I'm not approving of what the kid did. HuffPo salutes him as "awesome." You really can't have kids making sexual remarks in class (as if it's "South Park"). But this shows what the internet can do. The earnestly detailed teacher's note makes for hilarity from this distance, and the kid gets another big laugh, as the biggest blog tells him "it was totally worth it" — getting detention.
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46 comments:
It's not a sexual remark. Where's the reference to sex?
You have a dirty mind. As does the teacher apparently. Why should he sit in detention for his teacher's perversion?
Yet another example that proves my contention that one must shed every ounce of common sense to be qualified to be in academia.
Typical for HuffPo to treat a cliche spoken by an immatiure child (which could get you in a lot of trouble if you were an adult at work, say working for HuffPo) as something that is "awesome".
The left's mindlessness and self-indulgence are just stunning. Read E.J Dionne's new column for something to laugh at--or Mike Rosen's flaying of Dionne in the Denver Post (via RealClearPolitics),
I'm guessing 7th or 8th grade. The phrase was all around my son and his friends earlier this year. I don't recall hearing the phrase until College. Kids grow up so fast these days.
Yet another over-reaction by a person holding power in school.
"That's what she said," is a pretty funny game to play with a small group of people who get the joke, but I've got to come down on the side of the teacher here. Besides the sexuality of it (which is indeed there, though subtle), it's just distracting and disruptive to the class to pull attention away from whatever was being worked on. And it likely embarrassed the student who noted that something needed to be pushed in farther.
Teachers ought to be able to send kids to detention without the internet weighing in on how funny/awesome the class clown is.
This being the end of the school year in junior high, its probable dear Dalton had developed a history of such comments.
When I taught 8th grade, I preferred to embarass kids like that in front of their peers. Not accepatable these days but more effective than detention.
I think detention is an over-reaction. As a substitute, I've dealt with middle-schoolers making similar remarks -- the best thing to do is deprive them of their audience. I like to send them, with their work, down to the classroom of a first-grade teacher so they can work on their own. (Younger kids I sent up to the 7th grade classroom -- there's nothing quite so terrifying to a cocky 3rd-grader as having to do his work under the watchful eye of 30 7th-graders.)
The objective of any class is for the students to learn. Disruptions should be handled immediately and with minimal fuss, so that everyone can get back on task. Detention doesn't teach the kids anything -- especially not for something like this. What are you going to do if he makes another remark, give him double detention? Some kids would be suspended before the end of class. I sympathize with the teacher but don't think detention is the way this should have been handled. You need to hold back the big guns for when you really need them.
Somebody watches the office.
In band, we used to hear comments every time we got to 69. And nobody ever got sent to detention, but if they had and the teacher had written something like that on the detention slip it would have looked funny too.
It ain't the remark, it is the classroom disruption.
Trey
I would have been a terror if I had a flip camera, youtube and the internet in high school.
Me thinks the teacher is jealous of the freedoms her students enjoy. The kids don't have to work all the time and be under the stupid rules of the school bureaucracy, so she passed it on down the pecking order. Is it OK to say pecking order??
Ha ha.. Althouse said the "biggest blog".
No "Amy Bishop," but:
The handwriting on the note reflects emotional repression.
Also what I call "teacher traits": perfectionism (need to control); severe orderliness (hyper-attention to detail); cumulative thinking (learning/teaching by rote, repetitiveness). These are the writer's main drives.
Interesting mitigators: Intuitiveness; artistic/creative; analytical (math/science?); loyalty (to things, ideas, people - in that order)
Main defense: Secretiveness.
Note: For these purposes, I'm assuming the writer and teacher are one in the same.
Frankly, I'm disturbed by the fact that there's something officially called "Blunch."
Time to mock authority:
Is "Blunch" the period (that's what she said) between breakfast and lunch?
Or is that, like, when you Barf at lunch?
Ha, ha, ha!!!
Wha, I didn't do anything. Detention! What a gyp! Althouse is a you-know-what!
(In many ways, I'm still in 8th grade, epecially when I'm in Althouse's class.)
wv-"dishin" = Andrew's hysterical obstetrical speculation (that's what she said)
You don't even have to watch The Office. All you have to do is be in the room during the constant nightly promos for The Office. You'll hear "That's what she said," about once every five minutes during the 30 minutes prior to the show.
