"Teacher freaks out about National Anthem"

[neutral]

PG - Mar 2 - Independent internet news media reported the story today of a high school teacher forcing a student to stand for the pledge by yanking his chair out from underneath him. And we have the video. The teacher seems angry and is seen shouting in the video, even while the anthem is playing.

This happened at Brick Township High School in Jersey.

New Jersey School Board is considering ban of cell phones (due to the video) in its schools.

The student who recorded the affair, Corey Zappo,, has been suspended for 10 days.

The teacher has faced no discipline and no action is being taken.

Schools Superintendent Thomas L. Seidenberger issued a statement that "not all details cited on the Internet regarding this incident are factual." The statement did not elaborate.

"I don't want to hear a sound! Not a sound! Morning exercises will come on, you will stand, you will stand quietly, you will pay attention! Any Questions!?...Now stand up and keep your mouths shut!" Students stood up as the national anthem began playing.
In the middle of the anthem, Mantel walked over to Jay and demanded that he stand up. Jay silently refused, and Mantel yelled again, "Stand up!". Jay then said "I don't have to stand up". To which Mantel insisted "You have to stand." Jay said "No I don't". Mantel then reached over and pulled Jay's chair out from under him. Jay responded to Mantel's outrageous behavior by asking him "Are you serious?", to which he yelled "I am damn well serious."

http://www.politicalgateway.com/news/read.html?id=3068

I know there are some teachers in here... and am especially interested to hear what they have to say after watching the video.

 

[Do Miss America]

New Jersey School Board is considering ban of cell phones (due to the video) in its schools.

The student who recorded the affair, Corey Zappo,, has been suspended for 10 days.

The teacher has faced no discipline and no action is being taken.

This is the part I don't get.

Ok yes I believe in discipline for not behaving.

But I also believe one does not have to be forced to stand, now this doesn't make me unpatriotic, just a believer in freedom of speech.

So which one was it? You don't rip a chair out from underneath a student, I do know that.

But there are still a lot holes not filled in. Why does the video taker get suspended?

 

[ImOuttaControl]

Well, I'm a teacher here are a few of my impressions...

I'd say this guys biggest problem is he has no control of the classroom. Any teacher that has to scream like that won't get any respect from the students, and he's definitely not a role model in any way shape or form.

From this footage, the students were being pains in the ass and were obvioulsy trying to piss off the teacher...I won't pass judgement though because it is a short clip we don't know what was happening prior to when the video camera--the beginning just shows the teacher ranting, but something must have set him off. Also, the mere fact that the students had a video camera there to me seems like they were trying to set this teacher up somehow. And, I definitely didn't see the teacher manhandling or pulling the seat out from that student--I watched the video a few times and it's plain to see the student stood up right as the teacher got close.

Also, no principal, superintendent, school board would ever back up an abusive teacher--that's just asking for the school to get it's ass sued for all it's worth. My guess is there there's a lot more to this story than link shows.

 

[melon]

I don't think the kid was exercising a political stance. He's probably an insolent little shit.

Melon

 

[Sheltie]

I am also a teacher. I agree the kids were being a bit sneaky,but that teacher has no right to yell at those kids like that. I am the first to admit kids that age can piss people off, but as adults we need to maintain control.
He was treating those kids like they were in some boot camp. Kids can't learn in that type of environment.

 

[nbcrusader]

I don't think the kid was exercising a political stance. He's probably an insolent little shit.

Melon

We've hindered teacher's ability to maintain control of the classroom and allowed children to view adults as equals or not worthly of respect.

 

[Dreadsox]

The teacher will have to be disciplined.

The students appear to have set him up, and I am betting it has happened before to someone else in the room.

