Tam teacher told to leave rifle at home

[XemaSab]

Tamalpais High School Teacher David Lapp will have to hang up the gun he uses in class experiments to demonstrate the laws of physics.
Most every year since 1992, Lapp has conducted an experiment for his students in which he fires into a wooden block using a .30 caliber M1 carbine, a Korean War-era rifle. Students are asked to calculate the speed of the bullet.

"For the time being, we are going to stop the use of a gun in experiments," said Bob Ferguson, superintendent of the Tamalpais Union High School District. "He does a lot of things to grab students' attention. However, this garnered more attention from the public.

http://www.marinij.com/marin/ci_3868067

[Akoto]

1. I might get flamed for saying so, but ...

Teaching is a hard job. It takes a lot out of a person. Any instructor who uses creative methods to capture the interest of his students should be praised.

If Mr. Lapp has been conducting this experiment since 1992, and has yet to bring any harm to one of his students, why not? It seems like any teacher who dares bring the lessons beyond the textbooks is squashed for the effort.

[MercutioATC]

12. I agree. Innovative teachers are the most successful teachers.

...and we sure as hell need some successful teachers...

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

66. No flames for me. That's a cool experiment. Here's an even cooler one...

Measure the speed of the bullet as it rips through two wires:

    +-------A------------------B-------+
    |                |                 |   <----------------+
    |               /                  |                    |
    | Battery       \ Resistor         | Capacitor          Measure
---------           /                =====                  Voltage
  -----             \                =====                  Here
    |               /                  |                    |
    |               \                  |   <----------------+
    |                |                 |
    +----------------+-----------------+

Wires are arranged so bullet rips through A (decay of capacitor voltage starts) and then B (resistor is cut off, capacitor voltage stabilizes). Bullet speed is then a function of the distance between the wires, the battery voltage, the resistance, the capacitance, and the final voltage measured. Deriving the exact formula is left as an exercise for the reader.

[NNadir]

2. This is one case where I approve of the use of a gun.

It is a stimulating approach. It's memorable.

One of the things that hurts science is when science seems tame. It isn't. It's about thrills on some level.

I think the reason I'm a chemist today has a lot to do with my high school Chemistry teacher doing that "throw the sodium in water" thing. It was a small piece, in a small amount of water, but I always remembered it.

(I hate to say it, but I repeated that experiment myself a few times on a somewhat larger scale. It still thrills me after 30 years.)

[Massacure]

3. hehe, my chemistry class last year was very memorable as well.

Like the time one student put hot embers in the garbage can and lit it on fire. Then he throw it in the closest sink thinking the water would put it out, but that group was using some flammable chemicals so it lit the sink on our fire as well. Meanwhile our chemistry just sat there laughing his ass off the entire time as our class tried to put the fire out. As amusing as it is now, it sure wasn't funny at the time. It taught everyone a thing or too about proper procedures though. :rofl:

[Cronus Protagonist]

13. Even when the exact same task could be done with a frisbee?

A tennis ball, a golf ball and club or even an air pistol? None of which are lethal.

[Pavulon]

27. Everything is Lethal

a pencil is lethal, so is a tooth brush.

Air rifles are , in my opinion, more dangerous than firearms that use gunpowder because they are treated as toys.

The Chemicals in most HS labs are capable of causing death and permanent injury without combination. I would be sure you could walk into a chem lab and make a chemical weapon, or explosive with out much trouble.

[Cronus Protagonist]

44. OK, so you want to be deliberately obtuse

Frisbee = gun = golf club & ball

This is not so in the real world. I suggest you may have gunpowder in your eyes because you appear blind to reality. Your credibility is shot, pardon the pun.

[Pavulon]

64. You miss the point

There is no logical reason to do this. There are plenty of ways to injure your self in a lab.

Unless there was a problem with control or procedure this is PC crap.

My credibility as an EE or what. Credibility is a very subjective thing.

[snooper2]

62. I guess you can pull your kid..

Out of that class then...

[Selatius]

4. I don't think that gun should be in the classroom, IMHO

If a teacher wants to utilize a rifle or a gun and fire that weapon to help teach students, then do it at the shooting range, not on a school campus. I find it worrisome the principal even OK'd it at all without suggesting he take it to the shooting range for added safety.

[progressivebydesign]

9. Exactly what I thought. take them to a safe environment.

I just can't fathom that anyone at the school thought shooting a vintage rifle around kids was a good thing.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

11. How's he going to do that....

when the funds for field trips have been cut down to nothing?

