turn a blind eye to the negative.

In the U.S., the provision of public education originally developed in response to demands from several groups. Middle-class progressive reformers who wanted to "uplift" the children of poor, urban (often referred to as "animal-like") immigrants so that they exhibited the manners and discipline expected of the anglo-saxon native stock. In a cultural image that continues to play itself out even today, many of these reformers were afraid that the United States was being overrun by poor people who reproduced at ten times the rate of native-born Americans. It was also around this time that "uplift" programs like the Boyscouts were developed.

Mandatory public education was the result of unions whose members wanted to reduce economic competition thereby bolstering the wages (preventing business owners from hiring young people to do a job cheaper). And, among other things, it was a the result of a growing economic dislocation and unemployment. Reducing the size of the labour pool by shunting a percentage of the workers off to public schools was an attractive option for society's elite.

Much of this history is a history of controlling young people to suit alterior motives, and has no relationship to the rosy, altruistic picture of self-actualizing pedagogy you seem to think defines the institution. Since the primary objective of the people who established it was not "the expanding of minds" (except in a highly undemocratic, ethnocentric way), it is not surprising that the institution function and indeed continues to function in ways that are highly oppressive.

In your rush to call me a liberal several times, I fear you may well have missed a crucial point: I am not actually American. I am basing the claim that American schools are particularly bad on the fact that I have knowledge of much better education systems. Here in Scotland the education system is simply better than it is in America/ There are many countries that have much better than Scotland. All have problems in their education systems, but it is nonsense to claim that all the difficulties in the American education system are intrinsic to it.I am not denying that there are varying degrees of bad across the world. I noted as much in my original post. And I never assumed you were American. I just called some of your opinions on this matter liberal. Not all people who express liberal views are American, you know.

Lucretia

10th June 2011, 18:57

Let me educate you. You seem to be lacking in the intellect department.

This is NOT comparable to a domestic abuse situation. Domestic abuse isn't the wife screaming and intimidating the husband into a corner and then the husband had to hit her. No, domestic abuse is when a partner assaults the other over anything, and is rarely ever a single occurrence. It could be over dinner not being salty enough, over the wife looking at another man, over the husband being drunk, anything. This happened at a school between a student and a teacher. This was not a recurring thing, there was no ongoing assaults by this teacher on that student. The student was verbally and physically threatening/intimidating the women. She was backed into a corner. Are you suggesting that this is the case in domestic abuse cases? That the husband only hits the wife because he's backed into a corner and being threatened/intimidated?

This case in the school was a larger person, backing a older, smaller person into a corner, threatening her, yelling at her. She had every right to smack him. Let me turn this around, if the student was a husband, and the teacher his wife, do you think she should have "not hit him"? She should have took the verbal abuse? Took the fear and threat? Let me play the feminist for a moment, you are actually suggesting to me, that a women being abused by her husband has no right to fight back.

Please, stop making yourself look like an idiot.

Wow, a litany of idiotic things followed by an accusation that somebody is making themselves look like an idiot. A woman being beaten by her husband has a right to fight back. But does a woman have a right to hit her husband just because he is angrily yelling at her in her face? You might think so, but in virtually every part of the United States, including Florida, she would be locked up for domestic battery. Since think you're brilliant enough to "educate me", why don't you enlighten me as to why this is?

And I stand by my previous statement. Your idiotic outburst advocating physical violence against a person who was just yelling in close quarters sounds eerily like the attitude of a person who would justify spousal battering.

PhoenixAsh

10th June 2011, 19:07

Die Rote Fahne

10th June 2011, 19:10

Wow, a litany of idiotic things followed by an accusation that somebody is making themselves look like an idiot. A woman being beaten by her husband has a right to fight back. But does a woman have a right to hit her husband just because he is angrily yelling at her in her face? You might think so, but in virtually every part of the United States, including Florida, she would be locked up for domestic battery. Since think you're brilliant enough to "educate me", why don't you enlighten me as to why this is?

And I stand by my previous statement. Your idiotic outburst advocating physical violence against a person who was just yelling in close quarters sounds eerily like the attitude of a person who would justify spousal battering.
You can also be locked up for smoking a joint, does that make it right? Since when did bourgeois law, which in some states outlaws homosexuality, become something to uphold? Let me tell you a little something about rights, they don't exist. Do you not have an understanding that this is a board of radical leftists? Not Republicans and Democrats?

He wasn't just "yelling at close quarters" you fucking goober. He had her backed into a corner, yelling AT her, VERY CLOSE, making threatening physical gestures. This is a classroom, not the fucking octagon.

God, you're idiocy has no bounds.

Demogorgon

10th June 2011, 19:19

I explained in the analogy how they are related. Sitting in the electric chair and sitting in a movie theater seat are also both very broadly related in that they both involve the bending of knees. The question of whether that similarity has any analytical purchase depends purely on the point somebody might be trying to make. I am sorry you cannot wrap your mind around this point.

If you think that there are NO similarities between teachers and foremen, then, yes, you have definitely not considered the comparison.The similarities are as trivial as the sitting down similarity from my example. Comparing teachers to foremen and plantation overseers indicates simple hostility towards them, not any kind of thought through analogy.

Why can't teachers be oppressors? Because they idealistically think their job consists entirely in educating young people? They function as direct supervisors in an institution that is designed to oppress and break down young people. As Marx noted over a hundred years ago, we do not judge people based on their opinions of themselves.I am not talking about self deception. I am talking about what they actually do and that is provide considerable benefit to children. Do you think you would have been better off had you not been educated?

You once again seem averse to thinking in terms of complexity in contradiction. Either an institution has to be entirely noble and good, or it has to be entirely bad and oppressive. Did you consider the possibility that, while public education (like the capitalist economy itself) fulfills certain positive functions, it simultaneously fulfills oppressive ones? Or that, while mandatory public education had some positive consequences, it also had many negative ones? The purpose is to transcend the negative while elevating the positive, not to turn a blind eye to the negative.Where have I ever said schools are entirely good? I have noted many problems. What I object to is your claim that they are there to oppress children.

Mandatory public education was the result of unions whose members wanted to reduce economic competition thereby bolstering the wages (preventing business owners from hiring young people to do a job cheaper). And, among other things, it was a the result of a growing economic dislocation and unemployment. Reducing the size of the labour pool by shunting a percentage of the workers off to public schools was an attractive option for society's elite.A lot of this shows a sincere misunderstanding of what went on. You do realise that taking children out of the labour pool and allowing for higher wages for adults are pretty progressive, right? Also a lot of states enacted universal education during times of relatively high employment and indeed there is the fact that in the nineteenth century there was no real motivation for Governments to be seen to keep unemployment down.

Incidentally seeing as you have ceased to dispute the particular case involved in favour of a general attack on education, this may be an appropriate time to ask: what is your alternative?

Demogorgon

10th June 2011, 19:22

Lucretia

10th June 2011, 19:27

Because Lucretia the justice system is designed to protect societal privilege...and that includes male privilege.

