OT..no one expects the Spanish Inquisition..bahaha

[wiccanpony]

lollollol may you all look lollollol


I know there is more to the charges that got this gentleman fired...... but ........... really Wizardry?!?

do I need to buy stock in kindling and does Victoria\'s Secrets carry asbestos undies

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/may/05/substitute-teacher-says-wizardry-accusation-cost-h/?news-breaking

 

[Shawn R. L.]

Sounds like more of this Zero Tolerance crap! Some kid was thrown out of school for BRINGING A GUN TO SCHOOL!!!!!!!!............. a little 1 inch plastic gun from his GI Joe!! No joke.


BTW - I can do a pretty sweet toothpick trick and last time I checked I\'m not a wizard!

 

[Roger Bunting]

I\'m currently transforming myself from a brown-haired man into a grey-haired man. I have great powers, y\'know.

 

[Zora]

Considering all the troubles with teachers these days, I would\'ve thought it was for pointing his \"wand\" at a student...

 

[Amazon warrior]

I think it says a lot about the \"intelligence\" of the kid who thought it was wizardry. What next, burn all D&D players at the stake because we \"summon demons\"?

Edit: he says his whole career is in limbo. I guess that\'s what happens when you inhabit a chaotic neutral plane...

 

[wiccanpony]

What is truly scary, is there “ARE” real people out there who in the name of their deity would burn all us gaming geeks at the stake and scatter our ashes with salt in some pit.

 

[supervike]

Of course this pinhead is going to blame it on whatever he can.

But, the plain fact (at least according to the newsreport) is that he wasn\'t doing his job as a substitute. Doing \'magic shows\' wasn\'t part of the cirriculam. So, he can blame who he wants, but in fact, it\'s his willingness to not do his job that cost him.


Here\'s the relavant bit:

\"Performing a magic trick at Rushe Middle is just one of the reasons the school district gives for dumping Piculas from the substitute-teacher list. The others are: Piculas did not follow the lesson plans, he allowed students on computers even though another teacher said not to, and he told the fifth-period student peer that she was in charge.\"


He\'s a dipwad looking for others to blame in his shortcomings.

 

[Amazon warrior]

Originally posted by wiccanpony
What is truly scary, is there “ARE” real people out there who in the name of their deity would burn all us gaming geeks at the stake and scatter our ashes with salt in some pit.

And they say *we\'re* evil... Never mind, Pelor\'s got my back! :beer:

 

[lizcam]

Wow...........

Um............

Yah..........

Wow ???

 

[MPJ]

Those who can, do. Those who can\'t, teach. :drunk:

I\'m sure there were other reasons. That being said, the reasons listed in the article hardly seem powerful enough to warrant the derailment of a career. Then again, I wasn\'t there. At least he wasn\'t making virginity disappear.

I\'m here wondering how many movies have been made (true movies) about rebel teachers who bucked the system and brought their students to greatness (or at least to better than what they would have gotten else-wise). I\'m gonna guess for each \'rebel\' teacher who makes it 50 of them get fired.

 

[Godlikebuthumble]

The way I get that, the \"traumatised\" child was just a welcome final drop to fire the guy.
Sure, the kid and his father are §$%&ing idiots.
Sure, the school board could have grown a pair and fired him before, as they seem to have had enough reasons to.
But also, the guy actually doing his job (and as the sub, one usually is everyone\'s b!7€#), and the school not being complete cornmongers might be asking a bit much of today\'s schools.

 

[BarstoolProphet]

Originally posted by Zora
Considering all the troubles with teachers these days, I would\'ve thought it was for pointing his \"wand\" at a student...

Olivander examines it.

\"Hmm, yes. Six inches. Fleshy core. Very springy.\"

 

[Shawn R. L.]

\"well..............we did put on the silly hat,...........and, the nose, yes, the nose.....\"

 

[AinuLainour]

He said he was told the student became so traumatized that the student\'s father complained.

lol

 

[rextalon]

Originally posted by supervike
Of course this pinhead is going to blame it on whatever he can.

But, the plain fact (at least according to the newsreport) is that he wasn\'t doing his job as a substitute. Doing \'magic shows\' wasn\'t part of the cirriculam. So, he can blame who he wants, but in fact, it\'s his willingness to not do his job that cost him.


Here\'s the relavant bit:

\"Performing a magic trick at Rushe Middle is just one of the reasons the school district gives for dumping Piculas from the substitute-teacher list. The others are: Piculas did not follow the lesson plans, he allowed students on computers even though another teacher said not to, and he told the fifth-period student peer that she was in charge.\"


He\'s a dipwad looking for others to blame in his shortcomings.

Did you EVER have a sub while you were in school?

Subs, more often than not, are people trying to become teachers. Once they become teachers they see what a horrible job it is and lose their hopes and dreams. They become far less interested in finding ways to reach out to their students and far more interested in when they get to go home and grade papers so they can have some time to themselves.

I would say that this man just hasn\'t lost his spark yet. Sure he\'s breaking up the boredom by showing the kids something they didn\'t know, but is that any reason to fire him? If someone at your work was screwing off would you call them in and talk to them, maybe tell them to straighten up, or would you just can them on the spot?

