A teacher at a Pueblo County high school in Colorado infuriated parents when she tasked students with inventing a terrorist plot by a foreign power
A Misunderstanding, or a Cause for Concern?
According to KKTV, a Colorado TV Web channel, Gini Fisher said her daughter explained the assignment to her in this way: “She said you have two minutes to write down on a piece of paper what your act of terrorism would be if you were to come up with an act of terrorism.”
The teacher responsible for the assignment has not been identified. According to KKTV, whether disciplinary action will be taken is still unclear. The assignments will be confiscated and destroyed.
Incidents of teachers who intentionally or accidentally incite debate inside the classroom are numerous.
On May 1, a court ruled that teacher James Corbett had violated his first amendment rights by “disparaging Christians during a classroom lecture,” the Orange County Register reported.
The Register explained that Corbett, a teacher at Capistrano Valley High School for 20 years, referred to Creationism as “religious, superstitious nonsense.”
Chad Farnan, a sophomore student when the trial began, brought the charges against Corbett. His lawyer, Jennifer Monk, who works for a Christian legal advocacy group reported, “We are thrilled with the judge’s ruling and feel it sets great precedent.”
In July, Jon Freshwater, a teacher in Mount Vernon, Ohio, was forced by the school board to resign after “preaching his Christian beliefs in the classroom and burning crosses on students’ arms.”
While an anonymous commenter on Channel 7’s site sympathized with the teacher, adding, “I have done an assignment like this in a college course to get in the mindset of our enemy so that we may better prepare ourselves for those ‘What if..’ scenarios.”