25 years ago, when I was in school, we had at least 3 field trips every year.
My kids went to the same school 10 years ago, they got none. :(

[slackmaster]

17. I agree with you - Why not Chabot?

The Chabot Gun Club is within easy driving distance of the whole Bay Area.

It's one of the best public shooting facilities in California.

http://www.chabotgunclub.com/

On Edit:

If I ran the school system, I'd have the students go on a field trip to the range for two purposes: Physics experiments, plus gun safety training by a qualified instructor.

[XemaSab]

22. Only the honors students had field trips

:(

[Pavulon]

26. Mercury, HCL, 15%peroxide

Are all MUCH more serious health threats than a rifle. Go to a school and see if they can give you MSDS on all the stuff they have in their labs.

A shooting range, unless it is closed to the public, can be a dangerous place. I have seen many stupid things done with weapons at ranges.

Bottom line this is PC idiocy that serves no purpose.

[formercia]

45. Not counting the lead vapor from primers and bullets. n/t

[Pavulon]

65. There is no

lead in primers and the amount of lead exposure from firing a single rifle round would be less than handling the weights used to balance your tires. Lead is very common.


It is a silly pc reactive decision made due to fear and stupidity.

[fakingit]

5. Confusing

Although it is wrong for a teacher to bring a gun to school, it is for a learning cause. So I honestly agree for the teacher to be able to use it for an experiment. School systems and the law never tend to get along. This is interesting though...

[slackmaster]

19. My HS chemistry teacher had samples of high explosives

We had to call the bomb squad in my senior year because his pound of picric acid had crystallized.

It was a pretty fun day.

[ljaycox]

24. WOW....

A pound of picric ready to rock!!!.....that was a very special day indeed

[happyslug]

6. Teachers have been told to make Science More Exciting for 40 years

But every-time I hear of an attempt someone complains and the Schools back off. For example having the Students push a cart down the hallway an by measuring what it moves, its speed and energy at the point of impact can e calculated (a variation of the experiment in question, but people complained by the "Danger" of the cart hitting someone).

History is another case, weapons can make history more "exciting" to students (Even if NONE of the Weapons are fired, through sometimes firing blanks may help the student to remember the topic). I always said Teachers missed a punch by having someone use a sewing machine to sew a shirt while the person next to him hand sews the same shirt (To show the significance of the Sewing machine and how it changed life between the Revolution and Civil Wars). By the end of the Class period every student would see how much the Sewing Machine changed Society (And it would be best if the students have NEVER sewed before). I have found out students do NOT hate history, but most of the topics are NOT what are of interest to them. Given them "hands-on" History would give them a better idea of why history is important.

Another example would be stopping on old Forbes Road off US 30 and tell the students this is the MAIN thoroughfare between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh prior to the Railroad, if you ever been on the old road (It was completely bypassed when US 30 was built in the 1920s) it is a narrow lane barely wider than most inner cities alleyways. Similar roads exists throughout the US bypassed by newer faster roads, but they are important for students to learn about in that these are the roads used to settle this country, not the paved, straight and car friendly roads of today. I can see such a stop being prevented either because it is inconvenient for the trip OR it might be "Unsafe" for the students to be on a country road while on a school trip.

Another experiment I would like to see is a Trig experiment, having students going out a measuring the shadow of a tree, and the angle of the top of the shadow to top of the tree to see how tall it is (Angle-Side-Angle will give you the height of the tree, the angle at the base of the tree and its Shadow can be assumed to be a Right Angle, the other two angles MUST then equal 90 degree, thus with one side you can calculate the other two sides and thus get the triangles other two sides including the tree's height). The beauty of this experiment is have each student measure the tree and its angle, and half way through the experiment tell the students that since the sun MOVES so does the shadow length so each student SHOULD come up with different NUMBERS for the Length of the Shadow and the angle to the top, but the height of the tree will always be the same (It also tell them of the inherent error one gets when doing real life science measurements).

All of these would make science, Math and History more interesting but stopped for various reasons including schools fears of their students being outside the school building during school time.

[Posteritatis]

32. A class I TAd this past year

had class presentations towards the end on various current-events issues - women's rights in developing countries, international law, etc. One group did a presentation on child soldiers.

To that end, they brought in a (demilitarized!) assault rifle and a young child to (try to) tote it.

Rather effective image, that.

