Picture of Snoozing Sub Gets Student Suspended

[Snake Alchemist]

Picture of Snoozing Sub Gets Student Suspended

A ninth grader who snapped a picture of a snoozing substitute teacher with his cell phone camera and posted it on a social network is in hot water with his school district.

The unnamed student, who attends Mustang Mid-High School in Mustang, Okla., was suspended, according to ABC affiliate KOCO.

The picture shows a "close-eyed man reclining behind a desk", The Oklahoman reported.

Mustang Public Schools denied ABCNews.com's request for an interview but issued a statement acknowledging it had conducted an internal investigation into the actions of the student and the substitute teacher.

http://news.yahoo.com/picture-snoozing-sub-gets-student-suspended-231953738--abc-news.html

This seems topsy-turvy.

[Snake Alchemist]

1. Corrected the title. nt

[RKP5637]

2. Yep, as usual, punish the messenger.

[Snake Alchemist]

3. I love the trumped up charges against the student. nt

[RKP5637]

4. Yep, it sends the message to the student, submit to authority right or wrong, ask no questions,

just submit to authoritarianism like a good little sheep. Vote republican when you grow up!

[Snake Alchemist]

5. Teachers/authority is never wrong.

Pink Floyd has never been so right.

[yellowcanine]

16. The student was wrong to post the pic. Could have gone to school admin. instead.

By posting the pic the student violated the teacher's right to privacy. That in itself is pretty Republican in a James O'Keefe kind of way, don't you think?

[RKP5637]

41. One of the things I find troubling today is that many events like this that would have

been inconsequential not too many years ago, now get magnified out of proportion by the ease of posting pictures, etc. worldwide. Something like this kids might have giggled about or told a few classmates, but the circle would not have been spread widely.

I recall in school a few of our teachers use to have nips in the faculty room. You could really smell it on their breath when they came back to class. They were excellent teachers and it was no big deal to the students. Today, something like that would probably be spread across the Internet.

[yellowcanine]

47. Don't get me wrong - I am not defending the teacher. The teacher is being paid to supervise that

class. They can't do that if they are sleeping or otherwise not engaged. Now it is possible the teacher wasn't sleeping. Eyes closed doesn't necessarily mean sleeping. So a still picture is not necessarily definitive. Even more reason why posting a picture on the internet is unjustified.

I would never defend teachers drinking alcohol during the school day. If students could smell it on their breath it is a big deal. Sets a lousy example, for one thing. And some students have alcohol dependencies of their own. How does a teacher drinking on the job help them deal with their alcohol problem?

[RKP5637]

49. This happened soooo long ago, it didn't seem to be a problem way back then.

[yellowcanine]

55. A lot of crap happened long ago in schools and didn't seem to be a problem. But it was.

A lot of physical abuse under the guise of corporal punishment, for example. And sexual abuse also. Long ago doesn't mean squat.

[RKP5637]

56. That was certainly true!!! Fortunately, I was in a very progressive school system that was

pretty strict about rights. Any teacher employing corporal punishment would have been kicked out immediately. That said, yep, many schools were horrid places "long ago." I was thinking about my particular school system when I said "long ago." ... I should have qualified that. I was very lucky as a kid to have the educational system we did.

[yellowcanine]

60. Unfortunately I was not as lucky. I had some teachers who were downright sadistic.

The shop teacher who would grab the nearest piece of scrap lumber out and smack a kid with it on the butt. This same teacher would patrol the school lobby in the morning before homeroom and drag misbehaving students outside by the ear. As far as I know he never got reprimanded for this - at least not while I was there.

The phys ed teacher who would stand outside the shower room with a paddle and without warning nail kids on the bare ass as they walked by - all for being too noisy in the shower.

A teacher who gave a hard paddling to an eighth grade girl for not finishing her homework and the main reason being she did not know how to do the assignment and had no one at home who could help her. This really happened. I still get mad about it when I think of it. That teacher was later fired for having inappropriate sexual relationships with high school girls by the way.

