Posted on 08/25/2011 5:56:46 AM PDT by Puppage
A New Jersey first grade teacher who wrote that she was a "warden for future criminals" on Facebook says she was speaking "out of frustration to their behavior."
Jennifer O'Brien defended herself Wednesday at an administration hearing that will determine whether the tenured Paterson teacher should lose her job.
O'Brien told an administrative law judge she wrote the post in exasperation because six or seven unruly first-graders kept disrupting her lessons. She said one boy had recently hit her.
The teacher posted her remark to 333 friends on March 28. However, it was forwarded and led critics to call her comment racist.
O'Brien's lawyer, Nancy Oxfeld, told The Record newspaper the post was a mistake but not racist.
A decision on whether she'll keep her job is expected in November.
All of us are past, present and future criminals, just because there are so many laws on the books. So there’s nothing outrageous about these statements. Furthermore, it’s interesting to compare words and deeds. She’s getting in a lot of trouble for her words, but legislatures across the country, but especially in Washington DC are actually doing things that presume we are all future criminals. That’s ok, somehow, but her post was not.
Hell, this site is mostly anonymous, and there are things I won't say about....well, let me just stop there.
Then again, maybe her classroom is just filled with thugs.
I am willing to go on record saying Patterson is festering craphole. Great place to score some crack, though.
I can’t find anything factually inaccurate with her statement. It has to be frustrating to preside over a classroom full of thug larvae with no desire to learn whatsoever.
The only way the comment could be deemed racist is if she made reference to the racial composition of her classroom. If she did, she’s got problems...in this PC world..if she didn’t..then those accusing her have an agenda...
All true and an interesting argument. However, I think she was referring to the traditional sense, a bunch of future burglars, rapists, and drug dealers.
Speaking the truth is not good when you’re dealing with future (apparently black) criminals. She’s right. They aren’t going to get any better as they get older. I always thought that the worst kid in every grade should be made into soap at the end of the year.
I've seen it in NJ--Irvington, Newark, East Orange. I've seen it in DC, Baltimore. It's actually quite bizarre for someone who's grown up in a normal, civilized area. It's an upside-down world they live in.
The culture is absolutely sick. What's sad is that there are a few nice, decent, churchgoing people mixed in here and there. Mostly from the older generation, before the 60s riots and all that. Seems chronic (no pun intended) at this point.
My niece is a first grade teacher in a 99% black school. These stories are not unusual.
passed=past. I make some pretty dumb mistakes from time to time.
It’s PAterson with one “T”, but your comment is accurate. It is a craphole.
If it wasn’t the county seat of Passaic COunty, no one would go there.
Up the hill toward Haledon from downtown, there are abandoned STREETS, with a house here and there, looking like Dresden after WW2.
Paterson was the site of America’s first industrial manufacturing, hailed by Alexander Hamilton, becasue of water power from the Great Falls.
Paterson manufactured EVERYTHING until the 1960s.
An influx of minorities changed it forever.
Now it looks like the set of Mad Max movie.
She may have shown some poor judgement, but statistically, she is almost certainly correct. Some not insignificant number of her students will commit crimes - become criminals.
As others have pointed out, virtually all of us are criminals in our big-government socialist state. There are so many laws on the books I'm sure we're unknowingly violating some. I know I will probably drift a few mph above the speed limit on the way to work. I will be listening to music played from a device that, well, I'm sure the RIAA or some such would claim stretches the bounds of "fair use." etc. etc.
The problem is she is not politically correct and actually tries to teach these kids. That is why she is frustrated. She should learn that public school "teaching" is nothing but a minimal level of baby sitting and parroting politically correct slogans. That is the way to get and keep tenure.
That's if it weren't-condition contrary to fact takes the subjunctive tense. :-) (there--we're even).
But haven't you heard? It's a New Economy. We don't have to manufacture things. We just borrow and consume. Try it--it's fun!
Certainly, she's not saying her students will one day use illicit lightbulbs or drive over the posted speed limit. I assume she's referring to more blatantly anti-social, atavistic behavior.
I drove through Irvington once. Northern NJ. What a nightmare. Hard to believe it’s part of America.
Keeping (I won’t call it raising) a child in places like that is child abuse. Better to live in a gypsy wagon and have a goat pull you across the country.
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