Also...until very recently I remember rape in marriage was not considered possible in judicial sense in some states...why do you think that was? Because the system perpetuates male privilige either directly or in subtile ways.

This you should know. Do not cite judicial practice in abuse cases.

So now it seems we arrive at the real answer: if the situation were exactly the same, except for the ages and sexes of the participants, so that a larger woman were exhibiting aggressive behavior toward a smaller, older man, then in your view, no, the man would not be justified in hitting her. Not because of size, not because of position of authority, not because of any of that. But because he has a penis.

That sounds awfully sexist to me.

Lucretia

10th June 2011, 19:32

Where have I ever said schools are entirely good? I have noted many problems. What I object to is your claim that they are there to oppress children.

But this is like a liberal or even a libertarian saying, "Where have I said that capitalism results in no misfortunes or problems?" My issue here is not that you aren't aware of problems in education. It's that you aren't aware that these problems are traceable to the very nature of public education that it, as an institution, was designed to fulfill.

A lot of this shows a sincere misunderstanding of what went on.Really? Which historical facts are you disputing?

You do realise that taking children out of the labour pool and allowing for higher wages for adults are pretty progressive, right?Okay, so you don't really disagree with my facts. You would just interpret them differently. Taking children out of factories so that they were no longer dying at age 15 was definitely a positive step. But that they were relegated to an undemocratic institution that was not in any way designed primarily to inculcate them with the kinds of democratic, noble values you seem to associate with education, but was instead a way of breaking them into ethnocentric notions of "Americanism" and preparing them for work discipline later in life was definitely not a positive step. Hence, the contradiction.

Incidentally seeing as you have ceased to dispute the particular case involved in favour of a general attack on education, this may be an appropriate time to ask: what is your alternative?This discussion of the history of education is the result of your unwillingness to concede that school is an oppressive institution, and that it can therefore be reasonably compared with a plantation system overseen by foremen.

Lucretia

10th June 2011, 19:36

You can also be locked up for smoking a joint, does that make it right? Since when did bourgeois law, which in some states outlaws homosexuality, become something to uphold? Let me tell you a little something about rights, they don't exist. Do you not have an understanding that this is a board of radical leftists? Not Republicans and Democrats?

He wasn't just "yelling at close quarters" you fucking goober. He had her backed into a corner, yelling AT her, VERY CLOSE, making threatening physical gestures. This is a classroom, not the fucking octagon.

God, you're idiocy has no bounds.

I am such an idiot, yet when I am asked a question I know how to answer it. Why do you think that a woman in such an instance would be locked up for domestic battery? I know this will require to think about an issue for longer than several seconds, but I have every bit of faith in your ability to achieve this remarkable breakthrough.

Demogorgon

10th June 2011, 19:50

This discussion of the history of education is the result of your unwillingness to concede that school is an oppressive institution, and that it can therefore be reasonably compared with a plantation system overseen by foremen.
You still fail to see just how viciously offensive an analogy this is. Both to teachers and even more so to the memory of slaves. I think it is pretty disgusting to compare what they went through to twenty first century schooling.

Once again though, what is your alternative?

Lucretia

10th June 2011, 19:59

You still fail to see just how viciously offensive an analogy this is. Both to teachers and even more so to the memory of slaves. I think it is pretty disgusting to compare what they went through to twenty first century schooling.

I can see how offensive this analogy might be to somebody who devoted decades to teaching out of a desire to help young people improve their lives. But that doesn't make it any less true. Both institutions serve oppressive functions, and in both cases those oppressive functions could not be carried out without the direct supervision of a class of employees, regardless of the intentions of those employees.

Neither the social function of oppression within the school, nor its organic links to the world beyond the classroom walls, is a product of my imagination. These issues have been written about widely. I am sad to see that so many comrades have not availed themselves of these resources, yet pounce to attack people who have. A couple of works you might begin with are Bowles and Gintis' Schooling in Capitalist America and Ivan Illich's Deschooling Society.

Once again though, what is your alternative?

A lot has been written about this also. I recommend A.S. Neill's Summerhill School, Bill Ayers' On the Side of the Child, and The Sudbury Valley School Experience.

Die Rote Fahne

10th June 2011, 20:00

I am such an idiot, yet when I am asked a question I know how to answer it. Why do you think that a woman in such an instance would be locked up for domestic battery? I know this will require to think about an issue for longer than several seconds, but I have every bit of faith in your ability to achieve this remarkable breakthrough.
Yet, you aren't able to answer the questions I've posed to you.

I don't think she should be locked up in such an instance. It's self defence. Fight or flight. Simple biology.

You have to realize that laws in capitalist society reflect the privileged groups in society. Rich, white, men. That is the reason why the woman may be locked up for fighting back. Why women make only 70 cents on a dollar compared to men. Why women were not able to vote until 1920.

Reznov

10th June 2011, 20:09

She could have opened the door and went back to the principal's office.

Or the student could have not gotten up and started to yell at the teachers face.

Apart from even the current context of the situation, this kind of behavior is unacceptable regardless of any situation, and any person is going to act in self-defense.

I don't see any other solution the teacher could have done at that exact moment in time, as the teacher kept telling the student to stop but the student kept yelling and getting up close to the teachers face.

Honestly, I would have done the same thing in the teachers position.

But you can't really get mad at either the teacher or the student, but the school system itself. It's as reactionary as blaming "rich white people" for the problems of capitalism in America or blaming immigrants for the loss of jobs.

Lucretia

10th June 2011, 20:10

Yet, you aren't able to answer the questions I've posed to you.

I don't think she should be locked up in such an instance. It's self defence. Fight or flight. Simple biology.

You have to realize that laws in capitalist society reflect the privileged groups in society. Rich, white, men. That is the reason why the woman may be locked up for fighting back. Why women make only 70 cents on a dollar compared to men. Why women were not able to vote until 1920.

Ok, so if a man struck his wife because she was aggressively getting in his face, you don't think he should be locked up either, right? Or are you like hindsight, and think that the sex organ, not the punch, makes the crime?

Reznov

10th June 2011, 20:12

You have to realize that laws in capitalist society reflect the privileged groups in society. Rich, white, men. That is the reason why the woman may be locked up for fighting back. Why women make only 70 cents on a dollar compared to men. Why women were not able to vote until 1920.

Can you name me some of the laws that you are talking about?

Invader Zim

10th June 2011, 20:20

Ok, so if a man struck his wife because she was aggressively getting in his face, you don't think he should be locked up either, right? Or are you like hindsight, and think that the sex organ, not the punch, makes the crime?

Well, actually physically intimidating an individual, verbally assaulting them and pushing them against a door is a crime - self defence when confronted with such violent intimidation is not... as this case proves.

Die Rote Fahne

10th June 2011, 20:21

Ok, so if a man struck his wife because she was aggressively getting in his face, you don't think he should be locked up either, right? Or are you like hindsight, and think that the sex organ, not the punch, makes the crime?
This is a school setting, not a home setting. You can't keep making these completely false analogies.