Also, one of my high school teachers described the Battle of Thermopylae by standing in the doorway armed with a yardstick and daring the class to move him from there without getting touched by the ruler. That was one of the more entertaining moments. ;)

[happyslug]

51. The Battle of Thermopile's a classic screwup.

The Persians had huge numbers of Archers (and in the end the Sparta's seems to have been killed by Archers). In the initial assaults it was decided to attack with line infantry which were easily defeated by the Spartans. Had the archers been used from the first part of the battle, the Spartans would have been killed and the Persians have an easy pass though the Gap.

Why did the Persian Emperor sent in line Infantry (which under Persian doctrine were lightly armed and armored compared to the Greeks)? The answer appears to be arrogance, i.e. a quick push through the Spartan line and then to Athens. What the Persians should have done was just line up their archers and shoot down the Spartan Line and after it was almost shot to pieces than move in their lightly armed infantry. In Stead the Persians kept their archers in Reserve while their lightly armed infantry engaged the heavy armed and armored Spartans. When the Persians did bypass the Spartans, the Persians ended up shooting the Spartans down anyway.

[Redneck Socialist]

7. Too bad

sounds like a cool class.

[XemaSab]

14. Eh, I had him for physics

and the guy's an asshole.

He's the same teacher a few years back that spoke out against mandatory liberal indoctrination assemblies.

[BrotherBuzz]

39. What's with physics teachers at Tam?

I had an asshole physics teacher, Mr Pitts, back in 1967 who was a rabid pro Vietnam warhawk. Our ideology clashed at every turn and I was encouraged to drop his class before he failed me. Fortunately, we had a most unusual teacher at Tam who offered alternatives to the conventional science classes. Among others, he created a class called 'Design Mechanics, and Problem Solving' that challenged us to think outside the box, plus we got to build a bunch of neat stuff in the process. I learned all sorts of skills that have served me well (wood shop, electronics lab, metal shop, welding, print shop, foundry.....). He opened my eyes and taught me how to think....Thanks Roger, and fuck you, Mr Pitts, may you rot in hell.

[XemaSab]

47. Sounds lke Lapp

When I was there he was a diehard Rush Limbaugh fan.

Oh, and he never answered my questions in class then flunked my ass, so maybe I'm just bitter.

[slackmaster]

60. How do his students do in general?

Are they well prepared for physics courses in colleges and universities?

A teacher's politics don't mean squat. Actually, I think it's beneficial for children and teenagers to hear a variety of viewpoints. There was a paucity of right-wing viewpoints in most of my lower education, and even in college I rarely encountered an "out" Republican until I had one as a roommate.

He was a high-energy physics buff BTW - used our dorm room window and aluminum foil as a capacitor in the circuit the fed the 6-foot, 1.3 megavolt Tesla coil he built.

[XemaSab]

61. I think he's a decent enough teacher for 80% or so of his students

The other 20%, notsomuch... Either you love him or you hate him, and I was in the latter category for the most part. I really suck at math, and I think in those days I did poorly in his class because my math skills were bad, and I'm not blaming him for it, but I think maybe I needed a tutor. :shrug:

[progressivebydesign]

8. My high school daughter thinks he was way wrong.

No kids feel comfortable with a teacher bringing a rifle to school. You just don't shoot a gun during school... there are plenty of other things that would be much more valuable in a physics class than discharging a firarm around students. I'm sorry.. but some people have this wierd obsession with their guns... If a teacher shot a gun off in my daughter's class, I'd be right down there at the school.

[slackmaster]

18. No kids?

Personally I would have enjoyed it a lot when I was in high school, and I'm sure my parents wouldn't have had a problem with it.

But I would agree that the fact that some kids would find it disturbing is enough reason to conduct the experiment somewhere else.

And an air gun would have served well to provide some measurable kinetic energy.

[1monster]

30. I sat in on a physics class where the teacher had the students

measure kinetic engergy by placing a weight on the end of a stting and then spin the string over thier heads. One person spun the weighted string while another counted the number of completed spins within a time period. The length of the string and other factors were considered in the experiments. Each student had a chance to spin the string and count the spins.

All the students were involved in the process, rather than just watching the process and calculating from that. They all seemed to enjoy the experiment because they were involved in creating it.

[slackmaster]

38. They would have had even more fun if they'd built model rockets

For static testing.

[XemaSab]

48. We also built model rockets

I think I still have mine somewhere. :shrug:

[Sgent]

10. Wow...

I still remember taking hunter saftey in my 7th grade PE class.

Everyone used hands on learning -- including using a firing range behind the school.