[RKP5637]

61. That's horrible that kids should be subjected to this type of crap. I would be still

angry too. Just reading what you wrote makes me angry. Too much of this crap is/was tolerated.

[yellowcanine]

62. Yeah it pissed me off and even at the time I knew it was wrong. Public school also, btw.

People used to talk about the nuns at Catholic schools but I doubt they were any worse than some of these cretins.

[Enrique]

18. a substitute teacher is not a very powerful figure

it's a fairly low-status position, and I have problems with any forms of surveillance of workers, which this is in a way.

I have nodded off at work, have you? Did either of us have dozens of kids with cameras ready to catch the moment?

[Snake Alchemist]

22. I nodded off once during surgery, but we were able to fix the colon I slightly nicked. nt

[mackattack]

57. My mother is an RN

She said they have had a few docs who come drunk to surgery. Of course they wont let them perform the operation. Yikes!

[RKP5637]

27. I recall well that sometimes the pressure was so great at work that many of us use to sleep

in our cars at lunchtime!

[DerBeppo]

38. I still do

and often. I can't remember the last time I was able to eat lunch during lunch. Seven years in and I'm still surprised by how physically draining teaching can be.

[RKP5637]

42. The stress on teachers today is incredible. It's one of the most worthwhile professions IMO, yet

often teachers are not treated well.

[Enrique]

6. that's what it sounds like, but we don't know the details

stories involving teachers often turn out not to be as they appear, in my experience.

[RKP5637]

11. You touched on a good point I often think about, we never seem to get the

whole story on many things, anymore. Sometimes I flip through various media sources on the same event, and often they vary by 180 degrees on the story.

[mackattack]

58. There was that story

about the basketball players being attacked by the opposing team for praying......when in fac they were attacked because they were mocking the team by "tebowing" them.


complete 180.

[Snake Alchemist]

13. This looks like a case where a picture is worth a 1000 words. nt

[Brickbat]

15. Have you seen the picture? I couldn't find it.

[Snake Alchemist]

17. Have a feeling it's been scrubbed.

Probably under legal threat.

[Brickbat]

34. Oh, the way you were talking, I figured you had seen it, instead of just reading a vague story.

[Snake Alchemist]

35. I have the same as you. The words of a parent and the words of some school officials.

We'll have to wait for more.

[RKP5637]

48. Was this the picture? lol

[Ikonoklast]

37. Really? What does the picture say about the circumstances at that point in time?

Was the teacher sitting at his desk between classes, taking a break?

Was the teacher waiting for students to come in for the next class to begin?

Was the teacher by himself on his own time in an empty classroom, and the kid thought it would be funny to take a pic and say that this is what the teacher was doing during class time?

Pictures without context are funny things, they can say almost anything your agenda wishes them to say, you know, like 'teachers bad', 'teachers lazy', that kind of thing.

[Snake Alchemist]

39. I'm sure the other students can corroborate. nt

[Ikonoklast]

46. Facts not in evidence.

Assumption made that there were any other people present besides the teacher and the one student.

No other students were mentioned in the article.

[Snake Alchemist]

50. If that was the case, then I hope that comes out. nt

[nykym]

7. One would wonder if

the snoozing sub is a related to someone in the school's administration?

[Enrique]

14. if the sub had connections

would he be working as a sub?

[Brickbat]

8. Pretty short on details. Nothing about whether this was during class time or what, so hard to get

all outraged yet.

ETA: I'm not going to get outraged about a kid getting punished for taking a picture and posting it to Facebook. There's better ways to report issues than that, and he should know it.

[yellowcanine]

9. If any student taking a pic of a teacher or other student and posting it gets suspended - Ok.

Because it is an invasion of privacy and that should not be tolerated. A teacher sleeping is not committing a crime. The student could have gone to school administrators with the picture and made her case that the situation justified breaking the use of cell phone rule. Because a sleeping teacher is a problem.

However, if other students doing the same thing are not suspended then this is selective enforcement and the punishment does not fit the crime.

[Snake Alchemist]

10. "The student could have gone to school administrators"

ROFL.