As a man I can safely say I wouldn't hit a woman in that situation you describe. Should a man be able to express self defence against a woman? Yes.

You also don't seem to recognize the difference between one time events, and continued, long term domestic abuse.

Die Rote Fahne

10th June 2011, 20:53

Can you name me some of the laws that you are talking about?
Let's talk about laws, not necessarily in the USA, but in 1st world nations, that favour:

Straight people

- Anti-homosexuality laws.

- Laws that prohibit gay marriage.

- Laws preventing gay couples form adopting.

- Certain states allow employers to refuse to hire gay people on the basis that they are gay.

Whites

- U.S. officials continue to differentially apply laws on illegal immigration depending on national origin (essentially declining to enforce immigration laws against citizens of rich countries who overstay their visas) and personal economy (differentially awarding visas to foreign nationals based on bank accounts, properties and so on).

Example: illegal British Immigrant will be ignored whilst an illegal Mexican immigrant will be sought after.

- Show me your papers laws in places like Arizona

- Racial and ethnic profiling laws.

Men

- Lack of equal rights laws. Such as equal pay.

- Laws that require the "father's consent" to abortion.

- Laws that ban abortion, even in the case of rape and incest.

I really can't cite the specific laws.

Let's go outside of the law, and take on the general societal view. How many times do police ask a women "what were you wearing" in a rape case? This isn't rare.

Let's look at how long it takes police to respond to a call from a poor neighbourhood as compared to a rich white suburb.

PhoenixAsh

10th June 2011, 22:30

So now it seems we arrive at the real answer:

Yes we do...and it directly answers my first assertion towards you that you were in fact NOT asking a honest question but were looking to spin an answer into a strawman for your own personal gain and witchhunting because you can not hold a valid, consistent and convincing argument which holds up to reality.

So instead you decide to go on some unfounded and contrary to evidence crusade based on false equations, non sequentors, putting words in my mouth and direct and unconcealed lies.

if the situation were exactly the same, except for the ages and sexes of the participants, so that a larger woman were exhibiting aggressive behavior toward a smaller, older man, then in your view, no, the man would not be justified in hitting her. Not because of size, not because of position of authority, not because of any of that. But because he has a penis.

This is a non sequentor. You are trying to shift societal reality on me and blaming me for the very real fact you in fact are denying exists: male privilege which is perpetuated amongst other things through the justice system.

YOU asked this question:

You might think so, but in virtually every part of the United States, including Florida, she would be locked up for domestic battery. Since think you're brilliant enough to "educate me", why don't you enlighten me as to why this is?

The answer to that is because the justice system is designed to protect male privilege. And THAT means that a woman is judged by that system on her actions NOT on the context that those actions took place in.

You seem to have real problems understanding this simple truth about out patriarchical society...and in fact you seem awfully comfotable using the same arguments as evry abuse appologist out there; especially when you are the one arguing that victims in an aggressive situation have the duty to get out of that situation otherwise they are guilty of perpetuating it and hold responsibility and accountability for the fact that they need to defend themselves. That was your argument.

Then you have the audacity to try and somehow deflect from your lack of understanding the patriarchical machinations in how our society functions and perpetuates the inequalities between men and women and continues to contribute to gener role enforcement by somehow twisting my answer to the above cited question you asked into saying that women are judged different by men because I think that should be the case....while at the same time trying to make it appear as this is the answer I gave to a completely different question you asked.

That does however NOT fly.

That sounds awfully sexist to me.

Yes...it does because that is patriartchy in the judicial system for you. And since you are on this board since november 2010 according to your current account...you should have known that society and its judicial system is a reflection and a tool in the perpetuation of male privilege over women.

You seem to be denying that reality and therefore I think you should do with reading why we struggle for gender equality some more instead of blaming the messenger who tries to educate you and fix your lack of knowledge on how society perpetuates the patriarchical domination of women.

I find it terribly ironic taht you came in here boldly throwing down a blanket accusation about people being reactionary and non socialist while you are the one arguing for the perpetuation of teh patriarchy and have no trouble blaming abuse victims for their contuinued plight by stating they have to wait before somebody hits them to be able to fight back and defend themselves.

PhoenixAsh

10th June 2011, 22:34

Ok, so if a man struck his wife because she was aggressively getting in his face, you don't think he should be locked up either, right? Or are you like hindsight, and think that the sex organ, not the punch, makes the crime?

Show me where I said this. Otherwise stop throwing around baseless and knowingly (to you) false accusations.

Iraultzaile Ezkerreko

10th June 2011, 23:42

Is there still argument about this? Good lord, just because it happened at school doesn't mean this kid is being oppressed by his teacher in this specific situation. I guarantee that most of the people defending the kid would have no problem if some small anarchist girl punched a guy after they were verbally assaulting her and backed her into a corner making all the physical predispositions to violence just because she asked him to leave a discussion group for being disruptive.

Sean

11th June 2011, 01:32

Pretty sure its all in the edit here, you can see how defensively she's already standing when we join in the middle of the incident. That kid is towering over her, backing her against the closed door. I reserve the right to defend myself or a stranger against THAT kind of aggression whether it be child, giant woman, someone with learning difficulties, six foot puppydog or anything. If you saw this in the street and didn't immediately help the lady you're an asshole, unlike that one guy. If theres something coming towards you that could land you in hospital way easier than anything you could do back, you're allowed to respond in my book.

Honestly, If I was seriously threatening someone so much physically weaker than me like this, she grabbed a blunt weapon and defended herself she would be entirely justified and not a sane person would come to my defence. If I didn't have a weapon and she did and I could fucking demolish her, that doesn't mean I'm a victim.

This isn't anything like the mean abusive teacher who should be arrested title suggests. Tachosomoza, I'd think it would be a cool thing for you to ask the mod to change the title so this person's search on google isn't tarnished by the thread title unless you're sticking to your guns, I consider it very inflammatory and wrong.

synthesis

11th June 2011, 04:54

This isn't anything like the mean abusive teacher who should be arrested title suggests. Tachosomoza, I'd think it would be a cool thing for you to ask the mod to change the title so this person's search on google isn't tarnished by the thread title unless you're sticking to your guns, I consider it very inflammatory and wrong.

Have you tried searching this person's name on Google? RevLeft isn't exactly the first result.

Le Libérer

11th June 2011, 23:26

06hurdwp

11th June 2011, 23:51

Funnily enough, someone on a Minecraft server I play on claims to know the boy who was punched, and he says he is an absolute dick who deserved a punch anyway :laugh:

#FF0000

12th June 2011, 00:13

calling it now: lucretia has never been in any kind of confrontation ever.

Decommissioner

12th June 2011, 00:38

I support the punching, she was clearly provoked into physically defending herself.

