Yesterday I read, in disbelief, a story in the LA Times, “Teacher removed for ‘dangerous’ science projects; supporters rally .” Greg Schiller, a teacher at the Ramón C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts, in Los Angeles was recently suspended “after two students turned in science projects that were designed to shoot small projectiles.”
From the story:
School administrators did not respond to inquiries. District officials said they could not comment on an ongoing probe.
Of course they didn’t reply. They are about to be lampooned nationally. I’m at a loss for words to describe how ridiculous this is.
Later in the story:
Schiller initially prepared lesson plans for the substitute, but the district in an email directed him to stop.
Seriously? The guy is suspended, sitting in a room in timeout and still writing lessons plans… and then told to STOP doing that!? Yep – the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) had a much better idea – make him sit in the room and do nothing for his students. That way LAUSD can risk the students’ performance on an upcoming AP exam.
Our devotion to political correctness has gone too far.
Tossing kids out of school for “shooting a finger gun” and suspending teachers for teaching this kind of “dangerous” science only hurts the students and makes total asses out of the school administration. We have (I hope inadvertently) removed judgement, leadership and common sense from the list of skills needed by our teachers and school administration.
This is what we get.
I’m going to write my childrens’ teachers a letter requesting they teach them how to make an awesome air cannon to shoot marshmallows.
Technology & Patterns 
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