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Boy, 12, dares to speak up for President Trump in class. Teacher asks student why he supports 'a racist and a pedophile.' Bad idea.
The Blaze ^ | October 15, 2020 | DAVE URBANSKI

Posted on 10/16/2020 2:53:38 AM PDT by gattaca

'I was just upset because other kids in the class were ganging up on me, laughing at me, and she was laughing and wouldn't say anything to them'

Some teachers have a lot of learning to do.

Take, for example, a woman who was teaching a seventh-grade class for O'Maley Innovation Middle School in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Image source: WHDH-TV video screenshot

The subject was the debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden — and 12-year-old Jackson Cody said he became a fast target not only of other students, but also the teacher.

What happened? You see, Jackson supports Trump.

"I just feel like our country wasn't in a great place," he told WBZ-TV. "I just wanted to learn more about Donald Trump because it seemed like he was making our country rise again and become America again."

But supporting Trump isn't always the safest path to take. Then the seventh grader said the fateful moment happened.

"The teacher asked, 'Who supports Donald Trump?'" Jackson recalled to WHDH-TV. "And I was the only one to raise my hand."

He noted to WBZ that "a few kids were going to raise their hands, but then they heard the teacher say to me, 'Oh Mr. Jackson, I thought I liked you.'"

Image source: WHDH-TV video screenshot

It got worse.

"Then she asked why I support a racist and a pedophile," he noted to WHDH.

Jackson added to the station that "she also said, 'I am ashamed of any woman who voted for Donald Trump,' and I told her my mom and one of my grandmothers voted for Donald Trump."

Other kids in the class smelled blood — and apparently his teacher did, too.

"I was just upset because other kids in the class were ganging up on me, laughing at me, and she was laughing and wouldn't say anything to them," Jackson noted to WHDH.

Lawyering up Once Jackson's family found out what went down in his class, they fought back.

They contacted a First Amendment attorney and asked the school for an apology, WBZ said — and got one.

Jackson told WHDH that the teacher later apologized to him in front of the entire class, and he said that helped.

"We tell them to stand up for yourself and don't be afraid to speak your opinion," Jackson's father, Jay Cody told WBZ. "Their opinions are theirs; they're not our opinions. They're very well read children. They like to educate themselves on their own topics. Unfortunately they do disagree with us very often."

What did the school district have to say? Gloucester Public Schools Superintendent Ben Lummis told WHDH he was disappointed after first hearing about the incident.

"We always want our students and staff to feel safe — and that their point of view is understood and respected," he told the station in a statement. "Every day in our schools — we strive for tolerance, understanding, different perspectives and being civil."

More significant perhaps is the news Lummis broke that his staff will undergo training next week on how to address controversial topics with their students, WHDH reported.

And that's obviously good news for Jackson and his family.

"Certain topics — politics, religion, even sports nowadays — can sometimes be discussed and can very much make kids feel uncomfortable," Jay Cody told WHDH. "You would hope teachers could recognize that and take advantage of it the opposite way."

He also told the station that if teachers do discuss controversial topics, they should "stand in the middle and hear from both sides."

In the end, Jackson told WHDH "everyone has the right to their own opinion, and everyone should respect that."


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1 posted on 10/16/2020 2:53:38 AM PDT by gattaca
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To: gattaca

This looks to be a positive outcome and I give kudos to the school system for it. Especially for Massachusetts!


2 posted on 10/16/2020 3:00:35 AM PDT by SES1066 (2020, VOTE your principles, VOTE your history, VOTE FOR ALL AMERICANS, VOTE colorblind!)
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To: gattaca

“Then she asked why I support a racist and a pedophile,”

The perfect response would be “I’m not a Biden supporter”


3 posted on 10/16/2020 3:01:28 AM PDT by where's_the_Outrage? (Drain the Swamp. Build the Wall.)
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To: gattaca

When you dig just a bit into the facts of a situation like this, you soon learn the pathetic truth: a typical classroom in an American school is run by an infantile teacher who is less mature than some of his or her students.


4 posted on 10/16/2020 3:03:40 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("There's somebody new and he sure ain't no rodeo man.")
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To: gattaca

Paedophile? They should doxx the bitch for that one.


5 posted on 10/16/2020 3:04:39 AM PDT by TalBlack
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To: gattaca

This virus has done a great job of shutting these “teachers’” yaps - anything done remotely can be recorded.


6 posted on 10/16/2020 3:05:26 AM PDT by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: gattaca

We let this happen to our schools, now it;s time we fix them. Complacency is consent.


7 posted on 10/16/2020 3:05:26 AM PDT by Skidmark (More ammo is a good thing)
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To: SES1066

No. A positive resolution to this horrorshow would have been a LAWSUIT with monetary compensation against the teacher personally, the school district and the school management.

Apologies dont cut it.

They need to feel financial pain.


8 posted on 10/16/2020 3:10:15 AM PDT by Chickensoup (Voter ID for 2020!! Leftists totalitarian fascists appear to be planning to eradicate conservatives)
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To: TalBlack

Pedophile? And this is supposed to be a teacher of facts? The school system has been thoroughly infected with commies. Take your kids out. Now!