Had she done nothing, she would have just reinforced an idea that seems to plague our culture, that you can treat working people like dirt knowing they cannot retaliate for fear of losing their job. I think on the job punchings, insulting, and overall retaliation should be encouraged. People shouldn't be allowed to go through life thinking they can just bully people without repercussions.

The kid was bigger and more indimidating, the teacher was scared to death, the punching was justifiable.

Lucretia

12th June 2011, 01:40

Yes we do...and it directly answers my first assertion towards you that you were in fact NOT asking a honest question but were looking to spin an answer into a strawman for your own personal gain and witchhunting because you can not hold a valid, consistent and convincing argument which holds up to reality.

You still refuse to answer the basic question of whether an old man would have been justified in striking a larger adult woman in an identical situation. It's obvious to everybody who has carefully read this thread that you refuse to answer it because you would then have to concede that your only reason for arriving at a different conclusion in the hypothetical example has to do with genitalia.

That's sexism, comrade.

You seem to have real problems understanding this simple truth about out patriarchical society...and in fact you seem awfully comfotable using the same arguments as evry abuse appologist out there;Which argument is that? That I don't think one person yelling at another to their face, without making direct physical contact, is not grounds for the other person to hit the first person? It blows my mind that, in response to my argument against the use of physical violence, you are determined to ferret out advocacy of abuse.

especially when you are the one arguing that victims in an aggressive situation have the duty to get out of that situation otherwise they are guilty of perpetuating it and hold responsibility and accountability for the fact that they need to defend themselves. That was your argument.Just like you were trying to collapse justificatory criteria and extraneous information into the monolithic "contextual variables" earlier, you are trying to collapse two separate and dramatically different things: physical aggression and emotional aggression. While I think a person has a right to respond to emotional aggression (indeed, the school gives the teacher the authority to do just that), I do not think a person has a right to initiate physical violence to respond to somebody who is just being emotionally or verbally abusive. So, no, I don't think the teacher was to blame for the emotional abuse, but I think she is to blame for initiating physical violence.

Then you have the audacity to try and somehow deflect from your lack of understanding the patriarchical machinations in how our society functions and perpetuates the inequalities between men and womenIf you think patriarchy is perpetuated by refusing to grant women carte blanche to hit males who are yelling at them in close quarters, then I would dare say that you are the person who is oblivious to how patriarchy works.

Yes...it does because that is patriartchy in the judicial system for you. And since you are on this board since november 2010 according to your current account...you should have known that society and its judicial system is a reflection and a tool in the perpetuation of male privilege over women.

You seem to be denying that reality and therefore I think you should do with reading why we struggle for gender equality some more instead of blaming the messenger who tries to educate you and fix your lack of knowledge on how society perpetuates the patriarchical domination of women.Let me get this straight. According to you, if a woman gets thrown in jail for hitting a man who has not hit her first, and who was not literally in the process of attempting to hit her, then she is only in jail because the legal system is patriarchal and biased against women? Is that your argument?

It sounds like that's what you're suggesting but I want to give you the opportunity to clarify what you're saying.

Lucretia

12th June 2011, 01:54

It amazes me when there are those take such fierce stands on incidents without bothering to research all the details. I found "her side of the story" interview very telling.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43294291/ns/today-today_people/t/teacher-who-punched-student-i-had-defend-myself/

It's interesting to note how in the video it is revealed that the attorney apparently decided to drop charges against the teacher only after receiving statements from a number of students claiming the student had some some kind of physical contact with the teacher prior to her striking him.

The way the law is written is spot-on. If the student did initiate physical contact, she did have a right to self-defense and should not be charged. If he did not, and she initiated contact by punching him, then I continue to believe she should be charged for what was a wrongful physical assault. Contrary to what so many people on this board disturbingly believe, and in accordance with the way the law in Florida seems to be written, foul language and mere aggressive "posturing" are not sufficient for justifying punching somebody in the face.

In either case, the school continues to be an oppressive institution in which teachers do exercise power over students.

Tim Finnegan

12th June 2011, 02:00

It's interesting to note how in the video it is revealed that the attorney apparently decided to drop charges against the teacher only after receiving statements from a number of students claiming the student had some some kind of physical contact with the teacher prior to her striking him.

The way the law is written is spot-on. If the student did initiate physical contact, she did have a right to self-defense and should not be charged. If he did not, and she initiated contact by punching him, then I continue to believe she should be charged for what was a wrongful physical assault. Contrary to what so many people on this board disturbingly believe, and in accordance with the way the law in Florida seems to be written, foul language and mere aggressive "posturing" are not sufficient for justifying punching somebody in the face.

In either case, the school continues to be an oppressive institution in which teachers do exercise power over students.
Can I ask why you're obsessing over the social role of one bourgeois institution, the schools, while arguing for the aggressive utilisation of another, the law courts? That's not to say that leftists should not be happy to see the dangerous or anti-social put behind bars- any more than they should wish to see schools burned to the ground- but it feels like there's a certain inconsistency here.

Lucretia

12th June 2011, 02:05

The lack of perspective here is jaw-dropping.

Since you don't elaborate, I have to guess what disturbs you so much about my post.

Is it the fact that I said something positive about the way a law is written? (Presumably you recognize that the law, like the public school, is a contradictory institution with negative and positive aspects. Labour safety laws are positive, for instance.)

The fact that I don't think teachers and students live in a fantasy world where both are on an equal footing in the classroom, and all rules are decided and applied through democratic consensus?

That I think the school functions, in part, as an means of habituating young people to accepting undemocratic authority and what Foucault would call a "discipline of the body"?

PhoenixAsh

12th June 2011, 02:06

christ...are you still on about this?

annoying background murmer from somebody who lost the debate two pages ago but has yet to realise this.

I am saying that you are dead wrong...just about everybody in this thread has proven you wrong...throughout this whole debate.

That, as I have predicted early on, you are a dishonest debater who shifts and makes illogical and stupid connections and who can not hold a consistent argument which hold up to reality and therefore needs to resort to calling everybody who disagrees reactionary, unsocialist, or mysogenistic.

And that you, in the proces of being dead wrong, are using arguments which seem to blame the victim for the aggression used against them because thy have a so called duty to get the helll out and otherwise are responsible for the violence perpetrated against them.

Is that clarification enough?

You already lost the debate two pages ago...don't make this worse for yourself mate.

Lucretia

12th June 2011, 02:09

Can I ask why you're obsessing over the social role of one bourgeois institution, the schools, while arguing for the aggressive utilisation of another, the law courts? That's not to say that leftists should not be happy to see the dangerous or anti-social put behind bars- any more than they should wish to see schools burned to the ground- but it feels like there's a certain inconsistency here.

You seem to think I am arguing that the law is right just because it's the law. I am not. Both the law and public schools have positive and negative aspects. Hence, while school does provide students with an opportunity for socializing with friends and learning (some) about the world around them, it still also functions as an oppressive institution. The law, while enshrining all sorts of fucked up values, does things like prohibit people from punching, raping, stalking other people.

Le Libérer

12th June 2011, 02:11

christ...are you still on about this?

