Thursday, March 22, 2007

Headlines: Biting criticism

Back in high school, a friend of mine used to say he wanted to be a PE teacher.

He thought it would be cool to have summers off, wear sweats to work, maybe coach the JV basketball team.

I'm not sure if he ever pursued the dream. I lost track of him when I went to college. But I'm guessing if he had seen this story, he would rethink his grand plan.
A former Woodburn coach has gotten a state reprimand for biting the thigh of one of half a dozen wrestlers who tried to give him a wedgie. At a December 2005 practice, the Teacher Standards and Practices Commission said, team members tried to give Peter Porath a wedgie — jerking his undershorts upward.
I'm sorry. Maybe this makes me insensitive, but I gotta call a big fat BULLSHIT on this one.

Just so we understand what happened here: Half a dozen adolescent cro-magnons think it would be cool to attack the teacher and wedgie him (thank science they weren't going for the dreaded Atomic Wedgie), and the school board reprimands the teacher for trying to defend himself.

That teacher got freakin' screwed! The state board
"put him on probation for two years and said Porath must complete a class on appropriate behavior and write a public apology to the student he bit.
Public apology my ass! What kind of lesson are they teaching these kids?

If they asked for an apology from me it would go something like "I'm sorry I didn't have my posse with me to kick the shit out of those punks like they deserve."

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2 comments:

  1. As a former wrestler, wedgies were part of the being on the wrestling team along with other basic teenage boy behavior. Big deal. I think I spent most of the first year on the team with my underwear up to my shoulders or dangling from a hook. The coaches could have care less and I would not have complained to my parents. The coach was probably try8ing to get the guys off him. I wonder if the boys were successful in their attempt. Ha!

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  2. Something tells me that if a kid getting a wedgie tried to fight back and blackend a few eyes doing so, he wouldn't get a state reprimand.

    But a teacher fighting back does?

    Don't get me wrong, I understand the concept of hazing. I just think it sucks that a TEACHER is just supposed to bend over and say "Thank you sir, may I have another."

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