9 posted on 10/16/2020 3:15:48 AM PDT by HighSierra5
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To: gattaca

Need to have more anti tenure and reformed civil service laws passed so that these commie “educators” won’t feel so emboldened to spread their tommyrot and harass students.


10 posted on 10/16/2020 3:29:16 AM PDT by AbolishCSEU (Amount of "child" support paid is inversely proportionate to mother's actual parenting of children)
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As this child is not a voter, does an opinion matter? Yes? No? Wouldn’t teaching a class be more effective if the class discussion leaned towards the process of government elections rather than attacking any particular candidate?

Why wouldn’t “educators” want to elaborate on the civics, history, and philosophy associated with our system of government?

Per the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosphy (a partial list of fallacies)

[Quote] The controversy here is the extent to which it is better to teach students what Schwartz calls “the critical instrument” than to teach the fallacy-label approach. Is the fallacy-label approach better for some kinds of fallacies than others? If so, which others?

Another controversy involves the relationship between the fields of logic and rhetoric. In the field of rhetoric, the primary goal is to persuade the audience. The audience is not going to be persuaded by an otherwise good argument with true premises unless they believe those premises are true. Philosophers tend to de-emphasize this difference between rhetoric and informal logic, and they concentrate on arguments that should fail to convince the ideally rational reasoner rather than on arguments that are likely not to convince audiences who hold certain background beliefs. Given specific pedagogical goals, how pedagogically effective is this de-emphasis?

Advertising in magazines and on television is designed to achieve visual persuasion. And a hug or the fanning of fumes from freshly baked donuts out onto the sidewalk are occasionally used for visceral persuasion. There is some controversy among researchers in informal logic as to whether the reasoning involved in this nonverbal persuasion can always be assessed properly by the same standards that are used for verbal reasoning.[Unquote]


11 posted on 10/16/2020 3:29:25 AM PDT by Clutch Martin (The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.)
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To: gattaca

I’ve told this story many times before. In fact I have it ready to copy and paste because I think it’s important.

I’m a teacher myself - I teach secondary school history to older students - 14-18 year olds. I am very careful to avoid promoting my own political beliefs in the classroom - with my oldest, most mature students, I will tell them if they ask, what I think and why, but I will also direct them to contrary arguments and encourage them to independently research things.

When I was at school in the late 1960s and early 1970s, one of my teachers, who was also the school’s Chaplain was very active in the anti-Vietnam War movement, and also a number of other left-wing causes (a couple of which I even agreed with him on actually). I was considering going into the military after I left school, and I sought out the teachers I trusted and admired for advice - I had lost my parents so I relied on certain other adults. When I went to him, I expected him to tell me joining the military was a bad idea. Instead, he told me it was a good career and he thought I’d do well in it. My surprise was obvious to him, because he went on to elaborate on his philosophy of teaching.

He told me that his mission as a teacher was always to try and teach his students HOW to think, not WHAT to think. And while he was always happy on some level, when a student agreed with him, that he would regard himself as a profound failure as a teacher if all his students did so. It would mean he’d failed to teach them to think for themselves.

When I became a teacher myself, I’ve tried to adopt the same philosophy.


12 posted on 10/16/2020 3:33:53 AM PDT by naturalman1975 ("America was under attack. Australia was immediately there to help." - John Winston Howard)
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To: HighSierra5

Notice how they were careful not to identify the teacher. No mention of any suspension or other disciplinary action was taken either.


13 posted on 10/16/2020 3:38:11 AM PDT by GAGOP
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To: gattaca

That teacher is a sicko and should be out of a job.

Not only did that teacher gang up on the kid, but she allowed other students to do the same.

She shouldn’t be in a position of trust having anything to do with children.

Period.


14 posted on 10/16/2020 3:50:25 AM PDT by mewzilla (Break out the mustard seeds.)
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To: gattaca
"Then she asked why I support a racist and a pedophile," he noted to WHDH. Jackson added to the station that "she also said, 'I am ashamed of any woman who voted for Donald Trump,' and I told her my mom and one of my grandmothers voted for Donald Trump."

The FBI needs to run over to the school - take names and see if they can recruit some new agents...

15 posted on 10/16/2020 3:55:16 AM PDT by GOPJ (Biden's base: Why doesn't Biden's Tour have rallies in black communities?)
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To: gattaca

Another nasty, leftist, government union, pubic school teacher abusing a child.

Screw an apology, ze should be charged with child abuse, and the principal charged with aiding and abetting it. Get serious on it.


16 posted on 10/16/2020 3:58:04 AM PDT by polymuser (A socialist is a communist without the power to take everything from their citizens...yet.)
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To: gattaca

Says the teacher who ignores Joe feeling up little girls on television.


17 posted on 10/16/2020 4:25:22 AM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
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To: gattaca

It appears like the Gloucester, Massachusetts, facility should be more appropriately named the O’Maley Demonicrat Indoctrination Camp.


18 posted on 10/16/2020 4:51:10 AM PDT by Carl Vehse
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To: gattaca

“...racist and pedophile”

He said trump, not biden, you stupid twit.


19 posted on 10/16/2020 4:56:35 AM PDT by NicoDon
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To: TalBlack

“Paedophile?”

Really. Where did THAT come from?


20 posted on 10/16/2020 4:59:29 AM PDT by MayflowerMadam (Disappointment is inevitable. Discouragement is a choice.)
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