I am saying that you are dead wrong...just about everybody in this thread has proven you wrong...throughout this whole debate.

You already lost the debate two pages ago...don't make this worse for yourself mate.

This. I will give you this, Lucretia, you dont back down even in the face of overwhelming defeat. Kudos for that. :thumbup1:

Lucretia

12th June 2011, 02:13

christ...are you still on about this?

I am saying that you are dead wrong...just about everybody in this thread has proven you wrong...throughout this whole debate.

That, as I have predicted early on, you are a dishonest debater who shifts and makes illogical and stupid connections and who can not hold a consistent argument which hold up to reality and therefore needs to resort to calling everybody who disagrees reactionary, unsocialist, or mysogenistic.

And that you, in the proces of being dead wrong, are using arguments which seem to blame the victim for the aggression used against them because thy have a so called duty to get the helll out and otherwise are responsible for the violence perpetrated against them.

Is that clarification enough?

You already lost the debate two pages ago...don't make this worse for yourself mate.

Anybody with two eyes can see the difference between the quality of my posts and the quality of yours. I have responded directly to your questions, to the content of your ideas, and have offered thorough rebuttals. While you facetiously quote my post as "irrelevant murmuring" as a springboard into making all sorts of unsubstantiated accusations. Your latest post, quoted above, is the internet equivalent of plugging your fingers into your ears and screaming "I'M RIGHT!!! I'M RIGHT!!! YOU'RE STUPID!!! YOU'RE WRONG!!!"

Which sort of behavior is more likely to be associated with an abusive, bullying personality?

Lucretia

12th June 2011, 02:16

This. I will give you this, Lucretia, you dont back down even in the face of overwhelming defeat. Kudos for that. :thumbup1:

Thank you for your support. You're right. After pages of brilliant exposition of how egalitarian the school system is, how teachers have no control over students, how physically striking somebody in the face is the moral equivalent of yelling in somebody's face, how could I not help but be defeated? :confused:

PhoenixAsh

12th June 2011, 02:23

Anybody with two eyes can see the difference between the quality of my posts and the quality of yours. I have responded directly to your questions, to the content of your ideas, and have offered thorough rebuttals. While you facetiously quote my post as "irrelevant murmuring" as a springboard into making all sorts of unsubstantiated accusations. Your latest post, quoted above, is the internet equivalent of plugging your fingers into your ears and screaming "I'M RIGHT!!! I'M RIGHT!!! YOU'RE STUPID!!! YOU'RE WRONG!!!"

Which sort of behavior is more likely to be associated with an abusive, bullying personality?

Class..pay attention now

Did you know that the Aye-Aye is a sub species of the lumure and is te world largest nocturnal-primate? Its really efficient. It has rodent like teeth...and a very special middle finger.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aye-aye)
Pay special attention to that last part.

Its important because it enables the Aye-Aye to fill the same ecological niche as the woodpecker...

Now Are there any questions?

Yes..you...were you saying something?

Lets go with:

.... quality of posts has nothing to do with the factual accuracy of their content and the reality of the arguments therein....and even being qualitatively better dead wrong is still....well...dead wrong

but if you want a gold star sticker for being very eloquently and qualitatively better wrong...well..fine...here you go (http://home.scarlet.be/videostar/image/star1.png) you deserved it.

class dismissed

Lucretia

12th June 2011, 02:30

Did you know that the Aye-Aye is a sub species of the lumure and is te world largest nocturnal-primate? Its really efficient. It has rodent like teeth...and a very special middle finger.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aye-aye)
Pay special attention to that last part.

Its important because it enables the Aye-Aye to fill the same ecological niche as the woodpecker...

Now...o...wait...were you saying something?

So...yes...let reply something along the lines of:

.... quality of posts has nothing to do with the factual accuracy of their content and the reality of the arguments therein....and even being qualitatifly better dead wrong is still....well...dead wrong

It's odd how you are spending so much time responding to what you claim is irrelevant.

While you're here, perhaps you can answer the questions you have refused to answer.

How is refusing to sanction physical violence in response to somebody yelling in your face an "apology for abuse"? Where did I say the teacher should have just sat there and done nothing to end the situation? Where did I say that the student's behavior did not deserve (non-physical) punishment?

How is it dishonest or "a strawman" to ask you whether you would support an identical act of "self-defense" in an identical situation, except where the sexes were reversed, and the student an adult?

How is the law oppressing women by forbidding them from initiating physical violence against men?

Die Rote Fahne

12th June 2011, 02:39

Lucretia

12th June 2011, 02:41

Thread closed....please !

Lucretia's wrong, and should be pushed into a corner and screamed at and threatened so he can be a pacifist and obeyer of great bourgeois law.

Good afternoon, good evening and good night!

Only if that would give me the right to slug you ;)

And, out of curiosity, when did it become a membership requirement of the left to violate every one of the bourgeois laws, just because they are bourgeois and therefore must be wickedly wrong? I thought most leftists were aware that the law, like capitalism, like public education, fulfills contradictory roles - is oppressive in some ways while liberating in others.

#FF0000

12th June 2011, 02:56

i am pretty sure that regardless of literally everything you said, it doesn't change the fact that the student was behaving in a threatening way and so the punch was justified as an act of self-defense.

Die Rote Fahne

12th June 2011, 03:18

Only if that would give me the right to slug you ;)

And, out of curiosity, when did it become a membership requirement of the left to violate every one of the bourgeois laws, just because they are bourgeois and therefore must be wickedly wrong? I thought most leftists were aware that the law, like capitalism, like public education, fulfills contradictory roles - is oppressive in some ways while liberating in others.

I would expect you to hit me, but your logic suggests you wouldn't. Especially if it is against "the law". Why do you think that this particular law is justified?

Nowhere did I say we should violate all bourgeois laws, however, you need the ability to see which ones we can and should violate.

Such as a poor person stealing groceries, clothes, selling drugs, etc.

Your arguments and logic are horrible, and quite frankly lacking in thought.

Just because a teacher may have authority over a student doesn't give the student a right to scream at her, back her into a corner, physically intimidate her, and NOT get punched. Do you think you should be allowed to do that to your mother? Your grandmother?

Lucretia

12th June 2011, 03:37

I would expect you to hit me, but your logic suggests you wouldn't. Especially if it is against "the law". Why do you think that this particular law is justified?

Nowhere did I say we should violate all bourgeois laws, however, you need the ability to see which ones we can and should violate.

Such as a poor person stealing groceries, clothes, selling drugs, etc.

Your arguments and logic are horrible, and quite frankly lacking in thought.

Just because a teacher may have authority over a student doesn't give the student a right to scream at her, back her into a corner, physically intimidate her, and NOT get punched. Do you think you should be allowed to do that to your mother? Your grandmother?

Of course a student doesn't have a right to do what that student did. But neither did the teacher have a right to punch the student.

