Controversial Assignment Leads To Teacher's Resignation

Did anyone see the letter to the editor in the Cleveland paper this week where a mom shared her frustrations with Jo. County Schools? It was also in the Herald about a week ago. I can see some of her concern. First for safety ... seems it would be easy for an exchange teacher to flee the US. 2nd someone with a thick foreign accent may not be the best choice for a reading teacher.

Along the same lines, I just came across this article on wral. It does not say if this person is a US citizen but the situation makes me wonder....
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Controversial Assignment Leads To Teacher's Resignation

POSTED: 4:43 pm EST November 17, 2006
UPDATED: 5:07 pm EST November 17, 2006

SMITHFIELD, N.C. -- A Spanish teacher at Smithfield-Selma Senior High School resigned this week after handing out an assignment that some students and parents said teaches hate.

Khalid Chahhou, who was in his first year of teaching in Johnston County, gave students a worksheet in which they were to translate words and find them within a word-search puzzle.

Some students started uncovering strange words in the process.

"There were words like 'kill,' then I saw it said 'destroy America,'" Eric Herrera said.

As they read on, students found the puzzle contained a paragraph that contained the following phrases:

"Sharon killed a lot of innocent people," a possible reference to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

"Palestine is not a terrorist group."

"Allah help destroy this body of evil making humanity miserable."

"It was kind of scary at first to think about, you know, your own teacher in your own school that is teaching you," Herrera said.

School administrators said they confronted Chahhou about an unidentified concern Wednesday and he resigned.

"The situation surrounding the resignation has prompted us to call the proper authorities," said Crystal Roberts, the spokeswoman for Johnston County Schools.

The Johnston County Sheriff's Office reviewed the complaint, but investigators said they don't see any reason to file criminal charges or contact other agencies.

Chahhou, who also teaches Arabic at a religious school affiliated with the Islamic Association of Cary, told WRAL in a telephone interview that students got the wrong message from the assignment.

"When I made the assignment, I was upset and angry about a story I recently saw on the news. If any message appears, it is more of a message to myself, not to my students. I never meant to hurt or upset any students or parents," he said.

 

Just give the ACLU a chance they'll be on his side soon....
This kind of crap makes me SICK! :evil:

 

Saw it on the news tonight, I have to say, it looked pretty suspicious! :shock:

 

suspicious? i think its just stupid. did he really need attention that badly?

 

Shouldn't his Anti-American butt be kicked out of this country?
Am I the only one who is scared that this idiot is in this country?

 

I am interested to know more.

 

Honestly? I'm more scared that you're in this country. Freedom of speech does not disappear simply because the speech you use freely goes against America, how dare you suggest otherwise. I'm not saying its right, i think where he used it is quite wrong and i don't agree with his rhetoric but it's his freedom of speech, and to take it away from him hurts my freedoms too. I love my freedom. I love my country. I even love his freedoms, while he uses them to say whatever nasty rotten things he wants to say about this country because the fact that he's allowed to means to me that my freedoms are not jeopardized. Please stop suggesting that this country is some sort of monarchy, or empire to be revered and exalted without choice.

 

My guess is he will be deemed an enemy combatant and detained indefinitely. There he will be tortured, excuse me, persuaded, to reveal who planted the propaganda in his classroom. The information he gives will not be accurate and we will have some more useless 'intelligence'

Yay

 

And Muslims wonder why we are suspicious of them. Asinine behavior like this would be one reason

 

You are out of your mind. He wrote "destroy America".
That is a threat to MY COUNTRY!
He is a threat to MY COUNTRY!
If you sympathize with him so much, go take a class in Cary with him and learn some Jihad hate!
Oh... and I pledge to the flag, the flag of the USA!
You are just as much as a traitor as this Muslim extremist!

 

The Constitution of the US does NOT give some one the right to incite violence or to fill school assignments with hate messages. The ACLU will not get involved.

Snuff

 

Have to disagree with you on this. This is a class room. Not a street corner or a web page. The teacher should know better, and yes if the teacher is going to do something like that in a class room the teacher should be looked at as a threat.

 

Freedom of speech yes but there are limits such as not to young impressionable minds of children. The teacher could spout all the crap they wanted off to an adult who could respond not to young children. That simply screams coward!!!

 

What if the puzzle were filled with gay bashing or racist remarks about different ethnicities? Same thing. They are hate messages.

 

True, and these all would endanger the teacher's job, but not justification to support exportation out of the country.

 

I find it interesting that so many people use their right of free speech to support the removal of anyone who voices an opinion which does not agree with theirs. It would seem to be a double standard at best.

Wouldn't the founding fathers and all of those who died to protect our rights be proud of this now ....

 

They would not be proud of subliminal hate messages being placed in their children's school assignments. HELLO WAYNE. :roll:

 

As much as I do not agree with what happened and I would have probably gone ballistic if it were my child in the class...Wayne, your point makes me pause. Someone else stated freedom of speech has limits (not quoting). Is that true? Is that what it says, or just free speech? Is that reserved for just US citizens, or is that for everyone in the country?

Again, I do not agree with what happened, but you've made me ponder on the above...

Frogger

 

No, they would not and they would support the removal of that person from their position and any legal charges if applicablem, but that is far from suggesting they be removed from the country because they disagree. The message is still valid for that person, just the means used to present it was inappropriate. There should be punishment for that inappropriate use of authority and forum, but that is the extent of the acceptable reaction under our Constitution. The rest of the proposals are worse in that respect. Hello back Cleo .... :wink:

 

I wonder what punishment our founding fathers would have employed? Hanging? A few days in the... sh*t what is that thing called? The thing with the spot for the head and arms, and you had to stand there for days? :?