It's getting worse too, not better. Many kids will have to die from the policy before they bother changing it.

had been reading some Thoreau's 'Civil Disobedience' on the side. A little extra-curricular reading never hurt anybody.

and the courage to override his idiot teacher who should be fired... EMAIL the nurse in a fucking medical emergency while you watch a child who is struggling to breathe hit the floor????

Bravo to Anthony to have the common sense and decency and courage to override his rumheaded teacher and carry his classmate to the nurse which is what the TEACHER should have fucking done and long before the poor kid hit the floor. It just disgusts me that he's being punished for doing what the TEACHER should have done and utterly failed at.

Thank the gods that when I was in school teachers had common sense and actually cared about the health of their students particularly in a medical emergency.

Ugh. I'm so disgusted I could just spit.

next PTO meeting armed for bear.

I would truly like to know what that young woman's parents think about the decision to suspend this kid.

I'd also like to know what the young woman's physician has to say about the suspension.

I think those would be very instructive insights.

I hear you full-boar on that disgust. I'm right there with ya.

that there was some kind of medical emergency - illness or injury - when I was going through school where EVERY time the teacher dove right in to not only help the child but comfort them as well so they knew they hadn't been abandoned that also reassured the rest of the kids that someone was doing what was needed... and further reassured the rest of the kids that should any medical emergency befall them that they wouldn't be abandoned either.

I just cannot wrap my mind around emailing the nurse and just WATCHING a kid who can't bloody BREATHE hit the damn floor! And to treat the kid that overrode his nincompoop teacher with punishment for doing what the teacher should have done just rubs salt in the wound.

EVERY parent that has a kid in that school should be in an uproar over this and terrified of how horribly their child would be treated whether because of a medical emergency or stepping in when the teacher refuses to do what is necessary that their kid will be punished for doing what is DECENT and RIGHT and NECESSARY.

BAH! The more I think about this the more it pisses me off.

over this hasn't diminished your perception of what happened. At all. I think you've nailed it down perfectly.

I was thinking what might be worth a look a few years from now is this young woman's message she writes in Anthony's high school year book their senior year.

That could be, as they say, a moment.

Sickening!

This is screwed up beyond description. Good for Anthony!

walked out of school for this and protested. We would have staged a walk out to protest this guy being suspended.

She was the one who did wrong by endangering the girl's life, not the boy who wanted to save her.

from kids! Just because someone is a teacher, doesn't mean they have any smarts.

If he used an inhaler himself, he might have used his inhaler on her, then they could put him in jail.



Seriously...since when can't a teacher take a student to the nurse in an emergency? Do they have rules now that the teacher cannot, under any circumstances, leave the classroom?

additional work on grammar, but goddam it, his heart is definitely prepared for the adult world.

I'm wondering what the girl's parents think of his suspension.

His classmate needed medical attention. The teacher had checked out of the situation and was no longer of meaningful counsel to events. An 8th grader asserted his instinct to help his classmate.

Good for him.

First off I don't believe the teacher's quote. Because proper grammar would be "We ain't got no time to wait for no email from the nurse."

in question.

I'm glad there was at least one grown-up in the room.

And a new one at that, according to the student.

kid might have saved a life.

"We ain’t got time to wait for no email from the nurse"

Also, isn't a 15 year old generally further along than 8th grade?

This student would be 19 and still in high school.

I often use the vernacular for emphasis.

Any clarification of anyone's skin color? That might have played a roll.

Is it that he got to eighth grade at all speaking like that, or that he hasn't already completed eighth grade? You seem to be bothered by both!

Probably the fact that a student can make it to 8th grade without these basic skills.

is held back a year or misses enough school due to illness or other reasons, he will still be in eighth grade.

to earlier in the year.I was a junior in HS at 15-16 and graduated at 17 a long time ago.

started at five years old due to the cut off dates.

She graduated at 17. I was eighteen.

Students are generally fourteen and fifteen years old in ninth grade.

who aren't even THAT articulate.

Or, he may not have been in America when he should have started school. Or maybe he flunked a grade. Oh, the horrors!

But, let's focus on some perceived failing on his part and ignore that he may have saved someone's life.

Geeze.

is that the kid still has compassion for his fellow human beings, no matter his shortcomings in communication.

The failure of public schools is also a major problem.

Not of his ability to be educated, but of the inability of the administration to be compassionate and able to bend.

Why is what he said and how he said it more important than that?

"The failure of public schools is also a major problem..."

As are biased inferences.

I certainly have my biases when it comes to evaluating the state of affairs in US public schools, as I am sure we all do.

My great grandson has the same disease and we make sure that teachers, coaches etc. know what his problem is and that he has the necessary equipment in his back pack.

I cannot imagine anyone in our schools would suspend a student for this. They should thank him.

The form in question was filled out by a teacher's aide for at-risk students, according to the school website. The student's FB page indicates that she was a new aide, as well.

He is in an alternative school. This usually means he's in a school that deals with "bad" students. I'd guess that explains quite a lot about his age and grade and possibly the vernacular he uses.

Presumably they offer classes that would have taught their students the basics by 8th grade.

when he isn't watching one of his classmates possibly dying before his eyes.

the students may have some behavioral issues, most of the students just need a different atmosphere, more teacher attention, Individual Lesson Plans, and smaller classes to learn.

Most of the kids that I've known who went to the alternative school have gone on to live productive lives and are members in good standing in their communities.

