Last night as I was reading my Facebook thread, I saw this post from Kendra. As most of you know, my 5yo is adopted, and Kendra is her big sister. Here they are together…
Anyway, here was Kendra’s post…
Are you kidding me? Kendra is 17 years old and is polite to a fault. She uses “yes, ma’am”, “yes sir”, “no ma’am”, “no sir” with anyone over 18, says bless you, is the first to offer her seat to someone older than herself… I once told her she didn’t need to use “ma’am” with me, because we’re related. She responded that it’s the way she’s been taught, and if I didn’t mind, she’d like to follow the rules her Mom has set… she’s got the manners of a saint. Okay, maybe not a saint, but she is one of the politest kids I’ve ever met.
Here’s what Kendra says happened…
A girl sitting right next me sneezed in class. I said “Bless You!” My teacher, Mrs. Kindle, asked “Who said that?” I said “me.” She said “Why did you say that?” I said “Because it is courtesy.” She said “Says who?” I said “Says my pastor.” She said “Well we don’t say that in my class.”
I asked her why it was a big deal to her. She yelled at me and said “We will not have Godly speaking in my class!” That is when I stood up and said “My pastor said I have a constitutional right -1st amendment freedom of speech.” She said “Not in my class you don’t.”
I said “I will defend my religion.” She said “You will not in my class because I trump everyone.” Then another student stepped in and said “You don’t over trump God.” So she sent me to the office and the assistants principal said “if I didn’t want to respect my teachers rules then maybe My pastor should teach me because my freedom or speech and religion does not work at their school.
Then they sent me to ISS (in school suspension). After I left the class room all my class mates stood up and defended me the teacher had to call assistants principal to control the class.
In school suspension for saying bless you. I think it is absolutely appalling.
I teach my kids to say bless you when anyone sneezes. In fact, if I sneeze and noone says it, I yell “Somebody bless me.”
Saying bless you is courtesy. While it may have it’s origins in religion, or superstition, saying bless you is merely an acknowledgement of empathy for the plight of someone else. It is an ordinary courtesy that comes to some of us as easily as breath.
A courtesy that, in my mind at least, deserves to be acknowledged rather than punished.
I was so aggravated over the situation that I posted about it in a blogger group I’m in, and Trisha from MomDot reached out to me and said she’d love to chat with Kendra. I made the introduction, via Facebook, and Trisha wrote about it.
I really don’t think she deserves to have an in school suspension on her record for saying “bless you.” I encouraged both Kendra and her Mom to contact the American Center for Law and Justice, should they not get anywhere with the school.
ETA- I thought I’d share the updated news coverage with you…
ETA 08/20/14
The school did issue a statement to the State Gazette, which you can read here: http://www.stategazette.com/story/2110930.html
In the statement, the school confirmed that “she was placed in ISS for the remainder of the period.” Whether she chose to leave the class or chose to leave voluntarily was not addressed.
We teach our kids to be courteous, then they get in trouble for it. I think it’s ridiculous.
What do you think?
Please Note- All comments go into moderation on this site. Please be courteous and respectful in your replies. I do not mind opposing views, but I will NOT tolerate cursing, name-calling, or derogatory comments about Christianity or any other faith.
Absolutely appalling!! The school system is messed up where you can’t even be polite. She didn’t even say God bless you. I mean we know what she meant, but seriously! This teacher is ridiculous and the school for backing her up! Way to go Kendra!! Not just for being polite but for standing firmly on what you believe.
That’s ridiculous! They should contact ACLJ. Can’t believe kids are getting in trouble for having common courtesy!
I am an atheist and against religion in our schools, and even I find this incident to be astounding. She has every right to say what she did. It may be the teacher’s classroom, but unless someone is being offensive (and saying “Bless you!” isn’t!), they have no right to silence her like this. Absolutely stupid.
I think this is totally outrageous. I did a search on proper manners when someone sneezes and several sources say that “bless you” is proper manners but etiquette-guide.com said it best.
” If you sneeze, say, “Excuse me” afterwards. If someone near you sneezes, it is proper sneezing etiquette to say, “Bless you”, “God bless you” or “Gesundheit”.
WOW! I am just so disturbed at what this world is becoming. That is what’s wrong with America.
My question is what school ws this at in what city ? Plz email me the answer. I would like to write to them. nothing ugly but just to speak my mind. carry on being courteous. God bless you
Hi,
I work for a news station in Memphis and am trying to get in contact with you and/or Kendra. I have a crew that is preparing to travel to Dyersburg today to get an interview with a school administrator but we would love to hear your (and her) side of the story.
Please contact me.
(phone number redacted by editor)
So very sad. Courtesy aside, we still have freedom of religion — simply saying bless you shouldn’t threaten anyone, and if it threatens that teacher, she’s doing it wrong. It’s nice to see a teen stand up for her rights in a serious way and I hope this is reversed.
I graduated from that school 30 years ago and (name redacted by editor) was my typing teacher. I don’t know what to think about this. She was a very get down to business teacher but she was very nice when you talked to her outside class. Just wow!
