Why do you assume it's verbal abuse? The article only says that the teacher "raised his voice".
Okay, so verbal abuse may not have been the proper word that I should have used ... sorry. Let's just say the teacher raised his voice to a level in which it got the school cafeteria's attention. As by your statement :
If I have a class of thirty fourteen year-olds, they can - and regularly do - get a bit noisy. And the noise tends to escalate, as students talk louder and louder to be heard over one another.
So, in order for you to make your point known, you have to elevate your voice a few octaves to be heard ... correct ? As far as a lunch period is concerned, you would have to raise your voice enough octaves to get an entire school cafeteria's attention. Which the teacher did. You as a teacher have to know that a cafeteria generally consists of more than 30 students. School size pending, amount of students at lunch this particular period would be a rather large audience. During this point in time, lets call it 60 (pulling a number out of the air) kids talking, chatting, just doing what kids do during a lunch period. This elevated voice by the teacher would have to had been rather voicetrous, wouldn't you say ? Voicetrous to the point where it would appear that the teacher would have been almost shouting. Therein lies the part where maybe, just maybe where we are sensing that the teacher could have been shouting, or being quite voicetrous.
So how do you know that the teacher was yelling at the student for promoting gun ownership?
Why else would have this confrontation taken place ? Yeah, it's about gun ownership and the 2nd amendment. Something that this teacher obviously has a problem with. Look at something here, would you ? This kid made it 4 periods of school without incident. He hits the cafeteria for lunch, and wallah, teacher confrontation takes place. Now, there is something dreadfully wrong working against this teacher. As just noted by myself (and others in this thread), why all of a sudden is there an issue ? I'll tell you why. It's because this teacher obviously does not know the dress code as stated by the Logan County School District. Had this been a problem, the 1st period teacher would have caught this t-shirt incident right off the bat ..... right ? Let's flip the coin. We'll say that the teacher does know the dress code. The t-shirt in question (once again ... starting to sound like a broken record) does not in any such manner violate the posted dress code. So with the teacher knowing this, why else would he confront the student about this shirt ? Hmmmm, anti gunner, and has a hard on against guns would seem to be the logical answer.
Only that if the teacher saw an image of a high-powered assault rifle on a student's shirt, then you can understand why he might believe that the image of the gun - and the image of the gun alone, as I said in the above post - would be violent imagery, and therefore in violation of the dress code.
Therein lies the problem. By your own admission,
you have stated the the gun in question (AR15) is an "assault rifle". It is not an assault rifle. There is no reason in the world to believe that such a gun promotes violent imagery. It's a semi automatic .223 caliber hunting rifle for Gods sake ! Not some sort of fully automatic weapon that is capable of mass extinction of humans with one pull of the trigger. The problem with your statement (and I'll not condemn you for your lack of knowledge on guns), is that too many people see this image the wrong way. Hence why I suggest that this teacher in question is un-educated in the ways of guns and sees them as a piece that promotes violence. Whether it be in real life, or in this case, on a kids t-shirt. It's just plain outright wrong to assume such things without knowing the full story / or being educated about guns.
Be that as it may, the school's dress code only specifically banned students from wearing articles of clothing displaying images of violence. It gives no further definition of what qualifies as violence. Therefore, an images of a gun could easily fit into the definition of a violent image.
And so could cars and baseball bats.These have been known to kill people. So now we have to say that a kid cannot wear a t-shirt with a picture of a car, or a baseball inspired shirt that may display a bat. Where does it stop ?
If the teacher felt the image of a gun was a violent image, then he probably thought he had a case to ask the student to remove it.
Key word in bold. The teacher did not think, that's the problem. The teacher being well aware of the dress code did not think. Or, the teacher did know the dress code and acted out of order... take your pick. Either way, it's a strike against the teacher.
And he was arrested because he refused to ignore an instruction from a teacher, which led to unrest in the cafeteria. Common sense dictates that the smartest course of action for the student would be to follow the teacher's directions, and then follow up on it with the school's principal or deputy instead of making a spectacle in the cafeteria.
Who started the specatacle in the cafeteria ? The teacher did, that's who. Common sense dictates that the teacher should have handled this matter in adult way, not in front of XXXX amount of students in the cafeteria.
The teacher no doubt felt that whatever the type of weapon or ammunition used, it represented an image of violence.
Only in the said teachers mind.
Let me ask you this: if a kid brought a 20" AR15 chambered in .223 to school, what do you think the teachers would do? Would they stop and question him about the type of weapon an ammunition, and let him keep it because it is used for shooting vermin? Or would they call the police straight away?
Honest to God, I can't believe you could consider posting such a thought.
The teacher in question evidently felt that this was in violation of the school's dress code, and so asked the student to somehow obscure or remove the image
Lack of knowledge on the teachers part. It's his/her job to know the dress code. This teacher in question is dead wrong, simply because he/she did not know the code.
Rubbish.
This is a child who got in trouble for doing something, and then decided to try and get out of it. That's all there is to it.
Let's start fresh here. In your own words, what did the kid do wrong ? He did nothing, he stood up for his rights, but yet you say that is wrong.
the kid deliberately disobeyed an instruction from a teacher
The kid deliberately stood up for his 2nd amendment rights in which the teacher has a problem with.
Again, you're assuming that the teacher a) raised his voice in anger and b) confronted the kid over making a political statement he disagreed with. But there is no evidence of this.
On the first page of this thread, I provided a link that clearly states that video proof shows that the teacher was in the wrong. Unfortunately, we don't get to see that video.
Video evidence in the case,
Mr. White said, indicates that the situation in the cafeteria deteriorated when a teacher raised his voice while confronting
Jared
It's far more likely that the teacher asked him to cover up the image, and the kid said no because he was being belligerent
Wouldn't you stand up for your rights if you knew that you were well within them ?
If a teacher asks a student to do something, and it is a reasonable request, then it is generally expected that a student will follow through on it.
Key word, reasonable, this was not, sorry.
Asking a student to cover up an image on a t-shirt that a teacher feels violates the dress code is not an unreasonable request.
Once again, the teacher failed. He/she did not know the dress code. Which gives them no reason to imply their personal version of the dress code.
Actually I would say a 14 year old cannot "successfully and consistently make adult decisions". A 14 year old is not an adult. In the eyes of American law a 14 year old cannot make the adult decisions required to do such as driving a car or consuming alcohol. Its not just about experiences or knowledge either. A 14 year old's brain is not going to function the same as an adult brain.
True, do a degree. However, wouldn't you say that a 14 year does indeed know the difference between right and wrong. This kid felt he was in the right, which by rights, he was.
Some words by Jared and his father :