I understand how the schools have to be very careful .
they didnt know it was such a telephone call, poor kid in is a tight spot , but it sounds like it will be resolved , his grades and his attitude toward authroity is a seperate issue all together.
they may have to find an advocate to help this teen organize his life and manage his relationships , time and the emotions he is dealing with.
This is pretty outrageous....especially on the eve of Mothers Day.....
The boy only had the opportunity to speak with his mom about once a month....his dad had died when he was 5 years old......he lives with a family who has five other children.....he wears dog tags around his neck with a picture of his mother......
This is so sad....
Here is the email of the School Superintendent (found publicly displayed on their website)
Yes that is my concern mj....especially having to live with another family that has 5 children. Where does he stand in line for adult attention? I really feel he needs someone to help him come to terms with probably a lot of emotional turmoil. Like a "Big Brother" or something from "Big Brothers and Sisters"
They are all taken from probably the same press pool....
Of course the administration is going to try to cover their butts.....so the child became distraught.....the adults could have handled this with a little more tact.
I am surprised they didn't call the police and handcuff the kid.......sigh
The kid himself said he could have handled it better. He was a jerk about it. He could have easily waved the teacher over, said "hang on Mom: Hey, teach, this is my mom, calling from Iraq. I just need a couple of minutes, please." But instead he was an arrogant bonehead, which he has admitted.
Yes, the teachers were wrong, but they had no way of knowing who was on the phone, and when you see a school rule being violated, you take swift and blunt action. Frankly, it's about time teachers started enforcing school rules.
But Francois insists that he immediately told the teacher he was speaking to his mother: "I told her in a calm voice: 'I'm on the phone with my mom in Iraq. I'm not going to give you the phone.' "
Francois said he did become frustrated when the teacher snatched his phone away. "I got some attitude," he said. "But I didn't curse. I just couldn't understand why I couldn't talk to her. I kept pleading and pleading."
If that's the case, then you're right.
quote:
The teen, whom Muscogee County School District Superintendent John Phillips Jr., wouldn't name, did not tell the teacher he was talking to his mother in Iraq.
If that's the case, then I'm with the teacher.
"Of course the administration's going to cover their butts?"
No, of course the kid is going to cover his butt. He's got reason to lie, too.
Why do we assume that teachers are out to make life miserable for our children?
In the evening, instead of planning lessons for the next day and correcting papers, they are apparently deviously planning how to trick a child into completely disrupting the class, so they can 'cuff em'.
Then these crazy instructors decide not to allow cell phones in classrooms just so some kid can mouth off when he gets a call and they can suspend him.
And if the teacher in this case is white you can bet it was racially motivated.
All irrate parents should ban together and take the schools over. Then you can show the rest of the world how to properly maintain order in the classroom. G-d (finally got to use the dash) knows your time has come.
I agree with Raf and WW. If it went down the way the kid said it did, then the school officials were being unreasonable. But if it went down the way the school staffers said, then the kid was being unreasonable.
By the sound of it, especially with the Mom's call back and the content thereof, I would guess that the kid was being an arrogant hot head, and using the situation to garner attention. I have an eighteen year old son who has done the exact same thing in different situations. He could handle things calmly with teachers, but is incredibly manipulative, and gets all hot with them for no reason so he can get the other students riled up and in his corner in an "us against them scenario". It's very common amongst utes. And, I am one of those parents who do not say; "My child would never do that!" I take it as it comes, as honestly as I can. Kids do stuff like this.
And so really OodaFog, it's nice to take a "motherly", protective approach, but I am willing to bet that in a state like Georgia, home to Fort Benning, and where are some 17,000 families whose loved ones are serving overseas, which is no doubt common knowledge and of special concern amongst school faculty, most teachers would be very sensitive to a student talking on the phone to his or her Mom had they known that that Mom was calling from the war zone...
How did people ever communicate before they invented the cell phone? -->
LOL
True. I have spent long frustrating hours in various phone-booths, standing on a pier in some port, trying to get a connection. It amazes me how many nations where the phrase "United States of America" simply does not translate, if the operator can figure-out that your speaking Englaesi, then they may connect you with the 'international' UK operator, but that just adds more static to the line and more delays to trying to get a connection stateside.
It has always been very common to see servicemembers with phone bills in the hundreds of dollars when they only made a single phone call.