Sounds like a fine young wiseass. he should grow up to be a fine commenter on internet blogs.
Its "B Lunch". In larger schools, there is not room for all students in the lunchroom/cafateria. So, they stagger the times. There is an "A Lunch" period and perhaps "C Lunch" and "D Lunch"
He got a lunchtime detention. Its a police state in that school, I tell you.
Next time he acts like a smart a**, (and he will) he's going to get a suspension. Maybe he'll post that too.
Then, his later expulsion notice. Also very funny.
Are you on Facebook?
No, but you can sit on my facebook.
The teacher should have simply laughed and said "funny, but please don't do that again. It's been done."
There is no way to punish or teach him a lesson at that point. She actually made it into a bug disruption that could have passed in a second. He got a big reward for it.
I remember one of my favorite teachers in 12th grade chemistry gave me the finger from the podium in mid-lecture after I delivered some smart remark. He was very respected by the students for being like that. He was unforgiving in testing and work load, but had a biting sense of humor. That combo made him impossible to ridicule without other students jumping all over you in his defense. A cool teacher that I still think of often after 35 years.
He should have been handcuffed and arrested. Isn't that the new go-to response for classroom cutups?
Sorry. That kid's a jackass and deserved it. Taking the note out of context I'd have to infer that the kid in question is probably a class clown and does this habitually. Its one thing to wink at it ("...well I did that too!") but it's another to effectively encourage it in the kid by letting it pass.
It's like swearing. I think it's entirely appropriate to punish your kids for swearing even if you yourself swear sometimes. Why? As I tell my kids, it's a matter of maturity - I don't want to pretend that I don't swear - thats hypocritical. However you have to teach them that maturity is needed to understand where and when its appropriate. If at all.
The same applies to smartass boy here. If you don't teach them to respect teachers - all teachers - even the bad ones - then they'll grow up to only respect people they like. Which is a childish tendency we are currently enjoying the fruits of in our political system...
In England I learned their retort was "said the actress to the archbishop."
HuffPo is turning into the bathroom wall KOS.
My how times have changed. I once got in trouble for making a reference to the Sidney Poitier movie, "To Sir With Love." Now kids' minds are polluted by crass cartoons rather than good movies.
Shanna - I graduated from high in 1969. The jokes were rampant.
He should have been handcuffed and arrested. Isn't that the new go-to response for classroom cutups?
You forgot the obligatory tazing.
It is thuggish over-reactions like this that lead young students to LOSE respect for authority, not to gain it.
Since we are talking 80s movies today --
This teacher is unfortunately not an exception. There were certainly too many like that when I was in school -- they're just like the principal played by Paul Gleason in The Breakfast Club, who was a bigger punk than any of the students there.
Granted, in the 60s, it was the result of subversion, but, sooner or later, there's going to be a revolt against PC and No Tolerance that will dwarf the Revolting Students.
Peter V. Bella said...
HuffPo is turning into the bathroom wall KOS.
turning???
Beth's cranky today. Between the handcuffs here and the Palin coming down hard on retards comment up in the Rush thread, I'm thinking that she's in a post-Mardi Gras funk.
Hope you feel better soon, Beth.
Jim Morrison used the line in "Touch Me Babe" on "The Soft Parade" album
I taught eighth grade way back in the day. I was an eighth grader even further back. I had four children, all of whom became eighth graders and survived.
Imagining a group of eighth graders without the occasional smutty remark is impossible. Farts and burps are funny to them too. (Some things do not change with age.)
The teacher of course has to suppress these urges to bring laughter and attention, no matter how universal. But the suppression is most effective if carried out in the classroom, immediately, by creating either fear or embarrassment (to the 8th grader much the same thing.)
That the adult suppression now must become a bureaucratic dance is most unfortunate. But the wisps of information I get tell me that the classroom has become a different place than it was, teachers uncertain in their authority, and wary of retaliation by bureaucrats and lawyers.
