Flag-stomping teacher awaits decision on continued employment
I didn’t write about this when it first happened a few weeks ago because TSO covered it rather well while he was wearing his peaked American Legion cap at The Burn Pit. But the Huffington Post called tonight and they want me on their Huff Post Live program tonight (at 7:30pm, Eastern time) to discuss the issue.
But, it seems that Scott Compton, who has been an English teacher in Chapin High School in South Carolina for 12 years. Apparently, he was trying to make the point that symbols are less important than the ideals behind those symbols by stomping on the flag while “talking glowingly” about the United States. From the Huffington Post;
Neither Compton nor his lawyer Darryl Smalls, returned messages from The Associated Press. Last week, Smalls emailed a statement to WIS-TV, saying Compton was trying to show the idea of what America stands for is greater than the material objects like the flag that represent it. He said several members of Compton’s family have served in the military and they fully support him.
Frankly, I’m tired of hearing or reading about people who hide behind the service of their antecedents when they misbehave in some way that is disrespectful to actual service. Unless you make the sacrifices yourself, you don’t understand it.
The Huff Post Live producer who I talk with tried to defend Compton with his First Amendment right of free speech. I told her what I tell everyone – the Bill of Rights was written to protect us from the government, not from each other. So the First Amendment really doesn’t apply here unless you want to call the school board our government.
Given the state of our current education system, I’m sure there was something else Compton could have been teaching. I’m not sure what this little demonstration was doing in English class, anyway. When I took English in 9th & 10th grade, it was about literature, not a civics lesson.
I’m sure Compton is a competent teacher, but he made a really bad decision to make this theater part of his classroom instruction. And who knows what other stuff he’s done in his classroom that we haven’t heard about. He could have made his point by stomping on a Hezbollah flag, but I think he’d probably be in hiding for fear of the retribution. If he wanted to make a point about symbols, he could have drawn a cartoon depicting the prophet Mohammed and suffered the consequences of that poor decision.
Hmmmm…OG claims she’s getting a posthole digger, but lacks skills in basic English, punctuation, grammar, and syntax. When you do your post-grad work at the doctoral level, you’re expected to have the need for remedial English classes out of the way.
Someone claiming to be involved in studying ballena asesina ought to have a reasonably deep vocabulary, also, but this one demonstrates a lack thereof. After all, all members of Delphinidae have specific classifications, since there is such a wide diversity in that family. In addition, the requirements for doctoral studies also include written and oral exams plus post-docs and extensive continuing education and in this case, experimentation. Not much room in the field-related job sector there.
OG is probably headed for Sea Shepherd International.
2-17 Air Cav: no, they’ve been posting from two different IPs. But they’re also only a bit over 100km apart, so the “Rendevouz at No-Tell Motel Afterwards” scenario is a possibility.
(shudder)
@51 How would you know anything about advanced studies when you’re barely literate?
ObamaGirl: how would you know anything about advanced studies when you’re simultaneously illogical, illiterate, and ignorant?
@54.
Please go away.
@51.
I’m the same way (punctuation, spelling, etc).
I chalk it up to being a drunkard.
@54 — So, you went to undergrad school and graduated in my class with me, did you? You know where I went to grad school, parked out on the campus and ran surveillance on me, did you? You have my transcripts in your greasy little paws, do you? Gee, that’s quite a trip in the Wayback machine, you inflated dingbat.
I suggest you come down off your mushroom. Give up the pretense. You may be a snippy little bitch, but you aren’t nearly as high on the food chain as you think you are, you mooncalf.
@57 – GT, drunken punctuation is fine. I can lie my ass off when I’m completely crocked.
Well, this was on the news this afternoon and bears some relationship to the flag-stomper:
http://wgntv.com/2013/01/18/vwf-post-will-be-able-to-keep-flying-the-american-flag/
The evening news has an update that indicates the flag will stay there, but this property manager is going too far.