I do think the student is wrong. I have had students who for religious reasons do not say the pledge, but they still stand out of respect for the people around them.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

when i was in high school i had a teacher that used to yell at kids who didn't stand for the pledge... he used to call them "a bunch of iraqis." it took every ounce of energy in me to keep from cracking up when he'd do this, partially because when he yelled he sounded like yogi bear. i was always waiting for him to throw in a "pic-a-nic basket" or something.

more and more in education, the kids run the show. parents are so uptight about college and scholarships and the like that if a kid gets less than a 90 or gets a bad comment on a report card or even gets detention, they freak out and threaten to sue. there's a school district here on long island... Jericho School District... which is rated one of the top districts in the nation. i actually think they were #9 in the nation a year or two ago. they also have the highest paid teachers in the region. but the place is an absolute joke... every kid gets a 90... there is no learning going on. new teachers are so afraid of flunking a kid because if they get problems from parents, it could cost them their tenure. so every kid moves right along without risk of ever getting left back, gets great grades, moves on to a good college and never learns a thing.

we're currently raising a generation of kids who cannot think for themselves.

 

[sallycinnamon78]

when i was in high school i had a teacher that used to yell at kids who didn't stand for the pledge... he used to call them "a bunch of iraqis." it took every ounce of energy in me to keep from cracking up when he'd do this, partially because when he yelled he sounded like yogi bear. i was always waiting for him to throw in a "pic-a-nic basket" or something.

Oh my. That is awful. I still have nightmares about my first day at school in the States, having come over from England at the age of 11. I was dumped at a desk and given no work, no paper or pens (which I realise is normal in the US, but in the UK we used to be given blank schoolbooks and a pencil or pen), wasn't introduced to anyone. The teacher ignored me the entire day and I had to ask other kids what to do... and then got told off for talking in class.

We did the Pledge and sung the national anthem every morning... except no-one had warned me about this, I had never heard it before, and didn't have a clue what the fuck was going on. Nobody dared to not stand for the Pledge - even me on my first day of school, not knowing what any of it was about.

more and more in education, the kids run the show. parents are so uptight about college and scholarships and the like that if a kid gets less than a 90 or gets a bad comment on a report card or even gets detention, they freak out and threaten to sue. there's a school district here on long island... Jericho School District... which is rated one of the top districts in the nation. i actually think they were #9 in the nation a year or two ago. they also have the highest paid teachers in the region. but the place is an absolute joke... every kid gets a 90... there is no learning going on. new teachers are so afraid of flunking a kid because if they get problems from parents, it could cost them their tenure. so every kid moves right along without risk of ever getting left back, gets great grades, moves on to a good college and never learns a thing.

we're currently raising a generation of kids who cannot think for themselves.

Good lord... that's apalling. I remember thinking the education system was lousy when I saw one of the grading systems at my middle school in Milwaukee - students were given 10% for writing THEIR NAME on the paper, and another 5% for putting the date on it. I mean, what the fuck is that all about?!?! I asked this question, being used to England where things were VERY different. I was told that this was the only way that we kids would remember to name and date our papers. My 4.0 GPA kind of lost it's prestige for me after that little discovery.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

you get 400 points on the SATs for spelling your name right. i never quite understood that. why not just have the test go to 1200

 

[sallycinnamon78]

you get 400 points on the SATs for spelling your name right. i never quite understood that. why not just have the test go to 1200

Headache... I know you're just joking. PLEASE tell me that you are kidding, or else my brain may explode... our education system in the UK isn't particularly wonderful, but that is just complete idiocy.

 

[nbcrusader]

Headache... I know you're just joking. PLEASE tell me that you are kidding, or else my brain may explode...

The scoring scale is from 400 to 1600


I guess they want to maintain some level of student's self-esteem....

 

[sallycinnamon78]

By what? "Oh, well done! You're what, 16? And you can spell your own name already! Well done, you'll be learning the full alphabet next". Being treated like a moron never did much for my self esteem, personally, and I'd be surprised if it inspired anyone else - well, if they have more than half a braincell.

 

[Dreadsox]

There is a valid statistical reason fro doing it that way, and I vaguely think it has something to do with something. It really does not impact elementary school so I cannot recall what it was.

It is not to give 400 points for free though.

 

[sallycinnamon78]

I thought that was a little TOO ridiculous to be the case.

