Student writes essay, arrested by police!
The full details are not out, so there may be important information missing, but my first response "You have got to be kidding."
A high school creative writing teacher gave an assignment to write an essay. Allen Lee wrote an essay. Allen's father says about his son that "The teacher asked them to express themselves, and he followed instructions."
The teacher was disturbed, and so Allen was arrested.
I am sure that the next time the teacher asks the students to express themselves most students will write something fluffy.
In another article where Allen Lee explains the essay we find that Allen "made references to violence, drug use, a song by the band Green Day and the Super Mario Brothers video game, among other things."
Several articles describe Allen as a top student with a 4.2 grade-point average.
This over the top response is because of the Virginia Tech Shooting. One of Allen's friends had given: "10-minute speech in the same class describing what his life would be like as a “hit-man” and identified students he would shoot. He said he was not punished for that speech." It doesn't appear the teacher is being consistent.
It will be interesting to see where this ends up.
(Hat tip: Opinion Journal)
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Technorati tags: Allen Lee, Cary-Grove High School
7 comments:
This is difficult...a big deal was made of the violent writings of Cho...and Klebold and the like also had histories of violent writing. Teachers were criticized for not taking them more seriously.
The stuff I've seen of Cho's (admittedly not much) seems a little tame to have really alerted many people. It doesn't appear to target anyone specifically...and are we going to arrest Quentin Tarantino and all those people for the same garbage?
It is hard to know exactly what to do, though. Especially since it is no longer ok to teach the difference between right and wrong and that writing should uphold the good rather than the evil.
You should take a look at the story on the Chicago tribune website for more info about what the kid actually wrote. I was really sceptical when I saw this yesterday, but having seen some of what the kids wrote, I actually think that the school's reaction was fairly reasonable. Not so sure about arresting him on disorderly conduct charges, but certainly making sure what he wrote was addressed very seriously. It's kind of scary what is going on in some kid's minds.
I was going to excerpt from the news story some of what he wrote, but it's so awful I figured you probably don't want it on your blog. Anyhow. Just wanted to pass that along!
Not everything in life is pretty and nice and good. Not everything your child is exposed to (whether you like it or not) is pretty and nice and good.
Are we punishing people for writing about what they are exposed to in the media and day-to-day life? Isn't writing one of the ways we make sense of the world around us, even if it's a fictional piece?
Talking to the kid about it? Reasonable. Freaking out and having him arrested? Way over the top.
This is such a retarded over-reaction that it's not even funny. Bet he'll sue and get lots of money. Hope he'll share with me.
Now the kid's lost his chance to be a Marine.
Thanks to a teacher who (as I understand it from the various news sources) basically said to WRITE SOMETHING OFFENSIVE and that NOBODY WOULD GET IN TROUBLE.
Gee-whiz, I think the moral of the story is to not trust anyone in a position of authority at school?
Some teachers have had this problem for a long time, especially if you are quite or withdrawn (read nerdy). I had a friend in an AP English class (back in the early 90's) who was given a "creative writing" assignment. He wrote about how all the math students over threw the English department. I believe they were all beheaded. While this wasn't my taste, the teacher over reacted. He was called into a Learning Director's office with a cop and the teacher. This guy had never hurt a fly and had a clean academic record. Now this was the same teacher who had a few years earlier thrown out another AP student's creative assignment because she didn't like the subject.
Try and find the actual essay somewhere. I read it, and the first couple sentences were something to be worried about. But I wouldn't say he should be arrested for them... until I read the last sentence. He mentioned something about what he was being put through in school causing the first shooting at his school. It was very disturbing. His writing was so inconsistent and at times incoherent that it made me fairly sure there was something wrong. If nothing else, he should at least be required to go through some therapy sessions. Future students should be assured that they shouldn't write "fluff", but they certainly can't write about shooting people en masse. College students are intelligent (enough to have gotten into the college) and should know much better than to write certain things. It's just like being in an airport. You would never mention pulling out a gun in an airport. So why would you mention it in a creative writing class after the VT shooting?
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