Freedom of speech doesn’t mean you can stand up in class and disrupt things. If it is in a public school you can’t proselytize in the middle of class.
She is not entitled to disrupt the class to defend her religion, especially when it is clear she doesn’t understand how the First Amendment should be applied here.
It sounds like a silly misunderstanding that is being blown out of proportion.
It was at DCHS in Newbern, Tn. (teacher’s name redacted by editor)
She was not suspended, in-school or out of school. Forget 1st Amendment, this is a 9th Commandment violation. Typical hypocritical, seeing persecution where there is none, theist.
You may be an atheist and I am here to tell you that we Christians have the right to say God bless you and any thing else that we want to do because the 5 th amendment said that we the people have freedom of speech just like you do. If you do not want to here God bless you then close your ears.
If you are an atheist then maybe you are a skeptic too. As such, you should at least reserve judgement until all the facts are in.
Are we sure that the teacher objected to the “bless” part or maybe she objected to the student talking at all (as it would happen in a classroom that’s getting out of control were the teacher instructs everyone to be silent)?
I find it very hard to believe that a teacher in Tennessee would make it a point to discipline a student for saying “bless you” after a sneeze.
Other commenters here pointed out that they had the same teacher in the past and that they were puzzled by this behavior. Maybe that’s because it never quite happened the way it was recounted.
In fact, I would bet that once we investigate this thing a bit more, we’ll find that the teacher is also a devout Christian and very surprised at this accusations.
This is bad enough that if it happened as described the ACLU would easily win a lawsuit and get this teacher fired. I say go ahead and sue. If that’s exactly what happened it is almost their duty to escalate this up to its ultimate conclusion.
If I were the principal of a school where something like this happened, I would not hesitate to fire or at least reprimand the teacher. But I would make very sure that the events unfolded as recounted and I would interview every single pupil individually and make sure all of them confirmed it.
If it turned out to be true it would be a very grave misstep. But I have a feeling that there is a lot more to this story.
I saw the post on MomDot last night and put in my ‘two cents’. This disgusts me. The teacher and the principal must be miserable people to be picking at such simple things. I mean, isn’t there REAL problems they have to deal with at school – do they really need to deal with something like this? This is just unbelievable. Kendra was just being courteous. This should not have gone so far. As for the “God speak” – it’s funny how everything is allowed in this country EXCEPT things related to Jesus. Ugh, it makes me so mad. I hope Kendra gets recognized for this and I hope she gets the apologies she deserves.
The City, (Town) is Newbern, Tennessee. Dyer County High School.
It seems like she got in trouble for talking back, not saying “bless you.” When the other students starting joining in the teacher had to regain control of the class. While it sounds like the teacher handled the situation badly, this is only the student’s version — we all know that, when a person is describing why they got in trouble, there is always a few key elements left out. We also do not know the history of the student’s behavior in the class. There could be a history of annoying proselytizing, talking back, or other issues.
American Christians’ desperate need to feel persecuted for their religion can get really annoying.
expecting to get some abuse for this…
Before this gets out of hand, the Principle did give her account of what happened
According to (Principle) Dodds, Turner was not given an in-school suspension. She wasn’t sent out of the classroom, either — she chose to walk out. And, most importantly, she wasn’t punished by the teacher for saying “God bless you” — however, the teacher did admonish her for “disrupting the classroom.”
In the end it’s the students word against the teachers,
does anyone know what the other students said?
Edited :
Obviously, there’s no recording of what happened, so this is inevitably the student’s word against the teacher’s, and the student got her side out before anyone else could respond.
So I called up Principal Peggy Dodds just a little while ago and got her side of the story before ‘poo’ hits the fan in the conservative world.
According to Dodds, Turner was not given an in-school suspension. She wasn’t sent out of the classroom, either — she chose to walk out. And, most importantly, she wasn’t punished by the teacher for saying “God bless you” — however, the teacher did admonish her for “disrupting the classroom.”
Since I can’t verify the specifics of what was said (including the remarks about “Godly speaking”), let me offer this hypothetical:
The class was supposed to be quiet. Someone sneezed. Turner said *something* in response (it doesn’t matter what) and the teacher asked her to be quiet. Turner took that as a knock on her faith and felt the need to defend against it. The teacher only saw this as a further disruption and the situation escalated. The student, clearly frustrated, ran out of the classroom and, not long after that, posted something on Facebook.
I’m not saying that happened, but it’s plausible. There’s probably a lot of misunderstanding all around. Add to all of that the fact that the school year only began a few weeks ago, so teachers and students don’t know each other very well yet.
By the way, I left a phone message with Turner’s mother as well — but I haven’t heard back from her yet.
According to Hemant Mehta of the Friendly Atheist (Patheos.com):
“According to Principal Peggy Dodds, Turner was not given an in-school suspension. She wasn’t sent out of the classroom, either — she chose to walk out. And, most importantly, she wasn’t punished by the teacher for saying “God bless you” — however, the teacher did admonish her for “disrupting the classroom.”