When I was in high school (circa 2000), I had a teacher who was in the final year of her career, as she was retiring. In this final phase of her career, she clearly cared less about her responsibilities as a teacher. She was often very late in starting class, typically because she was futzing around on the internet or composing email. Students often had to implore her to start class. On one such occasion, when class was supposed to have started several minutes prior and a student asked her to start, she snapped back with "Hold on, I'm almost finished."
I interjected with a "That's what she said", audible to most the class, but not to the teacher's 60-year-old ears.
It was a shining moment of senior-year chicanery, but it's also an example of an instance where such immaturity is warranted.
"That's what she said" was a joke long before South Park. I heard it in Wayne's World, and it was old then.
The correct answer is "Let's keep your mom out of this."
Being a wiseass in school, the teachers I messed with the least were the ones who would return fire in front of the class. Show that you can play to, and I'd back off; i.e. I'm overheard referring to someone as a "lying bootie sniffer" and the teacher asks loudly "Who's a lying bootie sniffer"? After a few uncomfortable moments of letting me squirm, she says "I'm assuming you're talking about baby biooties, right?" Well played Mrs Carter, well played. OTOH, the teachers that simply tried to flex their authority, those I tormented; great, I'm supposed to respect you because you're old and have the book with all the answers in it. Getting authoritarian on the funny/smart kid just makes him stronger the next time, because now he's angry and has street cred.
And I'm talking about the occasional clever/smart quip, not being constantly and aggressively disruptive for the sake of disruption.
Hate to say it, but you reap what you sow. I work with lots of people that would prefer to shoot the president than look at him. I tell them that no matter how much you hate him, you have to repect the office.
People that find this kind of thing cute are pretty shallow. Particularly the ones that are proud of doing the same thing in high school themselves.
First, "that's what she" said was a stock response to many questions back in the day:
Did you bring the sandpaper?
TWSS
Did you know you were speeding?
TWSS
I need to stop for gas
Yeah. That's what she said.
Funny eveytime.
Should this kid get detention? Maybe. But the teacher should not have listed teh conversation on teh detention slip; that was stupid.
VW: gumwota; the amount of Trident required to be produced every day
Yet, if the teacher had made some witty comeback that was a put down of the student, he would have gone whining to the office, there would have been hearings about the teacher who caused a student emotional distress. The student's parents would have sued the school for damages to their son's self-esteem.
In the end, the teacher did the only thing she was allowed to do.
In the end, the teacher did the only thing she was allowed to do.
No. The teacher could've just said, "That's off topic, please focus on your work."
There are plenty of ways to deal with smart alecks that don't involve demeaning them. The worst thing to do is try to make a "witty" comeback. Teachers are not stand-up comics, and a classroom is not an audience in a club. If you get into a back-and-forth with a student, you (the teacher) lose, by default. The best thing to do is redirect, redirect, redirect: "Focus on your work, please."
If you repeat it often enough, the kids won't even bother trying to disrupt the class because they know they won't be able to get a rise out of you, and they know you'll keep them on task despite their best efforts to go wandering far afield.
"That's what she said" was a joke long before South Park. I heard it in Wayne's World, and it was old then.
Half of the point of Michael saying it on the office is that all his jokes and references are outdated. But he says it almost every episode, so that’s what I associate it with.
Not to mention that everything is new to an eighth grader.
Shanna - I graduated from high in 1969. The jokes were rampant.
Heh. I’ll bet.
No. The teacher could've just said, "That's off topic, please focus on your work."
Based on the note, I'm assuming this was a repeat offender. He was a smart ass and eventually the teacher had to do something.
Besides, it's lunch detention. How hard is that?
No. The teacher could've just said, "That's off topic, please focus on your work."
Exactly.
Joan, a little post-MG letdown, maybe. But also, just the luck of the draw on the topics today!
I felt like carving my initials in my office desk when I read about that 12-year-old girl ARRESTED!!! for writing on her desk at school a week back.
It might not surprise to you to learn that I was sent to the principal's office more than a few times back in my early days. I'm not for classroom anarchy, but I am always suspicious of heavy handed discipline.
I showed this to my 16 year old who goes to an all-boys school. He chuckled and said that kids say this kind of thing all the time and it doesn't faze the teachers a bit.
Leftists are humorless dicks and cunts. That's what I said. Pun intended. I would have done the same thing. Frame that detention slip.
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