Should high school students be punished for making an anti-teacher group on facebook?

[TenthRegeneration]

no bullcrap of "freedom of speech *****!"

(Edit: and furthermore: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.)

Okay, that is the biggest piece of bullshit I've ever heard

My humble and constant friend! I see that you have discovered the wonderful freedom of speech! In any other form of government, you may have been shot or deported, branded as a traitor for speaking in such a manner about one's own government!

What a truly wonderful country you must live in!

Now that you know of the glorious power of free speech, would you so readily deny it to these knaves?

 

[Ravenseeker]

Hey is facebook the school? No! This shit of the internet getting dragged into schools is crap, plain and simple.

It's not a question of whether it's at school or not, it's a question of whether the students show be spreading false rumors to try to rid of the teacher

It depends on the case. These types of things can range from harmless stupid kids ragging on a teacher(In which case facebook should throw down some permabans) to dangerous harassment/hate mongering. (in which case the police should get involved)

apparently some kids were asking each other questions in class over the subject they were taking a test over during the test to each other and they were heard. The group is basically a hate-group.

a bunch of people have said that Facbook should let it go because it wasn't happening in school, but in the USA we have a law (can't remember the name of the law at the moment) that protects employed people from false rumors about them. Breaking the law and trying to get rid of this person is one of the reasons this group is a problem, the creators USED TO have false rumors (teacher's a racist, doesn't do a good enough job, etc.) and have even gone so far to have threatened another teacher because she "snicked" on them (she didn't). Notice the bold USED TO, the group's admids had enough sense to start cutting things from there quickly.


sense you guys wanted it you got, here's the link to the group. you be the judge
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?sid=8f4d7011c6cd5fd9c49067bbf28bd1cf&gid=47782602808

And TenthRegeneration, stop being a dick.

 

[RogueDarkJedi]

Hang on, your sentence has an odd association modifier. Is this about:

A) No teachers on facebook (a group for lobbying teachers from making accounts on facebook)
or
B) A group that aims to hate on teachers?

I'm a bit confused.

 

[chronobreak]

If they are threatning the teacher's life, then that shit should be taken down. If they are just trying to get his position taken away, then let them do it. Not like a teacher is going to get fired over a student-made facebook page. Who cares? In either case, if there is legitimate cause for the teacher to be investigated, the proper route should be taken, by notifying the higher ups and such.

 

[Jumplion]

no bullcrap of "freedom of speech *****!"

(Edit: and furthermore: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.)

Okay, that is the biggest piece of bullshit I've ever heard

My humble and constant friend! I see that you have discovered the wonderful freedom of speech! In any other form of government, you may have been shot or deported, branded as a traitor for speaking in such a manner about one's own government!

What a truly wonderful country you must live in!

Now that you know of the glorious power of free speech, would you so readily deny it to these knaves?

Way to completely avoid the actual reply I made. You're completely avoiding anything that I've said in rebuttal to your arguement.

I could very well be banned because I said "Okay, that is the biggest piece of bullshit I've ever heard". But the Escapist doesn't condemn anyone for occasional cursing. I didn't abuse this freedom (to my knowledge) by yelling out "That is the most bullshitting fucking asshole statement ever to come out of your fucking shitting assmouth!" (_>; )

I agreed to the Escapist terms of service, if I was in another forum that discouraged any profanity, I'd probably be banned because I abused my right to speech.

 

[Ravenseeker]

Hang on, your sentence has an odd association modifier. Is this about:

A) No teachers on facebook (a group for lobbying teachers from making accounts on facebook)
or
B) A group that aims to hate on teachers?

I'm a bit confused.

it's a group trying to get rid of a single teacher

 

[TenthRegeneration]

Why, if I had to form a hypothesis, I would state that I do believe that your complaints will be ignored, dismissed out right, or forgotten as soon as you are out of eyesight! *chuckles to self*

Wow, please stop with the whole Mid-evil thing.

I must once again state that I cannot.

I really can't conduct this "experiment" because I don't have much complaints about most of the teachers I have.

Then I must kindly ask that you cease and desist from making odd assumptions about the nature of the principle/teacher relationship. As one that has gone through this ordeal, I will state that I find that principles (or the closest archetype that I have encountered) are very rarely, if ever, willing to enact on the side of the student. And why should he/she? It is only one student that voices a complaint. I agree with you, my good man, that the said students should go to said authority figure, however, I believe that they should amass in droves and descend upon his/her place of business, or office, as it is referred to. Only then do they have a chance for their voice to be heard.

EDIT:

Way to completely avoid the actual reply I made. You're completely avoiding anything that I've said in rebuttal to your arguement.

Yes, but in lue of acknowledging your rebuttal, I hope that I have opened your eyes to a very valid point, which, I will be quick to point out, that you ignored by giving a rebuttal to my lack of rebuttal.

Also, through the use of the edit key our debate has become out of sequence. My apologies.

 

[Goldbling]

No. Teachers take time away from theyre lives to teach what is mostly, a group of snot nosed, inconsiderate, disrespectful little kids. Everyday I thank my teachers for doing what they do, even if that teacher is a douche

 

[Jumplion]

I really can't conduct this "experiment" because I don't have much complaints about most of the teachers I have.

