8th grader flips teacher off - school locked down, several police departments repsond

8th grader flips teacher off; banned from graduation


(KMOV) -- An eighth grade student in Albers, Illinois is in trouble for flipping his teacher the bird and running out of class.

After the boy flipped off his teacher, school officials locked down the school and officers from several police departments responded.

The superintendent says the 14-year-old's behavior caused, “widespread student unrest."

The boy was suspended and banned from 8th grade graduation ceremony.

Albers is about 30 miles southeast of St. Louis.

http://www.kmov.com/news/local/8th-grader-flips-teacher-off-Metro-East-school-goes-on-lockdown-94258754.html

Secure the borders! Ban libraries! Imprison and waterboard any kid who even LOOKS defiant.

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A graduation diploma from that school might not be worth that much in the first place if the adults running the school are as insecure and idiotic as they seem to be.

Recommended.

And school and police personnel have way too much time on their hands.

:wtf:

Talk about overreaction! :wow:

Where people fail to think rationally at all anymore.

People overreact to nonsense they shouldn't and under react to real problems they should be over reacting to.

Thanks media!

nipped in the bud early and fast -- although it appeared to take entire divisions of regional law enforcement to bring the crisis under control.

After some weeks of supportive counseling for every man, woman, and child, I think the odds are reasonably good that this Illinois town can return to some semblance of normalcy. Our thoughts and prayers are with you, people of Albers, Illinois!

The great fear of course is that other 14-year olds might hear of this incident and may themselves -- I can hardly bear to say it -- behave in defiant and coarse ways. Which would be so uncharacteristic of many 14-year olds in our society. Ordinarily, as we all know, 14-year olds are in essence the very soul of citizenship. They're generally appalled at the very idea of defying adult authority figures, such as parents and teachers.

That brings up a question. Why is it when normal 14 year olds (defiant and coarse, as they almost all are. Especially the preacher's kids) grow up and become parents, this weird amnesia sets in? When I went to my 15 year high school reunion, there was a discussion about people's kids heading into the teen years and not a one of those parents seemed to remember that we were raging balls of hormones at that age and that every one of these parents who just knew their children weren't thinking about sex were having sex at that very same age. It was astounding and disturbing to me that they were passing on the legacy of "lets not talk about sex because we don't want to give our innocent children ideas".

when we're four. It's the amnesia that amuses and concerns me.

There are a few good things to having a severely autistic child. His emotional responses are mostly in the toddler range. OTOH, he's got the raging hormones of a teenager and has such poor receptive language and even less ability to communicate with us, I suspect we're in for something wild. Me, being a nurse, took it upon myself to discuss the changes he's going through and what feelings he may be having and so on, but really, it's hard to say what gets through. But at least I know it needs to be said and I don't have that amnesia or fear about talking about sex that I saw from so many other parents.

I don't think too many 14-year olds are perfect angels.

I definitely was no angel at age 14.

Anybody looking for angels in my 8th grade class would still be there looking, in fact.

working in a school system and the kid runs out, the first thing the parents will do is blame the teacher and the school for losing their kid. In my high school class a kid hit the wall broke his hand because of girl friend problem. When he came into my class all angry and I tried to find out what was wrong he ran out. I went and reported it to the office, 15 minutes later the mother is in there screaming that we lost her kid etc etc. She had to be escorted out by the resource she was so bad.

It is a no win situation for the school. Do what they did with the police, probably to find the kid and get blasted or take their time and still get blasted for not doing enough.

another teacher saw it and told me not to do it again.

And the world kept on turning.

Cut both middle fingers off!!! I'm sure there is a Bible verse or school regulation that states that.:sarcasm:

While a lock down sounds extreme, it would be for running out of class, not for flipping off the teacher. The extreme response might have something to do with the fact that the boy left campus when he "ran out;" the school is responsible for making sure they know where he is.

It sounds like this whole story isn't about the flipping off, OR the running out. It's about the little darling missing an 8th grade "graduation."

to elicit a finger or a fit of temper?

Depends on the kid. I don't remember ever being flipped off, and no one has run away from my room during my long career, but it doesn't really take much to piss off an adolescent.

In terms of brain development, adolescence is a time of pruning neural connections very similar to what happens at age 2 and 3. That process has some of the same results. Kids ages 12 - 16 can, and do, exhibit some of the same behaviors toddlers do during that time; the "terrible twos," except that they are bigger and hormonal. They are more emotional, and more reactive. Not that anyone who interacts regularly with them needs the brain research to tell them that, lol.

Those kinds of behaviors can range from mild to extreme, and they CAN be partly triggered by adults who don't know how to deal well with people that age. It's certainly not, though, a given that adolescent defiance or poor decision making is CAUSED by an adult.

Kids do that sort of stuff. The "adults" in that school, OTOH, really screwed up.

penalized in some way, e.g a stern reprimand maybe?

Let me say that I think the closing down of the school and the reports of "student unrest" etc. constitute an overreaction so extreme as to be laughable..The kid should probably not even be kept from his graduation...That being said, I'm sorry, but I think there has to be SOME way of teaching CIVILITY and respect.....I wouldn't want to take that shit if I was a teacher -- No way.

Think of it as "learning for life" as well..The kid who flips off his teacher with no consequences may well get out of school and think it's okay to flip off his boss or customers...You've got to start somewhere.

I flipped off teachers several times, usually because they were defending the behavior of students bullying me.

Looks to me like the school has an attitude problem. I'm with the kid on this one.

And btw, this kind of thing is why people are less than sympathetic about schools' problems. They're arrogant and abusive, and do moronic things like this on a regular basis.

damn

Because that's all you ever post. Not that it's not an egregious example of stupidity, but with 69,000 elementary schools in the country, you're bound to find one doing something stupid any day of the week.

I guess if it floats your boat, carry on.

Cool Story Bro...er...Sis alert*

Had a terrible time with bullying in 8th grade...made my life a living hell.
Was in math class one day and one of the kids who regularly joined in the fun was sitting behind me, whispering, whispering...
Finally I just LOST it- completely and utterly. :nuke:
Jumped out of my seat, turned around, grabbed the guy (who outweighed me by quite a bit) by his collar and LIFTED him out of his seat with my left hand while preparing to deliver a BANG! ZOOM! STRAIGHT TO THE MOON!^TM with my right.

Teacher caught and separated us before it landed.
He went to the principal's office, I got sent to the guidance counselor (they knew about the bullying and had my back...sort of).

End of story...except that I apologized to the math teacher the next day on my own bat. He was a very cool guy and a good teacher- all the kids liked and respected him.

No cops were called. I don't think my parents were notified, since I didn't catch hell for this...
"...and the world kept turning".


Still rather cherish the LOOK in that kid's eyes when he found himself rising out of his seat though...
classic "Ho-lee shit...I think I may have gone TOO far this time...HALP!

Hey, I takes my victories where I can gets 'em...:shrug:

when they take it off my cold, dead hand.

The bird caused widespread student unrest? :rofl: