So A Teacher At My School Was Just Fired...

Obsideo

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Jun 10, 2010
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Open for news article:

A Wando High School teacher is on administrative leave after he reportedly broadcast scenes from a lewd movie to a group of high-school students.

Christopher Derek Poston, 36, is on leave while the school system and police investigate the matter, according to Charleston County Schools spokesman Jason Sakran.

The case stems from a Feb. 14 incident in which Poston, who was filling in for another teacher in a Latin class, watched the movie "Jackass 2" on his laptop while students worked at their desks, according to a Mount Pleasant Police report.

When the kids asked the teacher what he was watching on his computer, Poston displayed the video on a large projection screen for the entire class to view.

The "Jackass" series of TV shows and movies feature actors performing dangerous and sometimes lewd acts in a variety of situations. The movies are rate R for "extremely crude and dangerous stunts throughout, sexual content, nudity and language."

Apparently Poston showed students a scene where one of the actors wears a sock puppet on his genitalia and then is struck by a poisonous snake, according to the police report. The video leaves little to the imagination.

Video:
<youtube=XPZJxzypxgQ&feature=related>

When parents began reporting the behavior to Wando administrators, Poston wrote a statement to the school accepting blame for his "inexcusable" actions, the police report states. Principal Lucy Beckham reported the incident to police.

Poston apparently showed several minutes of the "Jackass" movie and then turned it off when a computer technician entered the classromroom. He then put the movie back on the screen when the technician left the room.

Poston also launched a PowerPoint projection with photos from the website, "People of Walmart," which pokes fun at oddly dressed Walmart patrons. He told school officials the website taught lessons on the consequences of violating social norms, the police report states.

School system officials would only confirm there was an investigation and referred further questions to Mount Pleasant Police. It wasn't clear Friday afternoon if criminal charges were pending.

Poston is a 1994 Wando graduate and Citadel alum, according to his Facebook page.

All of the students at my school loved him and are actively protesting his termination. He led our school's Buddy Olympics and was an avid supporter of many school clubs and organizations. While I didn't have him as a teacher, I've heard nothing but good things from fellow students.

That being said, I want to know The Escapist's position on this. If a beloved teacher pulls a stupid stunt, should they get a second chance was my school right in firing him?


EDIT: This is a petition that the kids at my school have started. This shows more of the public's opinion of him. http://www.change.org/petitions/the-kids-and-parents-of-wando-high-school-give-their-comments-about-christopher-poston?utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=share_petition&utm_term=share_with_facebook_friends#


EDIT: Funnily enough, Jackass mentioned him on their website. http://www.dickhouse.tv/
 

MarkDavis94

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Jan 12, 2011
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Everyone knows that you don't do work in cover lessons, the students probably got a laugh from watching it and were likely in a good mood for the rest of the day.
 

GrandmaFunk

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Oct 19, 2009
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I'd say the termination is valid.

If it had only been a matter of him watching movies on "company time", then some milder disciplinary action could have been taken.

But showing an R rated movie to a bunch of teenagers, in class no less, breaks a few laws and points to horrible judgment.

I mean, it's not like the movie as any redeeming qualities or is the least bit educational... there's really no gray zone to this.
 

Tuesday Night Fever

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Jun 7, 2011
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I personally believe in giving people second chances, as long as the first offense wasn't particularly serious. In this particular case, I don't think it was particularly serious. This guy was teaching a high school class... you'd have to be pretty naive to assume that high school students aren't already familiar with the things being displayed to them in that movie. Granted, it probably shouldn't have been shown during school hours anyway given that students are at school to learn, and I doubt the movie was being displayed for its educational value. So yeah... minor offense.

But this sort of thing happens all the time. Teachers have to be ridiculously careful these days about being politically correct. My high school lost an excellent teacher a few years ago because she was assigning books by Stephen King and a few other well-known others that involved "questionable" subject matter (including sex, drug use, and violence... the stuff that's in pretty much every book written ever) for her creative writing course. The class in question was restricted to high school seniors.

After the teacher was fired, the school board had a field day going through the required materials for all of the high school courses, censoring and/or removing anything they felt was inappropriate.

Frankly, I think it's bullshit. Kids need to be prepared for the real world, and unfortunately, the real world has a lot of bad things going on in it. By censoring everything and telling them that the world is a perfect place full of sunshine and flowers and rainbows all we're doing is ensuring that they won't have the information they need to make informed decisions once they're out on their own.
 

DoPo

"You're not cleared for that."
Jan 30, 2012
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OK, I'm willing to accept that the Jackass thing was wrong. And I don't think it would be bad enough to be fired. Then again, schools are known of being wee bit insensitive to such matters to please the public. Well, it's his fault here, he used his own judgement and was wrong...because the kids told their parents.

However this part of the article:

Article said:
Poston also launched a PowerPoint projection with photos from the website, "People of Walmart," which pokes fun at oddly dressed Walmart patrons. He told school officials the website taught lessons on the consequences of violating social norms, the police report states
is pure nonsense. That seems to be there to make the teacher look even worse and it fails.

Article said:
Poston is a 1994 Wando graduate and Citadel alum, according to his Facebook page.
But this part irks me the most. "I don't need to do real journalism like research and stuff, I'll just hop on Facebook."
 

lRookiel

Lord of Infinite Grins
Jun 30, 2011
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Ha! What a hero of a teacher.

