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Teacher Suspended For Showing Blurred Film Clip

By TChris, Section Civil Liberties
Posted on Thu Apr 20, 2006 at 03:45:53 PM EST
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by TChris

Jacksonville (TX) A High School history and government teacher was suspended for showing a film clip.

The clip, called "The Ketchup Effect," showed a German boy and girl in a dimly-lit bedroom, sitting on the end of the bed. The boy asks the girl, in German, for a simulated sexual favor. The girl misunderstands how to perform it, causing the boy pain. He screams, and the clip ends.

The footage was blurred and did not show actual nudity. It is approximately one-minute long.

According to a student (we don't have the teacher's side of the story), the clip was part of a lesson on cultural differences, and was intended to show "a miscommunication between the boy and girl."

Students are upset at the suspension, apparently with good reason. They question why the schools' coaches aren't disciplined for their choice of films.

"The coaches show 'Super Troopers' with nudity and other weird videos," JHS tenth-grader, Allen Bramlett said. [The teacher] shows one little Google clip that is blurred, and he's out ... that's a bunch of bull."

Suspend a coach in Texas? Maybe after the season's over. (For the record, the coaches claim they censor the nudie parts of "Super Troopers.")

Although the teacher's decision to show the video clip seems odd in the absence of context, suspending him in the admitted absence of a policy that defines appropriate video teaching material was a poor decision. His students want him back.

"The AP test is in three weeks, and we have no teacher," Jordan Burdine, another JHS tenth-grader, said. [He] has been teaching us for the last two-and-a-half months, and the last couple of weeks are crunch time. This is a college credit test ... we need him."

Bird said JHS Principal Duane Barber is working to find an experienced person to replace [the teacher] until the investigation is complete.

Suspending the teacher only hurts the kids. An investigation is appropriate, but while it's pending, he should be allowed to do his job.

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    Teacher Suspended For Showing Blurred Film Clip | 8 comments (8 topical)
    Re: Teacher Suspended For Showing Blurred Film Cli (none / 0) (#2)
    by Al on Thu Apr 20, 2006 at 04:40:22 PM EST
    I've seen that clip. It's a Swedish film, and what the young man is asking for is definitely not simulated. The scene alluded to involves two teenagers (13 and 14) at a party who are obviously quite drunk. The punchline is funny, but in my opinion definitely not the kind of material you want to foist on a captive young teenage audience unless you are very sure none of the kids are going to be badly affected by it. And yes, there's a small but crucial amount of nudity at the end, when the young lady obliges her friend by treating his genitals like a ketchup bottle. I don't know that you want a written policy on this sort of thing. I'm afraid that any document produced by school bureaucrats would end up banning everything short of The Lives of the Saints, just in case. I do think the teacher should have run it by the principal first. If I'm a teacher showing something to a captive audience, I have to think about what may embarrass any of them, not me.

    Re: Teacher Suspended For Showing Blurred Film Cli (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Apr 20, 2006 at 04:56:35 PM EST
    Al Having viewed the clip, I defer to you.

    Re: Teacher Suspended For Showing Blurred Film Cli (none / 0) (#4)
    by roy on Thu Apr 20, 2006 at 05:09:42 PM EST
    You need a specific written policy to discipline somebody for doing his job poorly? I've seen the clip too. It's at best a little bit funny, and it's not appropriate for students, even with nudity obscured. Illustrating miscommunication is a fine goal for a teacher, but it's not an adequate justification to show simulated drunken teenage sex acts to students. If you want to stock French magazines in a French class, with the occasional stray boobie, fine. If you want to show a modern film interpretation of Romeo and Juliet to an English class, complete with sex scenes, fine. I don't see any such value in the silly little clip mentioned in the article. Students are right to be miffed at the hypocrisy of letting coaches show stupid or gratuitously sexual films. Discipline the coaches, too. Suspension may be overkill, though. Can't tell out of context. If he's teaching AP classes he's probably good at his job, telling him "don't do that" may have been adequate.

    Re: Teacher Suspended For Showing Blurred Film Cli (none / 0) (#5)
    by Richard Aubrey on Thu Apr 20, 2006 at 05:56:59 PM EST
    Considering all the options available to make the point, he had to go some to get this one. The question is not whether to show a film about miscommunication. The question is which one, and why this one.

    Re: Teacher Suspended For Showing Blurred Film Cli (none / 0) (#6)
    by demohypocrates on Thu Apr 20, 2006 at 05:59:34 PM EST
    You can catch the vid by going to yahoo video and entering the 'Ketchup Effect' into the search engine. It's all over the net. I'd post a link but the version I saw didnt blur out the nudity. I dont want to be responsible for TL being banned from another library. I'm with Roy on this one. It was very inappropriate to show in a high school. It is a cute little joke for adults with a graphic sexual subtext. Nothing dangerous, again, just inappropriate. Slap the teach on the wrist and forget it. But please fire the cretins showing these kids Super Troopers.

    Re: Teacher Suspended For Showing Blurred Film Cli (none / 0) (#7)
    by aw on Thu Apr 20, 2006 at 06:02:12 PM EST
    I saw that clip a couple of weeks ago. I thought it was hilarious. I don't think I would have showed it in school. It is probably inappropriate, but I can't imagine it actually harmed anyone to see it. Why, oh why are we so hysterical about these things?

    Re: Teacher Suspended For Showing Blurred Film Cli (none / 0) (#8)
    by ltgesq on Thu Apr 20, 2006 at 06:52:48 PM EST
    I am sorry, but I have to shepard my outrage for things that matter. If he was charged with a crime, I might feel different. Showing that clip is just stupid, and i see no problem with a firing. I went to a really liberal high school during a very liberal time, and no one would have shown that in school without thinking that there might be a problem with future employment.

    Re: Teacher Suspended For Showing Blurred Film Cli (none / 0) (#9)
    by Sailor on Thu Apr 20, 2006 at 07:44:50 PM EST
    Al, oscar, demo, Roy, aw; I was going to post my opinion, but I got distracted in seeing comments from people (as I recall) who usually disagree with each other ... and still do on this thread. But the civility and understanding of other's points was refreshing. I gained a better appreciation for all of you . I hope we can recall this on future threads. BTW, my POV: It's hard to get the atention of HS students. It's harder to keep the attention of AP students. If the subject for the day was cultural differences, showing a blurred tape of a sexual farce , (that most of us had been in or close to at that point), illustrating that even people from the same 'culture' don't always understand each other seems a reasonable teaching aid for AP students. With a teacher like that, I might have stayed in school. Disclosure:I'm a high school dropout and a college grad.

    Teacher Suspended For Showing Blurred Film Clip | 8 comments (8 topical)