Debate, and discuss, just dont Bore me.
A Promise is a Promise
Published on December 2, 2005 By Dr Guy In Current Events

2 students in Orange Co. California are facing expulsion for taking a teacher at her word.  The teacher assigned a project where the students were to keep a journal with the understanding that no one would read it   (except her for grading).  Instead the teacher read somethings and decided to let others read them as well.  And the students were suspended and are awaiting an expulsion hearing.

Why?  Well, in their journals, they talked about torturing and killing a teacher.  From the little snippets that the article revealed, it appears that they were just being stupid adolescents, and trying to one up each other on what they thought was a funny scenario.  All with the expectation of the journal not being read per the promise of the teacher.  But she broke her promise.

And in the zero tolerance of the post Columbine mentality of schools, these students are being punished not for anything they did (or you could say for doing what hey were told, but I digress), but for believing the word of an adult.

In this stupidity that passes for education today, they ignatzes don't even realize the damage they have done, not only to these 2 students, but to their own reputations.  No longer can any student trust the word of a teacher.  All teachers are suspect, and should be regarded as only telling the truth, when it suits them, and not when it is the right thing to do.  And that is the lesson the teachers are not only teaching these 2 students, but the entire student body.  Wow!  What Nobel prize winning candidates!

When are these mental midgets going to learn that actions speak louder than words?  And when you leave reason at the school door, the only thing you are teaching the students is to never trust people in authority.  For they will always let you down?  It requires no intelligence to enforce a zero tolerance policy where a spork becomes an expulsion offense.  And the trust that the teachers are supposed to be trying to create with their student is gone. 

I am glad most of my children are out of school.  I pray that the remaining 2 will not be saddled with mental midgets in their last few years. But my grandchildren will have to spend a school career with a bunch of mind numbed robots that cant think for themselves and that my grandchildren can never trust for anything.  Not even legitimate school work.

It is a sad day in education, not because of 2 over hormonal jocks who may have to seek a new school, but for the millions of school children that just learned a valuable lesson.  Never trust a teacher.  Hire a lawyer and get them to sign an unbreakable contract.

The Legal professions stock just doubled, thanks to idiots in education.


Comments (Page 5)
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on Dec 03, 2005
while i personally feel 'zero tolerance' represents the most blatant idiocy of the reaganite perspective (and one of several valid indications bill bennett took that whole czar thing so seriously, he should treated to a long vacation in siberia), i wonder if yall would feel differently if these two morons had described an excruciatingly graphic step-by-step plan to sexually molest the teacher. or the teacher's 4-year-old daughter.

or both.
on Dec 03, 2005
sexually molest the teacher. or the teacher's 4-year-old daughter.


Hmmm, still on the far side of the line where disclosure is the only path. What if the kids spoke of self-mutilation or just plain drinking themselves to near death or death if they can choke down that lust Bud ? Here the teacher may have an option of doing what most teachers can do -- talk to the kid as teacher AND counselor.

As to zero tolerance, walk the streets of New York today and compare them to 1970-90 or pre-Giuliani. Poldark Maximus thinks that if you can't stand Bennet, you're gonna love Rudolph. Then Providence pre-Cianci/post-Cianci. You gotta love those czars.
on Dec 03, 2005
i wonder if yall would feel differently if these two morons had described an excruciatingly graphic step-by-step plan to sexually molest the teacher. or the teacher's 4-year-old daughter.

or both.


Oh...but it's just a "joke", KB. Rape and murder are just silly things that no one should take seriously.

And okay...I need to backpedal here. I went back and read the article a little more closely. It does say the parents thought it was just a prank, and it does say that she would never read it. I guess I don't see how she was able to "read" it anyway? This is sounding stupider and stupider. She really SHOULDN'T have read it. But I still think that she has the right to be frightened. I think she should have confronted the two before she discussed it with her administration, most definitely.
on Dec 03, 2005

At best, they are malicious punk kids who exercised EXTREMELY poor judgment. At worst, they are wanna be murderers who have issued a direct death threat with the intent to carry it out.

I have two boys, and let me tell you, if they were caught writing shit like that, I would expect their teacher to report it, and where school punishment ended, my husband and I would take over.

Would it surprise you to know I wrote shit like that? Turned it in too.  Of course that was long before Columbine, and it was creative writing.  And I got a C for it. (an A on one of them).

There was NO Death threat.  There was a fantasy being played out.  And the teacher blew it in every way.  As did the brain dead administration.

Sorry if I dont agree with you that I should be locked up and ruined for life.

on Dec 03, 2005

Instead, she played into the whole "mass hysteria" thing.

