Teacher punishes Students for saying "Bless You" after snezzing..

You've obviously never taught children.

It disrupts him. The teacher has a stick up his ass about it. And since he's in a position of some tiny authoritah, he's decided the stick up his ass should be everyone else's problem. Dealt with many cock knocks like him before.

I'm not joining in on dogpiling this guy.

When I was in elementary school, there were always a few troublemaker boys who would be as disruptive as possible at every opportunity.

Sometimes the teacher would finally get everyone quiet enough for us to focus on our work. Then some kid somewhere would sneeze quietly and the troublemakers would bellow out "BLESS YOU" or "GESUNDHEIT" as loud as they could, just to get away with causing more ruckus under the guise of being 'polite'.
I always wanted to punch them in the mouth; couldn't hardly get any peace and quiet because of those assholes.

So, from the article:

He's right, and those who are using this as an opportunity to whine about atheists are just being oversensitive (and opportunistically hateful).

It disrupts everyone in the class.

Re: Teacher punishes Students for saying "Bless You" after sneezing

This^.

Brooklyn, New York, Bishop Kearney High School, American history class, circa 1966, a girl named Judy sneezes. The nun teaching the class decides the "tone" of her sneeze is "sarcastic," and sends her to detention. The nun then instructs the rest of the class to sit in silence with their hands folded on the desk for the duration of the period. She announces that if anyone laughs, sneezes or even "looks at me funny," she can join Judy in detention.

It never made national news. Neither did the hundreds of thousands of similar and often far more abusive instances nationwide on that day. What would we do without the intarwebz? If there's no news, just drill down to the micro level until you find some.

It's interesting who's coming down on which side of the issue in this instance.

After school rape behind the class room?

Yeah....people raised with manners vs people raised in barns.

If some shit is screaming it across the room and really being a 'tard about it...discipline his ass for being a loudmouth. But a quiet "bless you" to your neighbor who sneezed? Clearly, that person isn't being a shitstain.

Where the hell has common sense gone? In the rush to be PC, conformist, zero-tolerance people are just getting crazy and inane with their shit...especially in schools.

They're children.

They're children.

They don't have common sense.

It's high school, not second grade.

Then the students would be punished for disrupting the class, not saying "bless you" - as the teacher clearly says is the case in the OP.

A sufficiently determined group of teenagers can be disruptive with anything.

Which means the students have even fewer manners.

But when the teacher reprimands them for being disruptive, they whine
"I was only being polite!" (as loud as they can). Then they just go on shouting "BLESS YOU" just a tiny bit quieter but still as disruptively as they think they can get away with.

Once upon a time, I went to high school too. I've seen the behavior you described - heck, not just in high school but all the way from Kindergarten and in some classes in college.

The more the teacher bitched about it, the more disruptive the kids behaved.

So, this asshole is just showing the kids who's a bigger asshole.

I figure the teacher is doing what he can given that he can't swat or dismiss the bad kids.

Adolescents being the most reasonable of people?

I think we can all agree on the importance of silence in the classroom. Students should raise their hand and speak only when called upon. They should not be chatting, even whispering to the people around them. Even if you’re not a teacher, you can appreciate from your experience as a student how this is paramount to an orderly and effective lesson.

So then the question is: why is “bless you” of such top level importance to be the great exception to the rule of silence?

There’s a lot of gray area between a quiet, unnoticeable whisper of “bless you” and an obnoxious interjection. Troublemakers will use this gray area—and every other angle they can find—as an excuse to disrupt the class. (And apparently half the people in this thread would defend them on account of “bless you” being a social norm.) It’s simpler and easier for everyone just to ban the phrase outright.

It’s not about anti-theism. It’s not even about the phrase itself. It’s about shut the fuck up in my class.

Re: Teacher punishes Students for saying "Bless You" after sneezing

I'm sure I've shocked your royal highness catatonic.

This is like the stupidity of passing a law banning talking on a cell phone while driving because it's reckless behavior.

There's already a law for that - reckless driving. No need for specifics when the general will do.

Baloney argument. Not one example you've given shows a kid behaving with good manners and getting blasted.

Next thing you know he'll bitch a fit and get his knickers in a knot for the kids saying please and thank you.

More butthurt, this time from the reflection in the mirror.

And there's no proof that this guy is targeting good, respectful little angels with his rule.
More likely he's just trying to take away one of the outs disrespectful kids use to be disrespectful, than he's just a mean old monster.

He could have saved everyone including himself a lot of grief if he would have just docked her for saying something out loud in class and not discussing "the outdated practice of a blessing from God." He should have said that the class was told to be silent and she wasn't. Period.
THEN he would have been exercising his (possibly tyrannical) right as a teacher. The minute he whined about it being an out-dated religious notation he made it less about discipline and more about religion vs atheist.

The media were making a news story about it, an interview and everything. They probably questioned him to get as much speech out of him as they could because if it was just "kid was disrespectful to teacher, teacher doles out punishment" it wouldn't have even made the news.

A teacher telling kids to be quiet isn't anywhere near "tyrannical"; now you're being more oversensitive than the anti-atheists.

He docked everyone in class 25 points off their grade because one person said it. Twice.

That is unreasonable and extreme no matter why he did it.

I think everyone in the community NOT one of his students should say "bless you" EVERY time they see him.

oh it can happen, kids can be real creative about that shit. but if that were the issue here, he would have explained that he did that for all sorts of other examples and not just this one expression. which to my knowledge, he has not.

This defense overlooks the very obvious potential for correcting the specific act rather than having a "no tolerance" policy.

i get the whole "docking the whole class" bit IF he couldn't determine who the hooligan was - but on the other hand, if he couldn't tell who it was how disruptive (in terms of noise) could it have been?

in any case, all he would have had to say is "speaking at all without my permission is not allowed" or "speaking in a voice raised above a normal speaking voice is never allowed" and then enforce THAT rule without the baggage of the "religious angle"

After reading this thread a couple times, I'm left with one question: What the fuck is 'snezzing'?

He's an adult as well as a teacher and should have seen that the media was trying to milk the situation for all it was worth and cut them off at the knees.

"I told them no talking; she talked. I know it was reflex, but they are children and need to be taught to control some reflexes."

See? A teacher being a teacher and not someone going for atheist vs religion