[yellowcanine]

19. So you would rather train a little James O' Keefe disciple?

Right to privacy is not something to be given up lightly and students should learn that violating it is not ok.

[Snake Alchemist]

20. The powerful tend to protect their own.

Also you end up with a he said / she said argument if you have no proof.

[LanternWaste]

25. I imagine you have a very, very low bar for what you consider power...

First time I've ever read a substitute teacher as being 'powerful'. I'm trying to think of the great powers I welded when I was subbing, and have yet to come up with anything.


I imagine you then have quite a low bar for what you perceive as powerful...

[Snake Alchemist]

26. Compared to a student, very much so.

This kid looks to be a whistleblower. That's a good thing.

[LanternWaste]

29. Again, the bar you set for power is rather low.

"Compared to a student, very much so..."

Again, the bar you set for power is rather low. That, in and of itself, has implications...

[Snake Alchemist]

31. The gap in power between any teacher and a student is wide.

You do not agree?

[yellowcanine]

30. Having the "proof" didn't require posting it for everyone to see.

Taking the picture may have been against the school rules and yes it is possible the student might have "gotten into trouble" by showing it to school administrators but posting the pic online is a serious violation of the teacher's privacy. Since you are defending this I assume you have no problem with the O'Keefes of the world going around getting "proof" of wrong doing and them making the photos public. Because I don't see the difference.

[Snake Alchemist]

33. Yes, it would have been better to bring it to his parents and contact a lawyer. Agreed.

So you are against whistleblowers in general? Surely you see the difference between making up things out of whole cloth and this?

[yellowcanine]

40. I am not against whistle blowing. That isn't what the student did, imo.

Whistle blowing in this instance would have been the student taking the picture of the sleeping teacher, showing it to school administrators AND THEN, IF the administrators simply ignored the infraction of the sub and only punished the student for violating school policy - going to a higher authority - or maybe even a news media outlet with the information. Whistle blowing is not unjustified violations of a person's privacy by posting pictures of them on the web without permission. The sub was sleeping, not abusing a student or committing some kind of crime against a student or another teacher. It is not ok to take pictures of people and post them on the internet without their permission. It just isn't. That is a much more basic principle than making sure that a sleeping teacher gets reprimanded.

[Snake Alchemist]

45. I would be afraid the administrators would just confiscate the camera and delete the photo.

I would definitely tell my parents first and make copies before heading to the administrators.

It is also not okay for a teacher to sleep during class. Many occupations fire you for that.

[Kellerfeller]

68. Openly taking a picture in a public setting also is not a crime

If the student had gone to the administrators, would the student be getting national support when they came down on him?

Why is the onus not on the admin to police their employees?

[yellowcanine]

71. Taking the picture is not but posting it on the internet might be - at least in some jurisdictions.

At the least the student is vulnerable to a civil suit for breach of privacy.

It is not clear what the administration would have done if the student had gone to them with the picture so that is a hypothetical. I believe the suspension was a result of putting the pic on the internet, not for taking it.

[tabasco]

72. LOL. Ridiculous.

What expectation of privacy is there in a room full of students?

People are paying taxes so this lazy fucker can sleep on the job.

The student has every right to show the picture anywhere he wants.

[yellowcanine]

73. Room full of students? Not the same as posting the pic on the WWW. No the student does not have

the right to post it anywhere he wants.

[montanto]

12. So many missing details its hard to comment, but

I can say that many schools have a zero tolerance policy on cell phone/camera use during class time. I'm not even gonna start on "sleeping" subs.

[OhioChick]

21. Sounds like the wrong "follow up action" was taken n/t

[Rex]

23. So what did the student learn?

That adults lie, cheat and steal.

[a simple pattern]

36. ... and sleep during class.

[tawadi]

24. Hope the student, or the student's family, sues. eom

[LiberalAndProud]

28. My granddaughter was suspended for texting during class.

I think banning cell phones in the classroom is a wise and defensible policy. Just because the kid caught the teacher being bad doesn't make it okay to disregard student rules of conduct.

[Kellerfeller]

69. I think we need to revisit the legality of low-power

jammers that can kill a signal within a short range. That could solve the problem.

