http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25585916/?GT1=43001 Ohio science teacher, 53, accused of burning crosses into students' arms Only using the Bible and burning crosses into people's arms is expressing freedom of religion? Jesus tap dancing Christ. I've heard Catholics be called weird. But in my 18 years of Catholic schooling I have never heard anything approaching this kind of crazy ****. And even in the private Catholic school that I attended we were taught about all sorts of different religions; from Hindu to Islam to atheism. It would have been one thing if this school taught as many religions as they could. But they didn't and I'd still have a problem with it given that they are funded by the state and federal gov't. This is the kind of stuff that has made me no longer consider myself a Christian. The basic messages of Jesus are great. But there is so much periferal bull**** that clouds the message.
Here is another shining example of someone having a Bible and not having a clue as to what it says/means! To take a captive audience in a classroom and use your position is wrong. I doubt he would have gotten into any trouble if he had simply had and privately read his Bible. It was the forced sermons/demos that were the problem. Many substitute teachers in small towns are pastors. We work with kids and have advanced degrees. I have more history courses than the average social studies teacher. They do it to supplement income from small congregations and to help out areas with fewer trained personnel. Yet, the good ones let their lives be their witness and allow for discussions, if any, to come at the student's request and off hours/grounds.
Is no one else finding it slightly frightening that the town is split over the fact that he burned crosses into children's arms???
Very frightening. You can usually dismiss this kind of stuff as being a very small group of people. But half the town? That's not something you just blow off.
Who knows? The teacher claimed that he used a "device" to demonstrate to students how it worked, he claimed they were "X"'s, the article does offer a picture, it is not one of his students however. The article is thin on "facts" to say the least, if he was indeed inflicting damage on his students that crosses any sort of moral line, if however, the story is just hype, do tell, will his accusers email him an apology?
What do you base that on Ohiphinfan? The picture in the article said "like this one" not "this is what he did", the article referenced a report, but offered no links, no pictures, nothing to offer material to say one way or another. Now what Freshwater did do was reference Creationism: Teachers having religious materials is commonplace in rural Ohio?
I'm not sure what part of my statement you are questioning? For me he stepped over the line in a couple of places. The burning kids is unacceptable in any way. From the Ten Commandments, to Leviticus, to the Prophets, and well into the New Testament any idea of harming innocents of the community (i.e.youth) is repugnant. While that is an abomination, my other major concern is the preaching to a captive audience. While you are correct and the article sited is not clear, since I live in Ohio I have been getting stories on this for a longer time and in more detail. Students who presented different views than his were penalized and he "preached" regularly during class time. That would be for me a step over the line of loving one's neighbor as one's self. The creationism vs. evolution flap hasn't progressed much past the Scopes trial in many communities. There have been battles in Ohio up to the state school board level about approved curriculum and text books. It is ugly and stupid. As to the Bibles on peoples' desks, it is not just rural Ohio. I know a number of teachers who keep Bibles on or in their desks and take a portion of their break time for personal devotions. If interupted they have been known to leave them open and out. That should, imo, be their right. As long as they don't use their position over a captive audience.
Oh I'd agree, but what did they mean by "burning"? What was the "Device"? Is it even logical to assume that teens in a classroom would line up to be "burned"? That is the problem with the article, it mentions "burned", then showed a picture of someone who disfigured themselves and said "like this", and the reader is to assume that Freshwater burned 8 teens horribly in his classroom. The fact of the matter is, the report never went into specifics, it never mentioned "what" the device was, what it was meant to do, people are to read the article and assume that he was disfiguring children. Does anyone really think that a Teacher mutilating students and sending them to the emergency room would not even rate a passing mention to the police? Penalized..how? What happened to a student who disagreed with Creationism? Did he fail them? Ask them to explain why they didn't buy into Creationism? The article does not say, once again, the reader is left to assume that a High School science teachers is mutilating teenagers via branding them with crosses and failing anyone who didn't believe in Creationism. Yet the article never says that, the reader is to assume it... I agree, I don't have a problem with competing theories, let the student discover for themselves, I do have a problem with failing someone who doesn't think Creationism is the origin of life on Earth, just as long as they have their ducks in a row "Why" Evolution is a more complete theory. Critical thinking and all that. And that is what he was ultimately fired for, insubordination, Freshwater refused to remove his religious items despite being ordered to, if he were actually branding people, one would think he would have been led off in handcuffs and have a tens of thousands of dollar bail bond set for him. For me, MSNBC created a hit piece designed to allow the reader to draw their own erroneous conclusions IE..Freshwater was branding children and failing anyone who didn't believe in Creationism, yet a minutely closer reading of the article reveals no such thing occured, people jump to the conclusion as we can see in this thread itself. MSNBC basically has become a propaganda outlet like they used to accuse Fox of being...
The device was used according to other articles to give chemical "burns" that were fairly pain free. What was in contention is that not all the kids who got them, wanted them. There are accusations in the broader press that he did not allow any mention of evolutionary theory in his classroom, penalized the grades of those students who disagreed with him, and ignored the textbooks on these questions. What is not clear in any of the articles is what constitutes "religious material" in his classroom? Did he have posters, crosses, what? His Bible in and of itself was not the problem nor should it have been.
If there were damage involved, then he should have been arrested for assualt. I find that dubious indeed, Testing is standardized, even if he wanted to teach Creationism only, the tests would tell a different story. Vague information...again, yet that doesn't stop a headline from screaming what it will scream...just look at the tags for this story...
Hey, at least I narrowed it to crazy 'evangelicals'. I agree with you that the info is vague. I didn't really focus on the cross burning thing. The thing that scares me is the preaching in schools.
But other forumites did DF13, and IMO, that was M(isery)NBC's point, not too many people would examine or question the article, most even here saw the self mutlilation and "assumed" that was what Freshwater was doing.. And that was the point of the propaganda, if one looks at your tags "crazy evangelical" etc. it even worked on you....
Part of why I made the tag is my experience. Once you get east of downtown Memphis you get into a very evangelical area. Being raised Catholic and growing up where I have all my life (I lived in Knoxville for 4 years too) its made me a bit defensive towards Catholicism (even though I don't consider myself Catholic, or really even Christian anymore). I know its petty and possibly uncalled for. But I take the 1st Amendment seriously.
That seems to be what the article suggests. But padre has a good point about there not being much clarity about it. Seems something happened though.