Contrary to popular opinion, I have been in heated confrontations where another person has aggressively come up to my face, yelling. Sometimes the person would initiate physical violence, in which case I would hit back, but in some cases there was no violence. I would never initiate physical violence unless I am in a position where my life is in danger and can be saved by doing so (somebody pointing a gun at me), or unless I am in a position where any reasonable person could say with a high degree of certainty that somebody else was about to start hitting me.

I am not a violent person, and I do not glorify violence or have dreams of starting gun-waving "red militias." Sometimes violence is unavoidable but it is never good.

Die Rote Fahne

12th June 2011, 04:07

Of course a student doesn't have a right to do what that student did. But neither did the teacher have a right to punch the student.

Contrary to popular opinion, I have been in heated confrontations where another person has aggressively come up to my face, yelling. Sometimes the person would initiate physical violence, in which case I would hit back, but in some cases there was no violence. I would never initiate physical violence unless I am in a position where my life is in danger and can be saved by doing so (somebody pointing a gun at me), or unless I am in a position where any reasonable person could say with a high degree of certainty that somebody else was about to start hitting me.

I am not a violent person, and I do not glorify violence or have dreams of starting gun-waving "red militias." Sometimes violence is unavoidable but it is never good.

Why didn't she have the right? This situation is VERY abnormal, and unexpected.

Your reasoning stems from you being a pacifist. Good luck with that and revolution.

Robocommie

12th June 2011, 04:35

To put it bluntly, fuck you.

Out of curiosity, why him of all the people on this thread?

Lucretia

12th June 2011, 05:19

Why didn't she have the right? This situation is VERY abnormal, and unexpected.

Your reasoning stems from you being a pacifist. Good luck with that and revolution.

Do you know the definition of a pacifist? A pacifist is somebody who, when struck, will not strike back. We're talking about a video showing a teacher that struck first, without having been hit beforehand. I have made it perfectly clear that, if the reports of the other students are correct and the student did push the teacher earlier before the video started, then the teacher was fully justified in punching him as he approached her closely again.

Decommissioner

12th June 2011, 06:12

Do you know the definition of a pacifist? A pacifist is somebody who, when struck, will not strike back. We're talking about a video showing a teacher that struck first, without having been hit beforehand. I have made it perfectly clear that, if the reports of the other students are correct and the student did push the teacher earlier before the video started, then the teacher was fully justified in punching him as he approached her closely again.

By what logic would someone justify letting themselves get hit first in order to hit them back when the offending party is much bigger and more intimidating? The act of "bowing up" and invaiding that womans space is a violent act. If she allowed him to hit her, she may have been severely injured. She was justified in defending herself, it's a basic instinctual reaction. No one should expect to "obey the law" in this situation.

I am not going to let a bigger person hit me first if they are posturing like they are going to hit me, I will do everything in my power to incapacitate them so I don't get hit, it shouldn't have to be a life or death situation to justify a pre-emptive chop to the neck. (though you can never guage whether or not someone who intends to inflict violence upon you will take your life, so you should always assume the worst).

#FF0000

12th June 2011, 10:36

Lucretia

12th June 2011, 15:52

Well that's what actually happened, and that's why every word you typed in this thread was wrong.

But I mean even if that didn't happen, someone in your face and screaming at you is different from a heated discussion, guy. When someone is getting that close when your back is against a wall and is literally just screaming vulgarities at you, that kind of behavior is threatening enough.

I disagree. Somebody yelling at me to my face, and somebody pushing me, are two different things.

Most of the thread was based on people's perceptions of what happened in the video. Only at the very end of the discussion did somebody post additional information, and that information actually confirms that I am not alone in discerning a large difference between yelling at somebody close to their face and physically pushing them. The case against the teacher was dropped on that very distinction.

And unless you have some liberal fantasy about education being an egalitarian realm of equal relations between teachers and students, and not an undemocratic institution in which young people are compelled to go in part to serve the purposes of the state and of capitalism, them I am afraid you're wrong when you claim that "every word I typed in this thread was wrong."

Die Rote Fahne

12th June 2011, 15:57

The Teacher

12th June 2011, 16:08

If you haven't been in a classroom full of hormone-driven teenage boys then you don't know how you'll react to that kind of threat. That little punk is glad he's not in my class...

Lucretia

12th June 2011, 16:12

When did I argue the definition of pacifist? Right, I never.

You didn't argue it, but you implied a wrong definition when you called me a pacifist. I clearly and repeatedly stated in this thread that I sometimes think violence is necessary and can be used justifiably. By definition I cannot possibly be a pacifist.

PhoenixAsh

12th June 2011, 16:13

I disagree. Somebody yelling at me to my face, and somebody pushing me, are two different things.

Most of the thread was based on people's perceptions of what happened in the video. Only at the very end of the discussion did somebody post additional information, and that information actually confirms that I am not alone in discerning a large difference between yelling at somebody close to their face and physically pushing them. The case against the teacher was dropped on that very distinction.

And unless you have some liberal fantasy about education being an egalitarian realm of equal relations between teachers and students, and not an undemocratic institution in which young people are compelled to go in part to serve the purposes of the state and of capitalism, them I am afraid you're wrong when you claim that "every word I typed in this thread was wrong."

In fact Lucretia...what you seem to overlook is the fact that we argued rapidly escalating violent behaviour. Which we construed from his beahviour in the video and by listening and reading additional information which was mentioned as class mates having given testimony against the student which backed up our entire argument....something that was already known in the OP and something that was mentioned on several occasions to you.

And that analysis we made was completely right and even more vindicated by the article CotR posted.

You overlooked those facts....which were known.

You did however argue from a judicial and legal position the very same system which is used on a daily basis to secure and to further propagate repression and elitist & burgeoisie dominance and safety. Which I find very strange....you seeking your argumentative refuge by covering yhoruself in rethorics contradicting your own self-professed anti-authroitarian views.

The reason why the teacher was arrested was because they were looking at the dry facts of student-teacher; and hitting on the basis of emotional situation. They were not looking for the truth they were looking for a reason to convict...as the police will always do in the case of minors. The very same reason why we, or I at least, argued that teachers do not have as much authority as you think. She was released when the specifics came out...something which we already argued were rapidly escalating towards violence.

Your connection between effect and causility is completely off base. These facts were already known at the start of the debate. We have repreatedly pointed these out to you. And yet you chose to limit yourself to a very narrow and subjective interpretation of the video and debate based on those narrow and off base premisses.

Now I do not mind you taking an entrenched position. But the whole matter becomes laughable when you try, on the basis of wrong assumptions, extrapolations and false analysis, to brand others as reactionary, non-socialist and mysogenic. Your level of argumentative dishonesty was, and remains, completely astounding. Although I deeple appreciate the hillarity and irony of you having to backtrack on several very bold and blanket statements.

Lucretia

12th June 2011, 16:16

In fact Lucretia...what you seem to overlook is the fact that we argued rapidly escalating violent behaviour. Which we construed from his beahviour in the video and by listening and reading additional information which was mentioned as class mates having given testimony against the student which backed up our entire argument....something that was already known in the OP and something that was mentioned on several occasions to you.