The students did enquire as to what he was watching so I think its kind of harsh that they fired him, oh well it's so the school doesn't look bad and that they deal with the situation like 'the parents' (It's always the parents with these things -.-) would want them to.

"FIRE THE BASTARD, HE SHOWED THEM A MANS PEE PEE!"
 

HardkorSB

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Mar 18, 2010
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Obsideo said:
Open for news article:

A Wando High School teacher is on administrative leave after he reportedly broadcast scenes from a lewd movie to a group of high-school students.

Christopher Derek Poston, 36, is on leave while the school system and police investigate the matter, according to Charleston County Schools spokesman Jason Sakran.

The case stems from a Feb. 14 incident in which Poston, who was filling in for another teacher in a Latin class, watched the movie "Jackass 2" on his laptop while students worked at their desks, according to a Mount Pleasant Police report.

When the kids asked the teacher what he was watching on his computer, Poston displayed the video on a large projection screen for the entire class to view.

The "Jackass" series of TV shows and movies feature actors performing dangerous and sometimes lewd acts in a variety of situations. The movies are rate R for "extremely crude and dangerous stunts throughout, sexual content, nudity and language."

Apparently Poston showed students a scene where one of the actors wears a sock puppet on his genitalia and then is struck by a poisonous snake, according to the police report. The video leaves little to the imagination.

Video:
<youtube=XPZJxzypxgQ&feature=related>

When parents began reporting the behavior to Wando administrators, Poston wrote a statement to the school accepting blame for his "inexcusable" actions, the police report states. Principal Lucy Beckham reported the incident to police.

Poston apparently showed several minutes of the "Jackass" movie and then turned it off when a computer technician entered the classromroom. He then put the movie back on the screen when the technician left the room.

Poston also launched a PowerPoint projection with photos from the website, "People of Walmart," which pokes fun at oddly dressed Walmart patrons. He told school officials the website taught lessons on the consequences of violating social norms, the police report states.

School system officials would only confirm there was an investigation and referred further questions to Mount Pleasant Police. It wasn't clear Friday afternoon if criminal charges were pending.

Poston is a 1994 Wando graduate and Citadel alum, according to his Facebook page.

All of the students at my school loved him and are actively protesting his termination. He led our school's Buddy Olympics and was an avid supporter of many school clubs and organizations. While I didn't have him as a teacher, I've heard nothing but good things from fellow students.

That being said, I want to know The Escapist's position on this. If a beloved teacher pulls a stupid stunt, should they get a second chance was my school right in firing him?
I think you should get the students to wear sock puppets on their genitalia in school as a form of protest
 

CODE-D

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Feb 6, 2011
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WE watched much worse in my sociology class.
And in sex ed they show us much much much worse where stds come to topic.
So I find this odd.
 

isometry

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Mar 17, 2010
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This particular event doesn't sound so bad, but it's not like the teacher was young and naive, he sounds like the guy that likes to push the administrators on purpose, he finally went to far and they got him for it. If he really was a good teacher and this was an isolated lapse of judgment I'd defend him, but he's probably had this coming for a while.
 

That Annoying Guy

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Feb 21, 2012
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All it took was one snitch for something like that to get out and now a (possibly good) teacher's reputation and job are on the line, that's all it takes, one person.
 

manic_depressive13

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Dec 28, 2008
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He obviously isn't a very good teacher. What he did was clearly a violation of acceptable teaching practice and it didn't even have any practical purpose. Not to mention those movies fucking suck. You can try to excuse it, but you can't really justify it. Not only was he not teaching and thus wasting everyone's time, he went on to show underage children an R rated movie which, regardless of how you feel about it, is actually illegal. I think it would be wrong of them not to fire him.
 

Eddie the head

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Feb 22, 2012
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CODE-D said:
WE watched much worse in my sociology class.
And in sex ed they show us much much much worse where stds come to topic.
So I find this odd.
They showed the STD thing to us in High school as well. But I slept through them everyone else of cringing I was yawning.

That being said the biggest thing I remember like this form my school is the kids wanted to put up a.... monument I guess to some substitute teacher that died and was well liked and the principal wouldn't let them.
 

Fatboy_41

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Jan 16, 2012
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I've had a teacher put on Requim For A Dream in class. That's a lot more messed up than Jackass, and I have nothing but admiration to her for doing it. The chances that the kids in that class HADN'T see the Jackass movie for this incident are pretty slim.

But as was already said, all it took was one person to say it happened and now this guy is unemployed. And probably won't ever teach again simply due to the long memories over zealous people have when it comes to something negative.
 

Logiclul

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Sep 18, 2011
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It's not that bad. It's rated R (read as: not UNRATED), making it tame enough for teenage kids who have undoubtedly seen much worse.

Was it careless? Yes, of course it was. But I remember my teachers always going "okay we can do X as long as you promise not to tell on me!", and we would always have his/her back, because we knew they were cool and it made class more enjoyable.

If you believe that the law is a perfect measurement of morality, then he should be fired and not hired anywhere else again.

I, however, do not and then believe that he should have retained his job with a 'warning'.