The new satelite marine telephones are great, but it is hard to find anyone who can afford to have one. The military does not provide them. In Kosovo, it was the reporters who had them, and would let servicemembers use them on barter. Of course that was 4 years ago now. Things do change.
No matter whose version of events is correct, the kid could have avoided the problem by doing what a responsible person should do if there is a good reason to act differently than the general rules, which is to arrange an exception ahead of time or as soon as the need comes up. He could have talked to the appropriate teacher or administrator, who almost certainly would have been sympathetic and arranged an exception in his case, possibly by allowing him to take the call in the office.
I think everybody involved really over-reacted here. I still think none of us know what it is like to be 17 years old, a dead father at 5, and your mother serving a world away in a war you may not or may agree with. He never knows if it is the last time he will ever talk to her. How many of us adults can handle this, let alone our children. And yes, according to our laws, he is still a child. Put yourself in someone else's shoes for a minute and then perhaps we would not be that quick to judge.
I know with all the crap that goes on in our schools nowadays, that teachers probably are a little more on edge about children that "act out". But by God we can't let "fear" rule over sensibility and "political correctness" drive "common sense" away.
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mj412
this is unfortunate.
I understand how the schools have to be very careful .
they didnt know it was such a telephone call, poor kid in is a tight spot , but it sounds like it will be resolved , his grades and his attitude toward authroity is a seperate issue all together.
they may have to find an advocate to help this teen organize his life and manage his relationships , time and the emotions he is dealing with.
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outofdafog
This is pretty outrageous....especially on the eve of Mothers Day.....
The boy only had the opportunity to speak with his mom about once a month....his dad had died when he was 5 years old......he lives with a family who has five other children.....he wears dog tags around his neck with a picture of his mother......
This is so sad....
Here is the email of the School Superintendent (found publicly displayed on their website)
jphillips@mcsdga.net
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outofdafog
Yes that is my concern mj....especially having to live with another family that has 5 children. Where does he stand in line for adult attention? I really feel he needs someone to help him come to terms with probably a lot of emotional turmoil. Like a "Big Brother" or something from "Big Brothers and Sisters"
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WordWolf
"But the other side also has another side."- Japanese saying.
Before you lynch the superintendent about something you read in a newspaper,
you might want to get the ENTIRE story....
------------------
This is from the NY Daily News, Sat 5/7/05, page 7.
"School officials tell a different story. According to a statement from Muscogee
County School District Superintendent John Phillips, Kevin never said he was
talking to his mother and started swearing.
It was only when the teacher had taken him to the office that Kevin divulged he'd
been on the phone with his mother, who is serving with the 203rd Forward
Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division."
-----------
If the student's version is true,
then he was holding the phone up to his face (and, thus, his mother could hear
everything said) while he said so someone that
"This is my mom in Iraq. I'm not about to hang up on my mom."
She then heard the connection go dead.
She then tried to call him back,
and "left a message scolding her son about hanging up and telling him to
answer the phone when she calls."
So, if the student's account is correct, his mother heard him telling someone he
wasnt going to hang up on her. Obviously, this was some sort of authority figure
he was addressing. Given that it was school hours, it doesnt take a PhD to figure
out he got in trouble with a teacher for using his phone.
However, she called him back and chewed him out for hanging up and
NOT ANSWERING BACK,
despite obviously still working out with a teacher whether or not he could use the
phone.
So, either the student's account is inaccurate,
or the student's mother is an idiot who doesnt know where her son normally is
during school hours,
or his mother thinks he can make up his own rules in school.
Your choice.
Me, I think it's simpler to think the student's account has been "enhanced."
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WordWolf
Here's the LA Times' story, via the Star-Tribune.
Here's the LA Times' own story.
Here's the Kansas City Star's account.
Hm. The Seattle Times seems to say it all.
I was wrong-CNN has the WHOLE story.
I trust I've linked enough-
Google news kicked up 339 links for this story.
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Raf
Glad you saw that WW. The kid wasn't suspended for getting the call. He was suspended for being an A**hole about it.
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outofdafog
None of those stories prove anything....
They are all taken from probably the same press pool....
Of course the administration is going to try to cover their butts.....so the child became distraught.....the adults could have handled this with a little more tact.
I am surprised they didn't call the police and handcuff the kid.......sigh
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Raf
The kid himself said he could have handled it better. He was a jerk about it. He could have easily waved the teacher over, said "hang on Mom: Hey, teach, this is my mom, calling from Iraq. I just need a couple of minutes, please." But instead he was an arrogant bonehead, which he has admitted.
Yes, the teachers were wrong, but they had no way of knowing who was on the phone, and when you see a school rule being violated, you take swift and blunt action. Frankly, it's about time teachers started enforcing school rules.
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Raf
If that's the case, then you're right.
If that's the case, then I'm with the teacher.
"Of course the administration's going to cover their butts?"
No, of course the kid is going to cover his butt. He's got reason to lie, too.
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Stayed Too Long
Why do we assume that teachers are out to make life miserable for our children?
In the evening, instead of planning lessons for the next day and correcting papers, they are apparently deviously planning how to trick a child into completely disrupting the class, so they can 'cuff em'.
Then these crazy instructors decide not to allow cell phones in classrooms just so some kid can mouth off when he gets a call and they can suspend him.
And if the teacher in this case is white you can bet it was racially motivated.
All irrate parents should ban together and take the schools over. Then you can show the rest of the world how to properly maintain order in the classroom. G-d (finally got to use the dash) knows your time has come.
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J0nny Ling0
I agree with Raf and WW. If it went down the way the kid said it did, then the school officials were being unreasonable. But if it went down the way the school staffers said, then the kid was being unreasonable.
By the sound of it, especially with the Mom's call back and the content thereof, I would guess that the kid was being an arrogant hot head, and using the situation to garner attention. I have an eighteen year old son who has done the exact same thing in different situations. He could handle things calmly with teachers, but is incredibly manipulative, and gets all hot with them for no reason so he can get the other students riled up and in his corner in an "us against them scenario". It's very common amongst utes. And, I am one of those parents who do not say; "My child would never do that!" I take it as it comes, as honestly as I can. Kids do stuff like this.
And so really OodaFog, it's nice to take a "motherly", protective approach, but I am willing to bet that in a state like Georgia, home to Fort Benning, and where are some 17,000 families whose loved ones are serving overseas, which is no doubt common knowledge and of special concern amongst school faculty, most teachers would be very sensitive to a student talking on the phone to his or her Mom had they known that that Mom was calling from the war zone...
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outofdafog
Hahaha
:D-->......you got me pegged.
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J0nny Ling0
Well, if I had been your kid, hard as it would be, you'd probably have loved me too. And I was a major handfull!
:)-->
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Oakspear
How did people ever communicate before they invented the cell phone?
-->
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Galen
LOL
True. I have spent long frustrating hours in various phone-booths, standing on a pier in some port, trying to get a connection. It amazes me how many nations where the phrase "United States of America" simply does not translate, if the operator can figure-out that your speaking Englaesi, then they may connect you with the 'international' UK operator, but that just adds more static to the line and more delays to trying to get a connection stateside.
It has always been very common to see servicemembers with phone bills in the hundreds of dollars when they only made a single phone call.
The new satelite marine telephones are great, but it is hard to find anyone who can afford to have one. The military does not provide them. In Kosovo, it was the reporters who had them, and would let servicemembers use them on barter. Of course that was 4 years ago now. Things do change.
:-)
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LG
No matter whose version of events is correct, the kid could have avoided the problem by doing what a responsible person should do if there is a good reason to act differently than the general rules, which is to arrange an exception ahead of time or as soon as the need comes up. He could have talked to the appropriate teacher or administrator, who almost certainly would have been sympathetic and arranged an exception in his case, possibly by allowing him to take the call in the office.
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J0nny Ling0
Long Gone-
Agreed.
JL
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outofdafog
www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/09/student.cellphone/index.html
I think everybody involved really over-reacted here. I still think none of us know what it is like to be 17 years old, a dead father at 5, and your mother serving a world away in a war you may not or may agree with. He never knows if it is the last time he will ever talk to her. How many of us adults can handle this, let alone our children. And yes, according to our laws, he is still a child. Put yourself in someone else's shoes for a minute and then perhaps we would not be that quick to judge.
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outofdafog
I know with all the crap that goes on in our schools nowadays, that teachers probably are a little more on edge about children that "act out". But by God we can't let "fear" rule over sensibility and "political correctness" drive "common sense" away.
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