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from the the-scientists-of-tomorrow-are-thwarted dept.
According to a petition at change.org
At first glance, Greg Schiller looks like a mad scientist taken straight out of a Hollywood film. His infamous moustache has more fans and followers than the dodgers on a good day. He coaches fencing and occasionally appears in school talent shows. Heck! Mr. Schiller is in fact anything but ordinary. He is teacher, role model and friend.
He is also suspended from teaching, coaching, and acting as union rep for his school.
Schiller was ordered to report daily to a district administrative office pending an investigation after two students turned in science-fair projects that were designed to shoot small projectiles.
One project used compressed air to propel a small object but it was not connected to a source of air pressure, so it could not have been fired. (In 2012, President Obama tried out a more powerful air-pressure device at a White House Science Fair that could launch a marshmallow 175 feet.)
Another project used the power from an AA battery to charge a tube surrounded by a coil. When the ninth-grader proposed it, Schiller told him to be more scientific, to construct and test different coils and to draw graphs and conduct additional analysis, said his parents, who also are Los Angeles teachers.
A school employee saw the air-pressure project and raised concerns about what looked to her like a weapon, according to the teachers union and supporters.
Shooting objects through tubes has a long tradition, and the idea of moving things with coils has been around a long time (I dimly recall articles about coast-to-coast coil trains from old mouldy Popular Science mags).
If you support freedom of scientific thought in our schools you might want to stop by change.org and sign the petition.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by khchung on Friday April 11 2014, @05:04AM
"raised concerns about what looked to her like a weapon"
Whoever raised this concern is a moron and should not be allowed to do any work more intellectually demanding than sweeping the floor. BTW, the broom you used to sweep the floor? That looked like a weapon and can be used to beat people too, why don't you "raise some concern" about it?
Unfortunately, in the current "OMG! Terrorist!" culture of the US, any kind of idiotic "concern" from any random fool must be taken seriously. And the result is science became the modern witchcraft - "That women is strange, she must be a witch" -> "that sciency device is strange, it must be dangerous", with the same kind of witchhunt for any unfortunate target being picked - you must prove your innocence to a group of fools who had already made up their minds about your guilt. Good luck with that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 11 2014, @05:09AM
We don't need THAT many people sweeping.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday April 11 2014, @06:46PM
But then, who sanitizes my phone?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 11 2014, @05:39AM
Some time ago I had a copy of the Anarchist's cookbook with me at school. I'm old, shut up. When found in my possession by search of my bag (I had lost it), the high school called the police and a detective was sent out right away.
The detective just gave a nasty look to the principle, to which I audibly started laughing and then proceeded to hysterics. An expulsion followed with the school board getting involved and threats from lawyers kept my vacation cut down to a week. My father was a damned efficient man in his time.
I bring it up to make a point that enforcement of such ridiculousness is never equal at all. It will be abused to punish the more undesirable element (I was something else).
An honor roll student in chemistry performed an experiment straight out of the Anarchist's Cookbook, with the book in class, and the teacher had full knowledge before hand and assisted.
It happened on the same day, a fact that got verified and was the primary reason the school board backed down and let me come back to school.
My experience may be biased, but there are an awful lot of spiteful and holier-than-though morons in education. They can't make that many teen movies about it and to have a ring of truth :)
(Score: 1) by bill_mcgonigle on Friday April 11 2014, @07:05AM
Whoever raised this concern is a moron
Perhaps not - it could be used as a terribly ineffective weapon. Now, then, hand me that BIC pen you've got in your hand...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Rousay on Friday April 11 2014, @08:22AM
I tend to agree with this.
FUCK that bitch, and I hope she ends up the ass end of one of these ridiculous complaints, akin to: the way that woman is sweeping the floor infront of my children is highly sexual, she must be fired immediately, how dare you allow our children to be exposed to this kind of unacceptable behavior by an adult! Maybe she is one of those school employees who rapes our young innocent boys!" -> bam, homeless. Jesus. Looks like a weapon because it has a fucking tube? Definitely an old spinster with cob webs in the snatch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 11 2014, @12:16PM
This isn't "OMG terrorist!" this is "OMG Columbine!" Almost every public school in the country has a zero-tolerance policy for "weapons" that, depending on how badly it's written and interpreted, includes "finger guns" [cnn.com].
Anytime something bad happens to a kid, we all stand around and say how bad stuff shouldn't happen to kids, and someone should have done something to prevent it. Often followed by lawsuits against whatever site the bad stuff happened, because it might be their fault somehow. Always followed by imposition of ever more draconian restrictions on what used to be a time to make mistakes that would not haunt your adult existence. Here's some news: being alive is dangerous. Deal with it.
(Score: 3) by khallow on Friday April 11 2014, @05:03PM
It's also groovy for the administrators of the school. Their "hands are tied" by the "zero-tolerance" policy so they don't have to take any heat for the decisions they make.