Teacher uses theoretical assasination of Obama as geometry example

story here

Quote :

A Jefferson County teacher picked the wrong example when he used
as­sassinating President Bar­ack Obama as a way to teach angles to his
geome­try students.


Secret Service was alerted, but they didn't find it a credible threat.

Quote :

The teacher was appar­ently teaching his geometry students about
parallel lines and angles, officials said. He used the example of where
to stand and aim if shooting Obama.



"He was talking about
angles and said, 'If you're in this building, you would need to take
this angle to shoot the president,' " said Joseph Brown, a senior in the
geometry class.

According to an update, the teacher is on paid administrative leave and faces possible termination. Not definite, just possible. Interesting to me, considering the way schools will jump over kids for similar actions.

The update does say, however, that some students are claiming it's all being blown out of proportion...

Quote :

"We were going over a test and getting reviewed for our finals and were
going over tangency," sophomore Malia Drummond said. "A student walked
in and said, 'Well, if you shoot the president...' and the teacher
picked up on it and said, 'OK, if you shoot off his ear, that is a point
of tangency.'

Even if this is the case, why did he pick up on the topic in the first place?

Thaaaaat's kinda creepy.

Ooooh, he is gonna get so much flack for that.

It looks like a bad joke blown waay out of proportion.

I agree. I'm PRETTY DAMN SURE the guy wasn't actually teaching his kids how to shoot the president.

Did he actually reference Obama by name? Because "shooting the president" seems to be a historical American tradition.

"Assassination".

ZoZo wrote:

Did he actually reference Obama by name? Because "shooting the president" seems to be a historical American tradition.

Hey! Hey. We've only done that like, a few times. No more than ten. And they only died in about three cases. (Well, if we count ones still in office)

Lapin wrote:

"Assassination".

ZoZo wrote:

Did he actually reference Obama by name? Because "shooting the president" seems to be a historical American tradition.

Hey! Hey. We've only done that like, a few times. No more than ten. And they only died in about three cases. (Well, if we count ones still in office)

Assassination attempts were made on numerous presidents, starting with Andrew Jackson. They were successful four times (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy) and nearly successful once (Reagan).

Lady Anne wrote:

Lapin wrote:

"Assassination".

ZoZo wrote:

Did he actually reference Obama by name? Because "shooting the president" seems to be a historical American tradition.

Hey! Hey. We've only done that like, a few times. No more than ten. And they only died in about three cases. (Well, if we count ones still in office)

Assassination attempts were made on numerous presidents, starting with Andrew Jackson. They were successful four times (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy) and nearly successful once (Reagan).

I forgot Garfield. Whatever. It's still not, you know, a habit.

Lapin wrote:

Lady Anne wrote:

Lapin wrote:

"Assassination".

ZoZo wrote:

Did he actually reference Obama by name? Because "shooting the president" seems to be a historical American tradition.

Hey! Hey. We've only done that like, a few times. No more than ten. And they only died in about three cases. (Well, if we count ones still in office)

Assassination attempts were made on numerous presidents, starting with Andrew Jackson. They were successful four times (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy) and nearly successful once (Reagan).

I forgot Garfield. Whatever. It's still not, you know, a habit.

But I thought it was a profound American tradition, and possibly a carnival game! What, did that broadway musical lie to me?

Hey, sure beats us Brits. We just had the one PM shot. And I've never heard of him.

There are some high schools where the teachers have to spend 3 days to a week explaining decimals. Not how to use them. What they are. This may have been one of those schools and the teacher picked up whatever he could find as something they would get. Definitely blown out of proportion.

How is this bad? Sounds to me like the teacher was just using an interesting, accessible, jokey analogy to teach some kids geometry. I would have loved to have a teacher like that.

Lapin wrote:

Lady Anne wrote:

Assassination attempts were made on numerous presidents, starting with Andrew Jackson. They were successful four times (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy) and nearly successful once (Reagan).

I forgot Garfield. Whatever. It's still not, you know, a habit.

Everyone forgets Garfield. All the time. And Jackson had it coming.

