Teacher Uses Assassination To Explain Geometry

Filed in National by on May 18, 2010

Crazy stuff.  (via TPM)

The Secret Service investigated an Alabama high school teacher for using the example of shooting President Obama while teaching a geometry lesson.

[…]

A student in the class described the lesson: “He was talking about angles and said, ‘If you’re in this building, you would need to take this angle to shoot the president.'”

The district superintendent told the News that the unnamed teacher will not be disciplined.

“We are going to have a long conversation with him about what’s appropriate,” he said. “It was extremely poor judgment on his part, and a poor choice of words.”

Any teacher that requires a “conversation” to point out why this isn’t appropriate doesn’t have the intellectual capacity to be in a classroom.

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A stay-at-home mom with an obsession for National politics.

Comments (5)

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  1. Union rules, I thought you liked teacher protection. Now you know how we feel. BTW I reject such talk as appropriate in any way to children. It is just plain wrong. It undermines respect for either the President or the school. It is lose-lose.

    We need to have a certain level of respect for lawful authority if we are to have a working society. That can at least begin adult conversations to children. I wouldn’t want him keeping his job.

    It is not a secret service matter and I am sure it will be dropped because it is not an advocacy or threat. The law is very specific. They have to investigate to see what the facts are, of course they could be more than reported and I reserve the right to revise my remarks if any direct threat to the President emerges. That is of course a criminal issue.

  2. Utterly beyond the pale. — http://rhymeswithright.mu.nu/archives/301689.php — The assassination of Barack Obama would be a tragedy.

    But of course, “imagining and compassing the death of the sovereign”, as it was put in the old British law, is not a crime in America, so of course there are no charges. That is how so many anti-war folks got away with some of the signs they carried about Bush as they gave aid and comfort to the enemy protested the war in Iraq.

  3. liberalgeek says:

    Luckily, in Alabama, even after a lesson like that there is no way that they could pull off that shot with a protractor in one hand.

  4. Joanne Christian says:

    I remember seeing angles, and diagrams over the rifle position/ bullet trajectory when Kennedy was killed–although in poor judgement, maybe it was that “angle” he was establishing a lesson–how geometry helped answer questions.

  5. Joanne — then use the Kennedy assassination (a historical example) rather than the current president.