[ChristianLibrul]

15. Some of you are such ninnies

You need to get over your irrational fear of guns and people who own guns. This teacher is the very best example of a person who uses a gun safely. He's done this experiment for years without incident, and some of you automatically assume he's going to kill half his class. My God, the gas lines to the Bunson burners are more dangerous than a skilled person with a gun. And give him credit for combining history with science. He could have used a plain Jane .22, but he used a Korean War artifact.

Next you'll be demanding the shop teacher use dull tools so no one gets cut, and the Home Ec teacher use Easy Bake ovens so no one gets burnt. You should be asking how many people have gotten hurt by the science teacher's gun, and comparing that to how many people have gotten hurt in gym class or at a football game.

Good grief.

[Paladin]

28. Thump Your Chest All You Want.....

...the fact remains that combining guns and schools in this country has led to some really ugly, tragic incidents in recent years. Parents have a right to be concerned, there's nothing irrational about it.....

[slackmaster]

37. Yes, there has been a real epidemic of teachers going crazy

And shooting up classrooms.

:eyes:

[Paladin]

41. Make Up Your Mind, Slack

You pointed out earlier on this thread that the teacher could have performed the experiment with an air rifle rather than an M-1 carbine. Do you have any kids? Any kids in public schools? Just where was the shooting experiment performed? What safety precautions were in place? And where was the gun stored on the school premises before and after the experiment? These are the kind of questions that responsible parents have a right to ask, without getting accused of being ninnies for asking. If you want to direct some snotty little commments my way, have at it---it's not like I expect anything better from you. Just don't think for a moment that you're contributing anything worthwhile to the dialogue......

[XemaSab]

46. It was in the classroom

There weren't too many safety precautions, and the gun was in Lapp's locked office before and after the experiment, IIRC.

[slackmaster]

50. Answers, in order

Right.
Yes.
No.
In the physics classroom.
I don't know.
I don't know.

Go ahead and ask.

Bottom line - Nobody was hurt. We're talking about a demonstration that has been done by this experienced teacher many times, without any adverse incident.

I haven't called anyone a ninny.

What dialogue?

[1monster]

31. Disagree. An experiment where the students are involved in more

than just watching will make more of a learning impact. With the teacher shooting the gun, the students are just speculators who then calculate the speed of his bullet.

There are other, more clever ways of engaing student participation than shooting a gun.

Yes, it is innovative, but not the most brilliant piece of teaching I've ever heard of.

[michreject]

54. We shot in the gymnasium

A single shot .22 bolt. I was around seven.

[cally]

16. Notice, this is in Marin County

I would guess most of these kids have never seen a gun except on a police officer. We are overrun with deer and wild turkeys and yet there is no suggestion that we allow hunting in the County. I know my daughters would have stood at rapt attention and would have taken home a lesson about guns and not physics. We live in an area where gang violence is a concern and most here fear guns at school. A teacher should not bring a gun to school in this environment when most schools are making huge efforts to keep weapons out of schools.

[Robb]

20. Well, I like the idea

Of course, I live in a rural county where there are excused absences for the first day of elk season. ;)

[MarinCoUSA]

21. am waiting to see Fox New truck inMasrin so I can---

give 'em the finger and tell them to get the hell out of my town.

[Odin2005]

23. This No-Tolerance insanity has got to stop.

That gun is less dangerous then some of the stuff in the science lab. I guess the use of hydrochloric acid should be banned in schools as well. :eyes:

[cmd]

25. Excellent point n/t

[teryang]

29. There's a video going around in my area where a police officer

...brings firearms in the classroom and talks of how he is qualified to handle firearms but students should avoid them and report there presence etc.

The officer proceeds to accidentally shot himself in the ass in front of the class with his glock, scaring the hell out of them.

He tries to act as if he isn't seriously injured and continues the lesson. He then brings out an assault rifle and the children start screaming "put it down! put it down!"

Has anyone else seen this?

[rocktivity]

35. Is this the video you're talking about?

It happened to a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, actually. Here's the DU thread on the subject.

:headbang:
rocknation

[teryang]

40. Yes, that's the one

There's another email going around. It's from another officer who shot himself in the hand while cleaning a a .45 caliber Glock. Unfortunately, it did a lot a damage to his hand. He didn't clear the weapon before cleaning.

I was almost shot accidentally by a former police officer showing me his Ruger 44 magnum "one screw."

I used to use the St. Petersburg Police Pistol range. I was shocked by the number of bullet holes in the walls and dividers between the shooting stations.

[rocktivity]

33. Ballistic pendulums do the job just as well

and they kind of look like guns.