And that analysis we made was completely right and even more vindicated by the article CotR posted.

You overlooked those facts....which were known.

You did however argue from a judicial and legal position the very same system which is used on a daily basis to secure and to further propagate repression and elitist & burgeoisie dominance and safety. Which I find very strange....you seeking your argumentative refuge by covering yhoruself in rethorics contradicting your own self-professed anti-authroitarian views.

The reason why the teacher was arrested was because they were looking at the dry facts of student-teacher; and hitting on the basis of emotional situation. They were not looking for the truth they were looking for a reason to convict. The very same reason why we, or I at least, argued that teachers do not have as much authority as you think. She was released when the specifics came out...something which we already argued were rapidly escalating towards violence.

Your connection between effect and causility is completely off base. These facts were already known at the start of the debate. We have repreatedly pointed these out to you. And yet you chose to limit yourself to a very narrow and subjective interpretation of the video and debate based on those narrow and off base premisses.

Now I do not mind you taking an entrenched position. But the whole matter becomes laughable when you try, on the basis of wrong assumptions, extrapolations and false analysis, to brand others as reactionary, non-socialist and mysogenic. Your level of argumentative dishonesty was, and remains, completely astounding. Although I deeple appreciate the hillarity and irony of you having to backtrack on several very bold and blanket statements.

Look who's still hanging around, obsessively thanking every post made in response to mine. Awfully strange behavior from somebody who has written off my ideas as unimportant. :rolleyes:

No, it was not "known since the op posted" that a number of students claimed that the student pushed the teacher before the teacher punched him. That is patently false, and I would like for you to point out a single poster who makes that claim prior to the second video being posted. What was repeatedly claimed was the false statement that the video showed the student pushing the teacher. And, no, I have never argued that my views are right just because the law says so.

When will you quit making shit up?

PhoenixAsh

12th June 2011, 16:24

Lucretia

12th June 2011, 16:28

OMFG....

just open the fucking second link the OP posted Lucretia.

Its right there:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_teacher_punches_student

Prosecutor Brian Trehy said students who witnessed the punch said the student made contact first and the Tampa Bay-area teacher was responding.

I watched the initial video and read other news reports, not the yahoo news report. No posters in this thread mentioned the students witnessing the student pushing the teacher before the video began. They were too busy crying about how powerless teachers are, and how bratty students are. Therefore I was not aware of the reports of these students until the second video was posted.

PhoenixAsh

12th June 2011, 16:32

I watched the initial video and read other news reports, not the yahoo news report. No posters in this thread mentioned the students witnessing the student pushing the teacher before the video began. They were too busy crying about how powerless teachers are, and how bratty students are. Therefore I was not aware of the reports of these students until the second video was posted.

Ok. Just one ide note...I mentioned it in post #14.

Also...I like to add...don't really like to be a spell-tsjekka...but

You spelled: "I was wrong, sorry" wrong

Le Libérer

12th June 2011, 16:42

I watched the initial video and read other news reports, not the yahoo news report. No posters in this thread mentioned the students witnessing the student pushing the teacher before the video began. They were too busy crying about how powerless teachers are, and how bratty students are. Therefore I was not aware of the reports of these students until the second video was posted.

At this point you are only trolling this thread. You refuse to listen to the whole story, pick parts out and run with them which make you not only an idiot but horribly wrong.

I suggest you find another thread to play in because if you keep this up I will give you an infraction for trolling. (which is something that should have been done 4 pages back)
Either that, or I will close this thread.

Die Rote Fahne

12th June 2011, 18:15

You didn't argue it, but you implied a wrong definition when you called me a pacifist. I clearly and repeatedly stated in this thread that I sometimes think violence is necessary and can be used justifiably. By definition I cannot possibly be a pacifist.

What argument do you actually have? Specifically, what reason is it that the teacher should not have hit the student?

Lucretia

12th June 2011, 18:27

What argument do you actually have? Specifically, what reason is it that the teacher should not have hit the student?

Strange how you have suddenly shifted the conversation from my alleged "pacifism" to another topic. My position on the altercation has been consistent from the beginning: yelling in somebody's face in close quarters is not grounds for being hit.

In the video, it appeared that the teacher struck the student without having been touched first. If that had indeed been the case, my "argument" is that was wrong for her to punch the student. When I learned that other students had claimed that the student initiated violence, I conceded that her punch was justified as an act of self-defense.

The fact that I am willing to change my views on the incident in the video in light of new information demonstrates how far my participation here is from "trolling." Many other participants on this thread have leveled pretty disgusting accusations about "apologizing for abuse" and the like, without providing any evidence. Somehow I suspect they are not "trolls," though.

Die Rote Fahne

12th June 2011, 18:42

strange how you have suddenly shifted the conversation from my alleged "pacifism" to another topic. My position on the altercation has been consistent from the beginning: Yelling in somebody's face in close quarters is not grounds for being hit.

In the video, it appeared that the teacher struck the student without having been touched first. If that had indeed been the case, my "argument" is that was wrong for her to punch the student. When i learned that other students had claimed that the student initiated violence, i conceded that her punch was justified as an act of self-defense.

The fact that i am willing to change my views on the incident in the video in light of new information demonstrates how far my participation here is from "trolling." many other participants on this thread have leveled pretty disgusting accusations about "apologizing for abuse" and the like, without providing any evidence. Somehow i suspect they are not "trolls," though.

my question is:

why isn't it provocation to be hit?

Lucretia

12th June 2011, 18:50

my question is:

why isn't it provocation to be hit?

Because generally speaking yelling and hitting exist on two separate planes of the moral universe. Yelling might make a person feel bad, and being yelled at in your face might scare you and stress you out. But hitting somebody is a direct violation of somebody's bodily integrity, causes physical pain, and could potentially result in unforeseen physical consequences like death. I think if we begin to expand the notion of self-defense to encompass things like yelling in people's faces, you'll end up creating a dangerous situation in which abusive spouses can get away with battering their partners on the pretext that "she was yelling at me."

There will always be a grey area when deciding whether violence in the name of self-defense in justified. It is my view that in that grey area we should err on the side of restraining physical violence not encouraging it. And I might add that I think this is particularly important in a context of unequal power relations, like that between a teacher and a student.

Die Rote Fahne

12th June 2011, 18:55

W1N5T0N

12th June 2011, 19:15

Obviously this prick has no respect for women. I don't know how i would have reacted if none of the students came to help me...

Lucretia

12th June 2011, 19:18

That has to be the worst argument I have ever heard. It ignores human instinct. Fight or flight isn't an ideology, it is biology. When it is triggered, you either fight, or run away. She could not run away, and had to fight. Physical contact isn't needed to spark this response. Even with the option to run away, her biology may have said "fight!".

This is a terrible reductionist sociobiological argument. People have agency and can make decisions about whether or not to deploy force against another person. Nobody is mechanically triggered into doing it by instinct.

