L.A. Science Teacher Suspended Over Student Science Fair Projects

An anonymous reader writes "A high school science teacher at Grand Arts High School in Los Angeles was suspended from the classroom in February, after two of his science fair students turned in projects deemed dangerous by the administrators. "One project was a marshmallow shooter — which uses air pressure to launch projectiles. The other was an AA battery-powered coil gun — which uses electromagnetism to launch small objects. Similar projects have been honored in past LA County Science Fairs and even demonstrated at the White House."

Comments

First they get rid of shop

[Billly Gates]

Then Chemistry labs.

Now this. Sigh.

Lets burn the lawyers offices down. Everyone is so freaking terrified of a lawsuit that nothing happens. We have to give everyone a medal for participating, not discipline kids who tell teachers to go f**ck themselves, can't teach controversial subjects requiring critical thinking skills, can't flunk them, etc.

We are not doing them any favors when they get out in the real world afraid to take risks or wonder why their boss fired them instead of giving a raise for participation?

Re:First they get rid of shop

[rainmaestro]

My 8th grade elective (in 1998) was rocketry. We spent the semester building and launching model rockets. Something tells me that elective is no longer being offered.

You can still find sanity in a few holdouts. My high school (a magnet program, not a regular public school) had a well-stocked research lab and all students performed research. Mine involved cellulolysis and a strain of bacteria that I forget the name of now. The lab (and the research) is still ongoing, though I suspect the program's status gives it more freedom than a regular school would have. They even still had shop courses, or at least they did when I was there. No dodgeball, though, that was forbidden.

Re:Sick Society

[meerling]

Go to the article source and read the comments.
There are a number of them by the locals involved with that school.
It looks like this is a not uncommon tactic variation certain higher ups use to punish those they don't like, as well as those peoples supporters.
All very questionable and completely unethical. Hopefully this time it backfires in a big way.

I was lucky to grow up in a saner environment

[spiritplumber]

http://spiritplumber.deviantar... This is a SLIGHT fictionalization of what happened to me when faced with a derpy administrator -- the dates and names have been changes but you can probably guess my age by the stuff referenced in. Ultimately, teachers and administrators operate in loco parentis; the parents have to get mad.

Re:Sick Society

[GrumpySteen]

Do you and I have the right to piss off management and our bosses? What makes them so special?

You don't seem to understand what tenure is. Tenure doesn't protect teachers from being fired if they act irresponsibly or do not do their job. Tenure only protects the teacher from being fired without just cause.

The case here is really the question of whether allowing a student to build a marshmallow gun powered by compressed air represents just cause. The administration says it is, but they have an axe to grind with the teacher in question because he's also a union representative, etc. (as detailed in other comments)

The suggest that the solution is to just give the administrators the right to fire all teachers without any justification for the firing is idiotic.

Progressives are *not* anti-gun ...

[drnb]

... it is about tje progressive anti-gun stance ...

Progressives are *not* anti-gun, neither are environmentalists, etc. Ex. Teddy Roosevelt was known to be a fan of target shooting and hunting.

Call it what it is, the radical left. Don't let the radical left redefine and despoil the term "progressive" and they did "liberal".

Re:Sudden outbreak of common sense

[gman003]

tairsts

For a minute I read that as "tsarists", which was arguably more interesting.

Re:Sick Society

[Attila Dimedici]

Yeah, that explains why the cities with the strictest gun control laws have the lowest murder rates and those with the laws making it easier for law-abiding citizens to own and carry guns have the highest murder rates...No, wait, it's the other way around. If you actually look at the facts it turns out that it is people like Bloomberg who are blood-drenched and the NRA who are the heroes.

Re:Sick Society

[Shakrai]

As long as the NRA and RWNJ refuse to acknowledge that we have a gun problem, not a people problem, the deaths will continue and there will be nothing to stop it.

~300,000,000 guns, ~100,000,000 gun owners, with about ~14,000 annual homicides committed with firearms. Rhetorical question: What's 14,000 divided by 100,000,000 or 300,000,000?

It is a people problem. Studies have shown that the vast majority of first time murders already had extensive violent criminal records. Clearly the justice system is not doing these people or society justice, since there were ample opportunities to intervene before they took a human life.

It's also a socioeconomic problem, because crime is driven in large part by poverty. You want to cut gun violence? End the war on drugs, increase education and job placement funding, and start to look at seriously reforming our mental healthcare system.

Of course, all of those things are hard to do. It's a lot easier if you can just blame the guns, as though inanimate objects are possessed of powers of their own.