Then I must kindly ask that you cease and desist from making odd assumptions about the nature of the principle/teacher relationship. As one that has gone through this ordeal, I will state that I find that principles (or the closest archetype that I have encountered) are very rarely, if ever, willing to enact on the side of the student. And why should he/she? It is only one student that voices a complaint. I agree with you, my good man, that the said students should go to said authority figure, however, I believe that they should amass in droves and descend upon his/her place of business, or office, as it is referred to. Only then do they have a chance for their voice to be heard.

EDIT:

Way to completely avoid the actual reply I made. You're completely avoiding anything that I've said in rebuttal to your arguement.

Yes, but in lue of acknowledging your rebuttal, I hope that I have opened your eyes to a very valid point, which I will be quick to point out that you ignored by giving a rebuttal to my lack of rebuttal.

Also, through the use of the edit key our debate has become out of sequence. My apologies.

If you agree that they should have gone to an authority figure, whatever it may be in your fantasy world (from the looks of how you type, I'd say you're already in it ;D), then.......what's the problem? These kids are spreading rumors about the teacher, and that is against US law.

And that made no sense whatsoever, "you ignored by giving a rebuttal to my lack of rebuttal". So then I just argued one step ahead of you.

 

[thefrizzlefry]

They're doing it off campus, so, yeah. Furthermore, a teacher should be mature enough to deal with a bunch of miscreants calling her lame over the internet.

 

[Dark Crusader]

Whatever happend to the right of free-speech? They are going to be punished by the school for things they said outside of school that they had every right to say?
Sounds stupid to me.
The only reason I can see for punishing the students is if they were planning to do something nasty, and that shouldn't be handled by the school in any case as the moment the teacher was the point of attack, the school has become biast. They should pass it onto the police.
A hate group, while stupid is fully justified under the law, and there are no rules in the school specifically banning the students to interact over the internet discussing their hate for a teacher.

The school is completly un-justified in this scenario. They should've passed it onto the police.

 

[brtshstel]

Well, it really depends. Just saying "we are against this teacher" is fine. To me it sounds like "he gave me detention for being an asshole so we hate him because he punished us" and they skewed the facts when they wrote it (I've seen it a hundred times at my high school).

But if it was actually a hate group ("hate" therebeing in its malicious form), it would need to be taken down and the involved members be monitored. Shit like that leads to events like Columbine.

 

[megapenguinx]

Well actually no they can't.
I think there is a rule in the TOS that says no hate groups/slander groups.

 

[TenthRegeneration]

If you agree that they should have gone to an authority figure, whatever it may be in your fantasy world (from the looks of how you type, I'd say you're already in it ;D), then.......what's the problem? These kids are spreading rumors about the teacher, and that is against US law.

I am sure that it is not against US law to create a group to list a set of complaints. If you will read the original post that started this blessed thread, you will see that the group became a hate group, but did not start that way.

Also:

I had a similar thing happen when I was in high school.

A maths teacher, who will remain unnamed here, was a complete failure as a teacher.
She did nothing. Zip-nadda-zilch. Come test time every student in her class was helpless.

We created a petition to get rid of her, spoke to the principle, the education department and protested by simply refusing to follow any directions or acknowledge the teacher at all.
They all ignored us as ignorant whinging kids, despite the fact that 60+ students including A average geeks were all saying the same thing.

End result? Her car got smashed up a few times, she got abused in public, and eventually she got a job somewhere else.

So no, I don't think those kids should be punished, if they feel that strongly about it perhaps there is cause.

JumpingLion, I accept your apology.

 

[Booze Zombie]

Aren't hate groups illegal?

 

[Jumplion]

JumpingLion, I accept your apology.

Uh, no, don't assume that I ever or will ever apologize to you. And never call me JumpingLion again, especially with unnecessary capital letters!

I never said going to authority always works, it's just the smart thing to do. Quite frankly I wouldn't be surprised if the kids who smashed her car and abused her in public were put in detention or something, but I have no idea what happened at the other guys school.

Have these guys in the group done that (gone to authority)? As far as we know, no. Do we know what the teacher is doing to these kids? No, we don't, because all these kids are doing is bitching and moaning and spreading false rumors about the teacher, which is against Us law to my knowledge.

You're basically saying that these kids have a right to abuse a teacher without any real reason. If that's the case, if for some reason I felt that you broke the rules, I can start a hate group against you and not even try to contact moderators (just an example, nothing personal).

 

[Iron Mal]

I think that some of my friends may have been the ones who started this (I do remember them saying something about Facebook and a teacher who pissed them off).

In my opinion, it's the goddamn internet, what's the problem? We have porn here, peadophiles there and generically sick shit everywhere so why are we bothered by a few students pissing around on facebook?

I don't think anyone can honestly say they went through school/college/uni without having at least one teacher who really pissed them off to the point where you would want them to just leave the school (in other words, you would certainly harbour some hard feelings toward them).

 

[LordMarcusX]

Are they just griefing on this teacher, or is there a legitimate claim? They should get parents involved if there is, since they get the voting power and can recall school board members.

 

[00010101]

This is quite controversial cause some students will go ahead and do just that (again!) and say that they were only expressing their opinions and use the freedom of speech excuse. BUT people have to take into account that some of these teachers are rather rude and bitchy to some students. There are some teachers at my school who I've never met but they always (and I mean ALWAYS) look at you as if you've done something wrong and once you do something (often by accident) they'll take the opportunity to screech at you. Bottom line is, smart students should steer away from stuff like this because it can cause unnecessary conflicts (and it won't help with your teacher's attitude towards you).