That the kids at the school are always being told they're bad. So, I'm guessing this is an alternative school for kids that are too troublesome for other schools.

in that school.

(to the point of falling out of her chair) is very painful. And people under stress often don't make an effort to speak their best English.

And yes, he's in an alternate school so he's probably had school problems. And 15 years old is a year behind for 8th grade. But he's light years ahead of his teacher morally and in common sense.

The teacher clearly behaved extremely foolishly, that's for sure. Recklessly so.

"criminal negligence".

How anyone with an ounce of empathy could ignore that girl on the floor and sit there waiting for a response to an email is beyond me.

it reminds me of this scene:

The Brits get all the good comedies. Well our version of The Office is better, but how often does that happen?

Nothing will happen to the teacher. The student will be punished but with social media, he may get away with it.

He saved his friend. He has nothing to get away with.

with her "rules and regs" stupidity. I have asthma. I have had a severe attack like the that is described, and let me tell you this: Seconds can make the difference between life and death in a severe asthma attack. As a kid, I had one that went from free breathing to barely able to breathe in close to 4 minutes. One minute more and I would have died. The boy did the right thing by scooping her up and hauling her to the nurse's office. He say how close to death she was and acted to save her life. He should get a commendation and the teacher should be fired for child endangerment. What the teacher did is reprehensible. And the school, too for suspending the boy.

Your dogwhistle seems to be malfunctioning of late.

No idea what your dog whistle comment means.

"ain't got NO time . . . "

"Pardon my impudence, Mistress Teacher but I do believe that Muffy is in need of immediate medical assistance and I shall transport her to the nurse's office posthaste."

I don't understand what you mean by that either.

Anyway, I am just commenting on the language used as transcribed by the person who wrote the report. Students would be well served by learning skills that will help them succeed in life. That is part of the point of attending school.

I don't even see how expressing such an opinion is controversial.

Obviously, the student did the right thing in making sure that his classmate got to the nurse and should be commended, not punished, for having done so.

Good point.

But it is a sad state of affairs in our public schools.

Shakes head

We should all be pretentious twats and sound like books!

I have a fucking Bachelor's Degree and I use double negatives in normal, everyday speech. I also say things like "That needs fixed", THE HORROR, THE HORROR!!!

Oh wait, I'm a pasty ass (non-Southern) white guy, so I can get away with it without being shamed.

What dialect would that be?

In any case, this was a student in a classroom. That's usually the place where one tries to speak properly. In theory, that is one of the things you actually go to school to learn.

Obviously, kids talk differently when they are hanging out with their friends (as do adults).

Unlike Grammar Nazis who think everyone who doesn't sound like a book 24/7 deserves to be shamed, especially if they are a POC.

I was just surprised that an 8th grader would speak that way in a school setting.

It seemed like a sad commentary on the public school system.

Nothing personal against this kid at all. What he did was absolutely the right thing.

Good grief.

You don't.

Yeah, that's a real emergency.

Do you know what happened after she got to the nurse? If you do, please share that information.

"I was just surprised that an 8th grader would speak that way in a school setting..."

In much the same way many people are simply surprised his colloquial speech is the focus rather than his actions. It seems like a sad commentary on the personal biases of many people.

Nothing personal at all. What you did is absolutely typical of you.

Obviously, the phrasing used is not what is important here with this story - it was just something that jumped out at me, so I commented on it.

I do tend to pick up on smaller points from stories like this that seem to suggest a lack of focus on my part on what is really important, so I certainly take that criticism.

For me, I find it much more interesting to engage in discussions on potential areas of disagreement rather than giving a "right on!" sort of response. I tend to learn a lot more from my fellow DUers that way (who, understandably, don't generally respond to +1 sort of comments).

I hope you will take my response to this story in that spirit.

Surprised is probably not the right word.

there were a couple of older kids in my grammar school classes who had been left back. This incident shows that what he lacks in intelligence he more than makes up for in common sense.

That makes sense.

The teacher, however, ought to be disciplined for their inaction in the face of a medical emergency.

by those who lean that way. Others just do it naturally.

Do you have a point there? Or is there some kind of snobbishness going on?

On many many levels.

Although, this student is apparently going to be home-schooled from now on according to his mother.

And you're worried that he was using vernacular English in a crisis situation?

Maybe you didn't get such great schooling either.

I have not seen that claim made in any of the articles about this.

Is that something you are just making up?

I believe your post hoc ergo prompter hoc fallacy is another example of the public school system's problems.

I was merely expressing my personal opinion.

I think that students ought to be taught basic language skills by 8th grade so that they may have a better chance for success in life.

If you were fighting for your life and someone came to rescue you, would you refuse help because of the person's grammar? Where are your piriorities and humanity?

Obviously the boy did the right thing.

And it is common dialect in the United States.

I supersize with you.

I used to live in Hawaii, and pidgin was what kids spoke among friends. But put them in a formal situation, and they'll switch to proper English.

In many places we're training kids for future work as compliant wage slaves and prison laborers.

Even better if you've got a charter school doing it...

That way the politicians can say "It's not my fault!"

The fuck it ain't.

Informal speech is simply that, informal.

How does one make it to adulthood without realizing something so simple?

"I'm sorry but I need to take this girl to the nurse" would also have been pretty informal.

In what grade do you think that sort of thing ought to be taught?

It doesnt mean he can't format a grammatically correct sentence, it just means he chose not to. I would say the same thing and I've got a couple of degrees.

That is unfortunate.

that's unfortunate.