Since this is somewhat related, the office of President of the US has been said to be cursed from 1840-1960, in that every president elected in a year ending in zero during that time died in office, one way or another. Reagan survived his tenure, but--as was mentioned--was shot in '81 and nearly died. Bush is the first president since 1840 who was elected in a 0 year that did not die or nearly die in office.

Unless you count the pretzel incident.

KelinciHutan wrote:

Lapin wrote:

Lady Anne wrote:

Assassination attempts were made on numerous presidents, starting with Andrew Jackson. They were successful four times (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy) and nearly successful once (Reagan).

I forgot Garfield. Whatever. It's still not, you know, a habit.

Everyone forgets Garfield. All the time. And Jackson had it coming.

Now that I've got that out of the way, I have to agree that this is a rather strange example to use. Some maths teachers try to make the lesson interesting like that, but that one seems a bit inappropriate. Maybe it is being blown out of proportion a bit, but there's the question of why he picked that particular one up to begin with.

Well, it's a tricky thing. One math teacher who uses criminal activities as examples to reach his students can be hailed as a pioneer and get movies made about him, while another who uses the same ones can see his career destroyed within days. ["I don't want that monster teaching my Jimmy about pimps and hos! He's only sixteen! He doesn't even know those terms!"]

Why wasn't he teaching this a few years back about bush? He was next in line.

Drabbler wrote:

Unless you count the pretzel incident.

I know I do

I like to think that the curse petered out rather than abruptly ending. That explains the decreasing severity, from "dead" to "shot but lived" to "choked on a pretzel."

Nah, I like the idea that the curse went after Reagan time and again, and he was just too tough to kill, until the curse, itself battered and broken, passed away quietly in January, 1989. The pretzel incident was just one of those embarrassing moments. That he survived his term did show, though, that Reagan had defeated the curse rather than being a one-off.


EDIT: I just realized that kinda makes the Gipper sound like the Final Girl in a slasher movie. Y'know, like the film's been setting up Kennedy for the role when he gets whacked in the last act and Reagan has to step in to take on the Zero Killer.

It's certainly a novel idea but not exactly smart. Surely somebody intelligent enough to be a teacher should also be intelligent enough to realize that mentioning something like assassinating the president, even for illustration purposes only, is likely to get a handful of people upset. Therefore I am not at all surprised that he is suspended.

Angles are not at all difficult to understand, just teaching the maths and how to use a protractor would suffice. If the teacher didn't think that numbers alone would stick in the students minds, then he could have used a different example like playing pool.

BadficReadings wrote:

Angles are not at all difficult to understand, just teaching the maths and how to use a protractor would suffice. If the teacher didn't think that numbers alone would stick in the students minds, then he could have used a different example like playing pool.

Yes, and no. Pool is a pretty boring example. Shooting someone is a pretty memorable example. (I had a pysch professor use examples about going to a rock concert where the building burns down and a girl walking her pet lion down a dangerous street for how phobias start and discriminative stimuli respectively. Extreme situations, yes, but I remembered the things he was teaching because the examples were extreme.) The mistake this teacher made, obviously, was the "assassinate the president" part. You can't say that and not get into trouble. He could have used a sniper on a mission, he could have done a how-to on crashing a plane on the Hudson river so that all the passengers survive, he could have used any one of a thousand extreme, crazy, out-there, memorable examples that would have gotten his students to remember what he was talking about, and instead he decides to do a how-to on killing the president. That would be where he went wrong. Especially since it's actually illegal to say that.

I'm all for stimulation of students with creative and novel approaches to boring topics, but assassination? I really don't care if you're talking about Obama, Bush, the Governor, or what not. There are rules and policies about what should be used as demonstrative examples in classroom activities (and if there aren't, there sure should be).

Suspend him, and tell him that the next screw-up like this will be the last.

You mean it's illiegal to say you're going to kill the president? Even theoretically?

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

You mean it's illiegal to say you're going to kill the president? Even theoretically?

I'm not entirely sure, but it actually might be.