 

[ImOuttaControl]

A new update in the case.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6873319
Yelling 101 — At first, it had the makings of a Supreme Court separation of church and state case. Then it looked like "teachers gone wild." For a moment, it even evoked Watergate because there was a tape involved, and ten minutes on it, were missing. Now, it appears to be the saga of three high school kids who are simply morons with cameras, who live in Brick Township New Jersey, an appropriately named place — you know, thick as a brick. You may have already seen it on the internet; first, the web instant classic: kid won't stand for National Anthem, then teacher goes bonkers. Electronics teacher Stewart Mantel got all kinds of grief for that. But it turns out there was ten minutes missing from the original tape — of the students provoking Mantel. While recording on what was not as first reported, a camera inside a cell phone... but a hidden video recorder. And it turns out, that the teacher was only the latest victim of a group of Brick Township High students who regularly stage, film, and post images of their merry adventures. Which police have now discovered included, the destruction using baseball bats of Christmas displays at homes in the neighborhood — drinking, profanity, simulated violence. As it turns out, the day before the Anthem incident, some of these same students had saran-wrapped a younger kid to a desk. And that the "Anthem" tape was a set-up. School senior Corey Zappo told local reporters "we just knew Mr. Mantel was going to flip out because he frequently did and my friends and I thought it would be kind of funny to catch it" — catch it on tape, that is. Well, guess what? Brick Township police have now "caught" Mr. Zappo. They arrested him and two other kids on four counts of Criminal Mischief each. That’s worse than summer school.

****As a teacher this all too common; kids being jackasses and too many people in the community believing that the kids are just little angels that the teacher is too mean to.

 

[BVS]

Well it was obvious that it was set up just the way it was film etc. But it still doesn't excuse the teacher's behavior. Especially if this is a regular thing for him and they knew he was going to react this way.

My opinion they should all be disciplined including the teacher.

 

[Dreadsox]

My opinion they should all be disciplined including the teacher.

As a teacher...I agree

 

[ImOuttaControl]

Well it was obvious that it was set up just the way it was film etc. But it still doesn't excuse the teacher's behavior. Especially if this is a regular thing for him and they knew he was going to react this way.

My opinion they should all be disciplined including the teacher.

I'm a teacher and I don't condone the type of screaming in this clip one bit, BUT I do disagree with you about disciplining the teacher--outside of perhaps a verbal warning from administrators.


1) you said yourself the teacher was set up.

2) We have absolutely no idea what happened in the chunks of film that are missing. If the students provoked, harassed the teacher to the point of no return, then the teacher screaming is forgivable in my opinion.

That seems pretty unfair that you want to disipline the teacher when we don't know all the facts surrounding what really happend. Good thing we don't use this philosophy in courtrooms.

 

[nbcrusader]

Passing judgment based on video clips is always dangerous, and frequently done.

 

[neutral]

Thanks for the update. The link I posted mentioned that we weren't getting the whole story, which I was hoping would come out eventually.

A new update in the case.


****As a teacher this all too common; kids being jackasses and too many people in the community believing that the kids are just little angels that the teacher is too mean to.

I'm not surprised and they seemed like disrespectful little jerks on the video. I wish the teacher hadn't gotten so upset but I can kind of see why he did.

 

[deep]

Passing judgment based on video clips is always dangerous, and frequently done.

agreed

 

[Teta040]

Well, teachers are some of the worst treated people profession-wise anyway....they're generally poorly paid, little respected, and regularily ripped into by politicians who either blame them for not being good enough for thier jobs and in need of "standards" to make them perform better (hence, No Child Left behind) or lazy bastards who need to be taken down a peg (how hard are ceetain people trying to abolish the Teachers' Union. Well, it's obvious that teaching is the last profession still unionized and protects its workers, everyone else has been "McDonald's-ized"-we have part-time nurses, doctors, college professors--(at the State University of NY system, SUNY Albany, there is a severe shortage of classes right now b/c the SUNY system statewide has laid off some 1,000 full-time staf fin the past decade and at SUNY Albany, the largest of the state uni system, only about 50% of the courses are taught by a full-time professor)--even lawyers. But we don't have part-time high school or lower level teachers and BOY there are politicians out there who would LOVE to see this happen, so kids can be more easily politically infunced by their agendas. They'd love to have control. That's my conspiracy theory anyway.