That is half of it in a nutshell Rightwinger!  She did blow it big time.  The other failure was  and is ZT!

on Dec 03, 2005

Reply By: BakerStreet

Posted: Friday, December 02, 2005
The turn of this discussion is sickening. Writing a scenario in a diary isn't a "threat".

Damn Baker!  Thank you!  I really feel like I just wrote a pulitzer based upon your post!

on Dec 03, 2005

Hurt and embarrassed is one thing....having their records permanently marked for a stupidly-chosen and exectuted prank is quite another.

2 Aces in a row!  You and Baker!  exactly!

on Dec 03, 2005

Precisely. We used to do the same thing. Dr. Guy used to sing the song I mentioned. Nothing new under the sun, is there?

A chorus for old times sake?

on Dec 03, 2005

The difference is, this was a specific threat directed at their English teacher. Even barring any issue I might I have with the content of their writing (I don't think it was appropriate for a school assignment), they didn't write about fictional characters. They described, in detail, a plan to for them (not made up characters) to murder their English teacher (also not a fictional character).

You see, that is where you are wrong, unless you think Steven King is a specific threat.  It was Steven Kingish.  Not "I am going to kill Teacher Stupid".

It was juvenile, it was wrong, and it is stupid.  And if everyone who ever did that stuff was scarred for life, there would be more scarlet letters than carter's liver pills. Myself included

on Dec 03, 2005

After reading something like this, I might wanna bring it to someone's attention too.

Then i would never make a promise not to,

on Dec 04, 2005
As the saying goes, "Never put anything on paper (or in bits and bytes) that you wouldn't want to see on the front page of the local newspaper."
on Dec 04, 2005
Would it surprise you to know I wrote shit like that?


Haha. Would you be offended if I said no?

There was NO Death threat. There was a fantasy being played out. And the teacher blew it in every way. As did the brain dead administration.


Let me ask you this...if your wife were the teacher in this class, and two of her students turned in assignments describing how they'd like to strip her naked, mutilate her body, and murder her while you and the rest of her family watched, how would you feel about it?

If it did not include the students specifically and the teacher specifically, then we might be able to chalk it up to malicious punks using very poor judgment, but this was not a creative writing exercise. It was a specific description of a crime the boys would like to commit.

Sorry if I dont agree with you that I should be locked up and ruined for life.


These two students are NOT going to be locked up OR ruined for life. The worst punishment they face is expulsion. I think you're being more than a little melodramatic with that.

You see, that is where you are wrong, unless you think Steven King is a specific threat. It was Steven Kingish. Not "I am going to kill Teacher Stupid".


Steven King is an author who writes fictional stories. These two punks are students who wrote a specific plan (which it is only prudent to assume that they had the ability and/or desire to carry it out) to torture and murder their teacher...as a SCHOOL ASSIGNMENT.

The fact that you did similar things when you were in high school reflects poorly on YOU...it does not absolve their wrong.

It was juvenile, it was wrong, and it is stupid.


At least we agree on that much.

And if everyone who ever did that stuff was scarred for life, there would be more scarlet letters than carter's liver pills. Myself included


Again, I don't think that's anything to brag about. Being a young male is not an excuse for plotting the murder of a teacher. Sorry.

Wonder if you all would feel the same if it were a Muslim child writing a "fictional" plot to blow up the infidel teacher?
on Dec 04, 2005
I may disappoint when I say this, but I probably would have done the same thing. Yes, she did promise confidentiality to these students, and yes, she did break a promise... but this was shocking and disturbing content she read... how could ANY teacher turn a cheek to that?

You know what's really sad...she'd probably be dragged through the mud as well if she DIDN'T say anything...she'd be criticized for not reporting a possible threat.
on Dec 04, 2005
be dragged through the mud as well if she DIDN'T say anything


And therein lies the real tragedy of this story --- as in many of these cases it will be the VICTIM ( the teacher, not the boys) who gets hounded and pounded and becopmes the focal point of the wrong doing. The boys -- they become "youthful transgressors" sorely misunderstood and abused. Poldark Maximus truly weeps for them --- but what now of this poor teacher?
on Dec 04, 2005
"If it did not include the students specifically and the teacher specifically, then we might be able to chalk it up to malicious punks using very poor judgment, but this was not a creative writing exercise. It was a specific description of a crime the boys would like to commit.


You can't say that Tex. From my understanding it was a creative writing excercise. You have no way of knowing it is a crime they want to commit, or even considered committing. you're sitting here talking to people who wrote things and turned them in as pranks because we knew teachers didn't read them. Are you saying that we had evil intentions?

You know even less of these two boys than you do of us. After a week of being told that I can't read people's minds, I am able to notice when other people are claiming to do the same. I think it is kind of facetious that you are pressing further and further toward the whole "planning" thing. You don't have any more proof of it, you're just getting carried in that direction.
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