:headbang:
rocknation

[benEzra]

63. He WAS using a ballistic pendulum...

same setup as your photo, except the pendulum was a soft wooden block to safely catch the bullet without ricochet, and replace the spring-loaded launcher with an M1 carbine.

[Bucky]

34. Without his .30-calibre carbine in the room, what will discipline be like?

It's just a guess, but I think a well armed teacher has fewer student disruptions.

[mac56]

36. But even a well armed teacher can become distracted

by a crafty student with a motive.

I agree with the posters who say the gun doesn't belong in the school. Despite all the macho chest-thumping going on in this thread, it's a terrible idea. And I'm of the generation that had kids bringing deer rifles to school - on the bus - for afterschool rifle training. We were just incredibly lucky.

Bad idea then, bad idea now.

[Posteritatis]

52. One of my history teachers

Kept a shortsword dangling over his desk from the rafters. ("of Damocles," obviously.) Kept claiming it was there for disciplinary purposes.

The guy rocked; he's probably the main reason I'm heading into the history education profession myself.

[daleo]

42. I recall Physics problems like this one

If the block of wood was hanging from a string, it was called a ballistic pendulum problem. Otherwise it was just a collision problem - conservation of momentum and energy. We managed to do them without actually seeing a bullet fired into a block of wood though.

Taking a powerful loaded rifle to school seems negligent, should the rifle get into the wrong hands, for example.

[struggle4progress]

43. Anybody ever seen a standard lab experiment go wrong?

Teachers make mistakes doing textbook demos they've done for years. For example, the once-popular "burn a test-tube of hydrogen gas" which, done correctly, produces merely a loud *pop* was known to shatter test-tubes when done a bit too carelessly by experienced demostrators.

Watching the teacher discharge a gun isn't a great learning experience: everything happens way too fast. The kids would have learned more watching a movie from an ultra-high-speed camera.

[XemaSab]

49. Movie time at Tam is fun time

I actually remember the ballistic pendulum lab vividly, come to think of it, which says it must not have been a half bad lab.

My favorite demostration was the one where Lapp had Chris-the-Hottie throw an egg as hard as he could against a blanket... the egg didn't break because the blanket slowed the momentum down, but afterwards someone commented that if you squeeze an egg perfectly from all sides it won't break, and BOY was that ever a wrong idea! I think half the class got splattered. Good times.

[xchrom]

53. that's hysterical -- guns in the classroom!

what a great idea!

there aren't enough guns in classrooms if you ask me.

someone should teach shakespeare with a gun.

:sarcasm:

[Binka]

55. To Be Or Not To Be?

POW! Oops sorry about that. I know this assclown Lapp MANY parents in Marin loathe the jackass.

[maseman]

56. Sodium

We used to take pure sodium in Chemistry and make it explode under the firehood. Sodium, when put into water, reacts chemically to make hydrogen gas. The reaction is hot enough that eventually it ignites the hydrogen to make a mini-explosion. Sounds like a gun going off. Our teacher used to let us do it once per year. I'm sure she cannot do it anymore.

[slackmaster]

57. My metal shop teacher intentionally mixed acetylene and oxygen

He mixed the gases in a large inverted paper drink cup, and ignited it in order to impress upon us the inherent danger of that particular mix.

When he brought a flame to the small hole he'd used to introduce the gas mix into the cup, the thing detonated with a tremendous "BOOM!", shattering the cup into tiny pieces all over the shop. It was a very effective demonstration.

The same teacher had a knack for depicting various shop injuries he'd seen, using several colors of chalk on a blackboard. In spite of his pointed warnings and close supervision the students still managed to do really dumb things, like my fellow student who left a chuck key in a drill press. When he turned the machine on, the key stayed in its index hole until the spindle reached its intended rate of spin. The key, which had been right at face level, flew through a glass window and made a distinctive dent in a square steel support column outside of the classroom. That happened in the summer of 1971, and the dent is still there. That student, who earned the nickname "tractor mechanic", is now a medical doctor.

People have become so pussified, I'd be surprised if most schools still allowed students to make hydrogen "bark" after performing electrolysis of water.

[Odin2005]

67. We got to do this in my Gen Chem lab.

The Alkali metals are so reactive it's funny.

[xchrom]

58. hi binka!

lol -- you are brilliant!

[slackmaster]

59. What really matters is whether or not he is an effective teacher

I can name a few teachers who were reviled by students and parents, old curmudgeons who in the long run turned out to be doing a steady job of preparing students well for colleges and universities.