It Should Be A Teaching Moment, Not An Arresting Moment
Yet another school principal, Georgia's Jamille Miller Brown, shows that being in the top job at a school and having judgment do not go hand in hand.
A student, Keandre Varner, Instagrammed Miller's mug shot he dug up -- adding that he thought she'd been arrested for a DUI, which she hadn't.
Time to call the kid and the kids parent (or parent) into the principal's office for a chat about...no, not posting the shot, which is his right under the First Amendment, but about accusing people of things when you don't have all the information, and how hurtful that can be. Also, there can be financial consequences -- like lawsuits.
Of course, the principal didn't do that. Instead, she reportedly tried to have the kid arrested, showing herself to be a tiny, power-mad bureaucrat who has no business having power over anything of more consequence than a hamburger grill.
Chris Matyszczyk writes at CNET:
You might be wondering what she asked the policeman to arrest him for. I am wondering the same thing.The policeman might have wondered the same thing too, as he reportedly refused to arrest Varner.
What was Miller Brown to do? Why, suspend the miserable miscreant.
You're still here, aren't you? What could she have suspended him for? Well, school administrators declared that Varner has been suspended for disseminating the picture to many people and for behaving in a belligerent manner when on the principal's carpet.
Here's a twist: Varner's mom, Nakesha Thomas, told WSB-TV that Miller Brown had sent her a letter stating that he had been suspended for "spreading misinformation."
Are you reaching exhaustion yet? Well, there is nothing in the school's rules that prevent students from spreading misinformation. This is the Internet age. You're supposed to spread misinformation.
This may or may not have been a contributory factor to reducing Varner's suspension from four days to two.
Also, the principal is teaching a lesson of sorts -- not to follow her example in being so irresponsible as to miss a court appearance about a speeding ticket.
Now, it is possible that she didn't get the notice, blah, blah, blah. But, it takes a hell of a lot of ignoring before a traffic ticket turns into a bench warrant. (Forget to pay it on time and you start getting a small storm of angry red notices.)
No doubt charged with "Contempt of Petty Government Bureaucrat"
Not as dangerous to your personal safety as "Contempt of Cop", but no less infuriating.
Chris at May 10, 2013 11:59 AM
It's horrible to watch, but here's the principal's violent demise from the brutal cell phone assault:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsI6wUEakP0
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at May 10, 2013 4:55 PM
Wikipedia: Sayre's Law [edited]
Wallace Stanley Sayre (1905–1972): "Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low."
The bitterness of academic life was memorably noted by Max Weber in "Science as a Vocation" (1918) [edited]:
=== ===
Academic careers are beset by chance. When a young scientist or scholar comes to seek career advice, ask him in utter seriousness: "Do you think that, year after year, you will be able to stand to see one mediocrity after another promoted over you, and still not become embittered and dejected?"
Of course, the answer is always: "Naturally, I live only for my calling." But only in a very few cases have I found them able to undergo it without suffering spiritual damage. These things have to be said about the external conditions of the academic career.
=== ===
AMG: And the above is about universities. Consider the numbing environment of public education, where daily tasks are specified in detailed bureaucratese. People who climb to the top of the administration are carefully selected by that environment and come to be proud of their accomplishments in following the detailed rules without having been found out.
( pjmedia.com/instapundit/167934/ )
Glenn Reynolds provides this comment and link:
MOCKERY: Laughter is the Greatest Weapon Against The Tyranny Of “Very Serious People”. “Never forget, the ‘Achilles heel’ of anyone who’s driving aim in life is to CONTROL the lives of other people is his or her aching need to be taken ‘seriously’.” Most of them make it easy by being so laughable.
AMG: That is why the principal wanted the student to be arrested. She saw the student as committing a crime against her by public mockery.
Andrew_M_Garland at May 10, 2013 5:41 PM
Every time I hear the term "teaching moment," I think of the President. He ruined the term for me. I'm referring to the time that his former professor Gates was being a belligerent jackass with the Cambridge Police Department. Obama rather stupidly -- without knowing all the facts -- decided that the Cambridge Police department "acted stupidly."
On the contrary, of the three of them -- Gates, the policeman and the President -- the policeman was the only one who didn't "act stupidly."
But somehow, Grandpa Obama decided he had something to teach these naughty children, and decided to make it a teaching moment with a Beer Summit.
He had nothing to teach; he had something to learn.
Patrick at May 10, 2013 6:33 PM
Depends on your locale.
But obviously this petty bureaucrat did not learn the best answer to speech is more speech. If she had replied "I failed to pay a speeding ticket for <whatever reason> X number of years ago. It was a mistake that is now way in the past. Don't let this happen to you." It would have been over in ten minutes.
Now she will be known for trying, and failing, to get a student arrested. How much respect will that generate among the staff and students?
Every day, I wish more and more that breathing wasn't an autonomic function.
Jim P. at May 10, 2013 7:44 PM
Miah
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at May 11, 2013 12:39 AM
Sure, chew a Pop-Tart into the shape of a pistol and you're in deep trouble.
Set a classmate on fire? We'll think about it.
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2013/05/11/bullying-results-in-north-suburban-girls-hair-on-fire/?utm_medium=VPH&utm_source=topvph_news&utm_campaign=457735
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at May 11, 2013 1:00 PM
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