[Snake Alchemist]

32. Wasn't there a recent thread extolling the benefits of iPads in classrooms.

Don't iPads have cameras?

[yellowcanine]

43. Yes, I fail to see the relevance though. The school isn't banning cell phones, just using them in

class. Presumably if the iPad features are being used for educational purposes there would be no issue. Snapping a pic of the teacher and posting it on the internet would not be an educational purpose.

[cbdo2007]

44. Pretty easy to take a picture where it looks like someone is sleeping.

Half the pictues I take have my eyes closed.

This happens a lot during the SOTU address and other places. Remember when they suposedly "caught" Nancy Pelosi sleeping during the SOTU a few years ago (I think it was her).

We dont' know the details here and a picture of someone with their eyes closed, doesn't mean the person was asleep.

[Hugabear]

51. Oh, look - it's an anti-teacher thread!

I'm beginning to see a pattern here...

[Snake Alchemist]

52. You view this as anti-teacher?

Seems to be more anti-administrator.

[Aerows]

53. Hell - I've had classes so boring

I fell asleep in them. I fell asleep once taking notes because it was damn hot in the classroom, and I was one of those that always sat in the front row. I couldn't read a damn thing I had written, and was drooling all over my notes.

If the students in the front row are that bored, it doesn't surprise me that a teacher could put themselves to sleep. Eat a ton of carbs for lunch and then an hour later go to Mickey Mouse Geometry in a hot classroom? It's enough to make anyone fall asleep.

[RKP5637]

63. I used to have a history class 2-3, and about 2:30 I used to almost fall asleep. The teacher was

boring, spoke in a monotone, the class was boring, and the teacher's idea of history was writing dates on the board and a sentence after each date as to what happened. It wasn't 'till college I realized there was more to history than remembering dates. I used to get sooo tired I'm surprised I didn't just pass out.

[Aerows]

65. That one time

I took notes *in my SLEEP*. I was trying, but damn. I witnessed the notes I took, which looked like my hand spasming just to keep up with the lecture. It was HOT AS HELL in the class, and the door was open to let the breeze in, and well, Aerows drifted into dreamland trying to pretend she was paying attention.

EDIT: And it took me going to college to realize that math was actually interesting - Calculus and Physics could be challenging, just not when taught on a hot spring day when I'm full of french fries

[Kellerfeller]

70. Funniest one I ever had was in college.

There were about 15 of us in an upper level engineering class and every single student fell asleep.. But the Prof kept going! I woke up, looked around and saw everyone out cold, chuckled to myself a dozed back off.

I never understood why he kept going. I guess he was having fun!

[Aerows]

75. LOL!

That's hilarious.

[Jennicut]

54. I substitute at elementary schools on a regular basis

You just cannot decide to take a nap in the middle of class. You are there to supervise. Using cell phones is banned from a lot of class rooms but punishing the kid is really, really stupid to me. Granted these are high school kids but having a sleeping adult in the classroom is dangerous. Seems like a very backward punishment to me.

[yellowcanine]

59. Just pointing out that we don't actually know that anyone was napping.

All we have is a report of a picture posted on a website which shows a person with their eyes closed. Pretty thin reed to hang anything on, imo. People do close their eyes momentarily for things other than napping. I have had teachers who would close their eyes when deciding how to answer a question from a student. I don't think that is what happened here - I think the teacher probably was napping and I don't think anyone is saying that teachers should be napping in class. They can at least wait until they are driving home.

[Are_grits_groceries]

64. Sleeping is the LAST thing I would do as a substitute.

I taught school and I have substituted. Substitutes catch hell!

I would be afraid to go to sleep in most classes. I would be afraid that I would 'disappear' or something. Even good students will cause trouble when substitutes are in charge.

[JI7]

66. how do they know he was sleeping and not just closing his eyes for a few moments and thinking ?

i didn't see the pic but it seems like he could easily be doing what i mention.

[Quantess]

67. My thoughts exactly.

[Initech]

74. There's got to be more to this.