Headache, I've never read a more truthful and cogent summary of what's really wrong. You're right; the teacher has no control anymore. Not in the areas that matter. But at the same time, parents expect the teacher to be the babysitter, and even the parent in certain areas.....'cause they are too damn lazy or uniterested in being parents themselves. That, and they have them diagnosed with ADHD or some damned trumped-up mental disorder (what the IS "social anxiety syndrome" anyway? Boy, what starving Third World kids or kids who do slave labor making our Nikes would do to have the luxury of having such exclusive attention.) I'm convinced that 80% of the kids on Prozac or Ritalin or whatever the heck the newest Merck hot seller is really don't need it.....they're just being KIDS, and need simple discipline, not a drug...... I know someone with a bipolar teen--I mean, who was REALLY bipolar, it's a lot more serious than these idots on sitcoms make out..it's more than just "mood swings"). THEY need drugs.

To bring U2 into this topic..this is a silly example, but I have to say it...if Paul Hewson was a teen in an American high school school today, he would have been diagnosed with every "syndrome" in the book , and that's BEFORE his mother died. Just for being HIM. But was he mentally ill? Did he have a "disorder"? Of course not. He was just a normal teen, with a charismatic personality and a hungering to explore the world around him. He could not keep still, or out of peoples' faces, I'll bet. No matter what trouble he must have stirred up, he was basically a good kid at heart. He didn't start turning violent and destrctive until after his mom died, but once he found the band and began his relationship with Ali, he calmed down. TO a degree. But under the system we have now, I can only imagine wthe disciplinary methods that would have used against him at this stage. Boy, this is a crazy straying from the topic huh? "Case number 401: Paul Hewson, circa 1976: the Teen From Hell. What would YOU do? Pass this one around the school board. )


Or take Jeremy himself, the teenage Eddie Vedder. How he recounted getting up in front of his class and putting a gun to his head. Good thing this happened before Columbine!!

While many kids are genuine pains in the rear, there are many more who are just KIDS, and all they need is a PARENT WHO CARES ABOUT THEIR LIVES. That's all. If anyhting, these drugs might be making a doscipline problem wrose. Hear the latest aobut Prozac, BTW?

THe sad thing is, when your kids who reach college artifically, enter those doors, there won't be any professors acing them through like in high school. Unless your dad is a cororate CEO or a political figure, you still have to do the work. Nobody will hold your hand. And in a world where foreign enrollment esp in the science and technology fields is down by a third in the past 3 yrs, due to thenew visa policy, the spotlight and pressure will be for American-born students to ptoduce even more. And NCLB won't help in producing the future workers of this country if these policies continue.

 

[deep]

perhaps

the teacher shoud be a judge

on American idol

 

[BonosSaint]

When I was in high school, I refused to stand and say the Pledge of Allegience (I think more to take a rebellious stand than any
great objection--testing out my anti-authority hubris). Teacher had never run into this before so wisely just ignored it. The teacher in this situation should have just ignored it. The controversy goes away immediately. End of story.

(PS, I still will not say the Pledge of Allegience...that justice for
all line is a lie to me...but I stand up respectfully and don't make any big deal out of it. If everybody else wants to say it, it's no skin off of my back. Nobody's paying attention to the words anyway. Same way with the Ten Commandments on public property--nobody's paying any attention to them. Lot of noise about nothing important.)

 

[Zoomerang96]

I don't think the kid was exercising a political stance. He's probably an insolent little shit.

Melon

more than likely this is correct.

but if it's a political stance, he should be able to do as he pleases.

but how does the person who videotaped this get suspended?!

dumb...dumb...dumb.

 

[BVS]

1) you said yourself the teacher was set up.

So? It was easy to set up because appartently he's done this before and they knew how he'd react. Being set up does not clear you from being an ass, yelling on a regular basis, and pulling chairs out from under people.

Good thing we don't use this philosophy in courtrooms.

It's also good we that we don't just clear people because they were set up. And that judges automatically always took the side of other judges.

 

[IrishDawg]

Seems as if the kids knew the teacher would go off if something like this happened and taped it because they knew it was comming. They set him up...

Suprised none of my friends have done that yet...