I think the people that say he deserves to be canned have never tried to teach. It\'s hard and if you want to reach out to children and teach them something they\'ll remember, you\'ll have to do something different and unexpected. Putting one of your kids into a position where they have to think on their feet is an excellent way of doing that. Allowing them to use the available resources is another. Teaching them something off the wall to gain their interests is still another.

If he deviated from the lesson plan just to get the interest of the students then more power to him, but it doesn\'t sound like he wasted the whole day playing \"Mr. Wizard\" in school. It sounds like he could be a great teacher.

 

[Elly3438]

I\'m just laughing at the post title...

Now a real punishment for this teacher would be to poke him with the soft cushions, or perhaps bring out... the COMFY CHAIR!!!

oh, and what a stupid reason to fire the guy, I find that super lame, but what can you expect from schools these days...

 

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by rextalon

I would say that this man just hasn\'t lost his spark yet. Sure he\'s breaking up the boredom by showing the kids something they didn\'t know, but is that any reason to fire him?
That\'s a \"depends on the situation\" question isn\'t it. If he\'s deviating so much from the lesson plan that the curriculum subject and what he\'s doing are so widley apart then yes there is serious cause for concern.
If someone at your work was screwing off would you call them in and talk to them, maybe tell them to straighten up, or would you just can them on the spot?
Again it\'s a \"Depends on the situation\" kind of question.
There are circumstances where I would HAVE to can someone rather than talk to them, but those circumstances are extremely rare and wouldn\'t be taken lightly or without due consultation with our HR departments, which I suspect will have happened In this case.
Don\'t forget SUB or no, he still has legal employment rights to be maintained and even if he has wildly exceeded the bounds of his role there will have to have been some form of discussion.
In the UK the dismissal of a teacher isn\'t easy as there are at least four, possibly five stages of consultation before that can happen (and those are just the ones I can think of of the top of my head). Even then an appeal would more than likely be lodged, unless the teacher is facing some horrendous criminal charges.

One of the troubles here is that we are seeing the issue secondhand and without the full knowledge of \"What has gone before...\", which is the trouble with a lot of tabloid or sensationalistic journalism where they centre on the \"controversial\" elements and omit or reduce the full detail.

Oh and Yes I\'ve done my Teacher training so I do know a little of how difficult it can be to motivate a class.

 

[airhead]

Also depends on if it was a one-day thing or if he replaced someone on a month\'s leave.

Didn\'t follow the second grade lesson plan because the real teacher was out for a dentist appointment for a day? No great loss.

If he was replacing another teacher on leave for a month, he would be expected to at least try to follow the other teacher\'s plan and keep the class on course.

We don\'t have the whole or true picture here.

 

[supervike]

Originally posted by rextalon

Did you EVER have a sub while you were in school?

Subs, more often than not, are people trying to become teachers. Once they become teachers they see what a horrible job it is and lose their hopes and dreams. They become far less interested in finding ways to reach out to their students and far more interested in when they get to go home and grade papers so they can have some time to themselves.

I would say that this man just hasn\'t lost his spark yet. Sure he\'s breaking up the boredom by showing the kids something they didn\'t know, but is that any reason to fire him? If someone at your work was screwing off would you call them in and talk to them, maybe tell them to straighten up, or would you just can them on the spot?

I think the people that say he deserves to be canned have never tried to teach. It\'s hard and if you want to reach out to children and teach them something they\'ll remember, you\'ll have to do something different and unexpected. Putting one of your kids into a position where they have to think on their feet is an excellent way of doing that. Allowing them to use the available resources is another. Teaching them something off the wall to gain their interests is still another.

If he deviated from the lesson plan just to get the interest of the students then more power to him, but it doesn\'t sound like he wasted the whole day playing \"Mr. Wizard\" in school. It sounds like he could be a great teacher.

But this man wasn\'t an established teacher!

If you ran a company and went to the temp agency, and the worker they sent you refused to follow instructions or do his assigned work, would you use that temp again? It\'s the same exact thing here.

Perhaps he could do the job as he was told, before he tried to mold it into Happy Magic Hour.

If teaching is such a horrible job, why do people do it? No one forces people to. That is all you hear from teachers, \'the kids are terrible, the pay sucks, no one cares\'.

Aren\'t there any happy teachers?

 

[Swordwind]

Originally posted by Amazon warrior
I think it says a lot about the \"intelligence\" of the kid who thought it was wizardry. What next, burn all D&D players at the stake because we \"summon demons\"?

Bring forth the Chick Tract!.

If those things are enough to get you fired over the big water then some of my sub teachers would have been lynched as they exited the school gates. We had one who brought back an artillery shell from Iraq and had it on display on the front desk. Only for the MOD spooks to show up a week or two later asking for their depleted uranium back. There was another who swore at and manhanled students out of the classroom. Yet another taught a maths lesson. In Social and Economic History. But the crowning moment was the sub teacher and his sister (also a sub) who turned out <drum roll> not to be teachers at all. They were actually a married couple with no teaching experience or qualifications whatsoever who had just rolled in one day and noone bothered to check they were actually teachers.