The class was supposed to be quiet. Someone sneezed. Turner said *something* in response (it doesn’t matter what) and the teacher asked her to be quiet. Turner took that as a knock on her faith and felt the need to defend against it. The teacher only saw this as a further disruption and the situation escalated. The student, clearly frustrated, ran out of the classroom and, not long after that, posted something on Facebook.”
According to Dodds, the school principal, Turner was not given an in-school suspension. She wasn’t sent out of the classroom, either — she chose to walk out. And, most importantly, she wasn’t punished by the teacher for saying “God bless you” — however, the teacher did admonish her for “disrupting the classroom.”
Pattie, that is what Talon was saying… that saying Bless You isn’t offensive and that she has a right to say it.
She wasn’t proselytizing. She said bless you and the teacher asked her why.. It escalated from there.
Actually, TonyD, if you listen to the news reports, the school confirmed that she was held in ISS for the remainder of the class period. And I’d appreciate it if you’d refrain from mud slinging.
According to the news report, as posted above, the school confirmed that she was held in in school suspension for the remainder of the class period.
Yes, Albert, I read that on the Patheos site, as well. I thought it peculiar that the school commented to him, but told everyone else 1) the were in meetings or 2) only the superintendent could speak.
Ahh, but Avi, as you can hear in the news report above, the school did tell networks that she was held in in school suspension for the remainder of the period., and also confirmed it in the statement issued to the State Gazette… http://www.stategazette.com/story/2110930.html Whether she was told to leave the class or left on her own was not clarified by the school.
Dan, as noted above, the school did in fact tell networks that she was held in in school suspension for the remainder of the class period and allowed to return to her next class, which they also confirmed in their statement to the State Gazette. http://www.stategazette.com/story/2110930.html I find it peculiar that Patheos received a different response.
different sources are saying different things but you’re probably correct (although disrupting class like that is a fair reason to be held in ISS)
-good for her, she gets to stay out of class and the teacher can continue with the lesson unhindered.
I don’t see the problem here, the only problem I see is that she broke a rule knowing there would be consequences and now complains about it publicly in such a way that makes the Christian Community shout “Our rights are being taken away!” as they are wont to do in any situation when they don’t get their way just like with prayer in the classroom and their rights to discriminate against the LGBT community, Atheists/Agnostics, Evolutionists, etc…
it’s a shame that this has been blown way out of proportion but it’s not at all surprising.
This is just crazy. The world has gotten crazy and it’s only the beginning.
Hi Virginia, I see where it states she was reportedly ISS but not that anyone confirmed it.
“Shortly after, Turner was reportedly instructed to go to the principal’s office, where she was placed in ISS for the remainder of the period. The decision by the DCHS administration to place Turner in ISS was one normally followed on a daily basis according to Garner. Once classes changed, Turner was allowed to attend her next class. ”
Then ISS is explained, but nothing saying that it actually happened.
Glen it says “she was placed in ISS for the remainder of the period. The decision by the DCHS administration to place Turner in ISS was one normally followed on a daily basis.” The past tense of “was one” indicates that the decision indeed happened. If you listen to the news reports, they’ve also confirmed the same detail.
Sigh. The parents and the pastor of this little girl are doing her a disservice. Let’s get sonething straight.
The First Amendment to the Constitution says:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
What that means is that you can’t be put IN JAIL for speaking freely or practicing your religion. It has NOTHING to do with being fired from a job, or being suspended from or kicked out of a school. You can say just about whatever you want to say, whenever you want to say it; you won’t be put in jail for saying it, but there CAN be consequences! You will ALWAYS be suspended for talking back to a teacher, even if the teacher is wrong. Students can go to administrators and lodge complaints, protest peacefully with petitions, etc. telling a teacher what you are or aren’t going to do in his or her class is disruptive and deserves to be punished.
The girl was just being polite and reflexively said, “Bless you.” The teacher overreacted and took a knee-jerk antireligious stance that made a small situation worse. The teacher was wrong, but so was the student. If the rule is ‘no talking’, that’s the rule. And there’s nothing in the a Bible that says kids get to talk back to adults.
And when the students enter the larger society and become threat, they ask “where is GOD” in all these. meanwhile you leave HIM(GOD) out during their upbringing. Christians wake up.
You, and everyone else, should get your facts straight before posting ANYTHING ANYWHERE. Sounds like a bunch of uninformed know-it-alls who really KNOW nothing at all.
Sam where did you get that? Did you see the list of “Do not say” phrases on the board? And have you read other reports of this young lady’s past behavior? You need to get your facts straight.
you’re absolutely right.
tabloid news like this shouldn’t be allowed to exist at all, in fact we should ignore anything that makes claims without evidence.
we don’t know who’s telling the truth here – a child who broke the rules or a teacher who’s enforcing them however I can provide two hypothetical situations;
1) a child got in trouble and decided to broadcast a slightly different story in order to get attention from mainstream media in order to get the teacher in trouble.
2) an atheist teacher in a primarily Christian country that discriminates against Atheists is able to openly persecute theists while having an entire school (which includes Christian staff) cover it up.
let’s face it; story number 1 seems more likely