Not only that, you are going so far as to strawman this situation as "yelling in someone's face". It certainly is not just that. It is SCREAMING at someone, in their face, backing them into a corner, and making threatening physical gestures. You have gotten so far to acknowledge the "in their face" part of this. It is high time you recognize the rest of the situation.I wasn't aware that there was a difference between screaming and yelling. Care to inform what that difference is?

As for the threatening physical gestures, what might these be? Again, it's a very broad term that can encompass all sorts of things. The narrowing of the eyes? The reddening of the face? The wagging of a finger? The clinching of a fist? None of these is grounds for being hit. People clinch their fists when they are in stressful situations. It does not necessarily mean somebody is about to hit you. It's a sign of tension, and people often subconsciously do it as a way of preparing to defend themselves in heated situations. Anyhow, I don't see the student clinching his fists in the video, as so many people here have claimed.

You need to have a deep conversation with a biologist and a social worker. Bring up the topic of psychological abuse.Why would I need to learn about psychological abuse when in this very thread I have stated that psychological abuse is real and that people have a right to respond to it in order to end it?

You seem to think that if I don't sanction the use of physical force to end it, then I am apologizing for it.

That is a dishonest argument. The implications, that I am unwittingly an apologist for psychological abuse, is a terrible insult for which you have absolutely no evidence. It's the kind of behavior that really does merit some sort of administrative warning.

Lucretia

12th June 2011, 19:24

Obviously this prick has no respect for women. I don't know how i would have reacted if none of the students came to help me...

Well, he certainly didn't seem to have a lot of respect for his teacher, but what evidence do we have that this is because of her gender?

Die Rote Fahne

12th June 2011, 19:44

This is a terrible reductionist sociobiological argument. People have agency and can make decisions about whether or not to deploy force against another person. Nobody is mechanically triggered into doing it by instinct.
They certainly can decide, but when this biological response is triggered, it is fight or flight, she fought. I have no problem with that.

I wasn't aware that there was a difference between screaming and yelling. Care to inform what that difference is?There actually isn't. I classify screaming as both angry or fearful and very loud voicification. Whilst I define yelling as loud voicification.

As for the threatening physical gestures, what might these be? Again, it's a very broad term that can encompass all sorts of things. The narrowing of the eyes? The reddening of the face? The wagging of a finger? The clinching of a fist? None of these is grounds for being hit. People clinch their fists when they are in stressful situations. It does not necessarily mean somebody is about to hit you. It's a sign of tension, and people often subconsciously do it as a way of preparing to defend themselves in heated situations. Anyhow, I don't see the student clinching his fists in the video, as so many people here have claimed.You're so fucking stupid...there's absolutely no getting through to you. You're have the mentality of a white nationalist.

Clenching of the fists, reddening of the face, going closer and closer, yelling at her, and backing her against the wall. Do you not understand that he didn't do these things separately but all at once? She even warned him to get back: "Step back, right now!", in which he responded by yelling again, and making motions towards her. Yes, these things warrant a physical response.

Why would I need to learn about psychological abuse when in this very thread I have stated that psychological abuse is real and that people have a right to respond to it in order to end it?You may believe it is real, but you have no idea what it is or the consequences it can have.

You seem to think that if I don't sanction the use of physical force to end it, then I am apologizing for it.Strawman. I'm taking about this specific situation.

That is a dishonest argument. The implications, that I am unwittingly an apologist for psychological abuse, is a terrible insult for which you have absolutely no evidence. It's the kind of behavior that really does merit some sort of administrative warning.I haven't called you an apologist, you are claiming I have. Which tells me that deep down in your subconscious, you know that you might be.

Get real you fucking goon. Your argument has been to separate the actions of the student as if he only yelled. Only got in her face. Only backed her into a wall. Only made threatening physical gestures. When in fact he did all of these things together. Not only that, you ignore the situational environment, a FUCKING CLASSROOM.

Should she have waited for him to hit her, and maybe disable or seriously harm her? Maybe he would have done more than hit her, and maybe continued a physical aggravated assault.

Invader Zim

13th June 2011, 13:09

Jesus are you still arguing this? Wasn't the issue basically closed pages back?

Lucretia

13th June 2011, 16:32

I haven't called you an apologist, you are claiming I have. Which tells me that deep down in your subconscious, you know that you might be.

No, what leads me to believe you are implying I am one is the fact that you are asking whether I have ever heard of psychological (or emotional) abuse.

Should she have waited for him to hit her, and maybe disable or seriously harm her? Maybe he would have done more than hit her, and maybe continued a physical aggravated assault.You must be debating in a parallel universe. From the information we now know, she did wait for him to initiate physical violence against her. At that point, she was reasonable to assume he would try it again and had every justification to do what she did.

But if he had not initiated physical violence against her, then yes, as I have repeatedly stated, you behave as a disciplined adult would behave and err on the side of caution. You do not initiate violence. There are other ways of handling people who are aggressively yelling in your face, which do not entail punching somebody in the face. Even if those people are clinching their fists and red in the face.

You're so fucking stupid...there's absolutely no getting through to you. You're have the mentality of a white nationalist.You are awfully emotionally charged over this subject. Why don't you take a valium, relax, and realize that nobody here is justifying what the student did, nobody here is justifying emotional abuse or psychological abuse. Our area of disagreement involves the circumstances under which it is okay to initiate violence.

It's ironic that you are so aggressive in defense of the teacher, because you're basically attempting to do the internet equivalent of backing me into a corner, while screaming obscenities at me. Notice how I am behaving as an adult and am refusing to lower myself to your level.

Die Rote Fahne

14th June 2011, 01:12

No, what leads me to believe you are implying I am one is the fact that you are asking whether I have ever heard of psychological (or emotional) abuse.

I didn't ask. I pointed out that you needed to discuss it with a biologist and a social worker.

But if he had not initiated physical violence against her, then yes, as I have repeatedly stated, you behave as a disciplined adult would behave and err on the side of caution. You do not initiate violence. There are other ways of handling people who are aggressively yelling in your face, which do not entail punching somebody in the face. Even if those people are clinching their fists and red in the face.

Why should she not initiated violence. You don't explain to me why she shouldn't. Also, what is she supposed to do other than that? Really?

You are awfully emotionally charged over this subject. Why don't you take a valium, relax, and realize that nobody here is justifying what the student did, nobody here is justifying emotional abuse or psychological abuse. Our area of disagreement involves the circumstances under which it is okay to initiate violence.

"If you tremble indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine." - Che Guevara

Forgive me for being passionate. I'm not okay with abuse. I also don't see what she could have done besides hit the kid, I'm sure, as I have asked of you, you will tell me her options.

It's ironic that you are so aggressive in defense of the teacher, because you're basically attempting to do the internet equivalent of backing me into a corner, while screaming obscenities at me. Notice how I am behaving as an adult and am refusing to lower myself to your level.

That is a horrible analogy. Really....just awful.