Third Graders Plot Attack on Teacher
by James Buchanan
No, this wasn’t an episode of South Park. Third grade students in a public school in Georgia really did plot an attack on their teacher. According to a recent news article “A group of third-graders plotted to attack their teacher, bringing a broken steak knife, handcuffs, duct tape and other items for the job and assigning children tasks including covering the windows and cleaning up afterward, police said Tuesday. The plot by as many as nine boys and girls at Center Elementary School in south Georgia was a serious threat, Waycross Police Chief Tony Tanner said. ‘We did not hear anybody say they intended to kill her, but could they have accidentally killed her? Absolutely,’ ”
What’s especially troubling is that one of the conspirators had the job of “cleaning up.” Now wait a second. Cleaning up strongly implies that there was going to be a mess –as in lots of blood everywhere, which of course implies that the little bastards were seriously thinking about killing their teacher or grievously injuring her.
The article also notes “The children, ages 8 and 9, were apparently mad at the teacher because she had scolded one of them for standing on a chair, Tanner said. A prosecutor said they are too young to be charged with a crime under Georgia law.” Whatever happened to showing some respect for the teacher? It’s true some teachers may go overboard now and then, but a scolding isn’t exactly the same as a nineteenth century beating. When I was in school, students would just react to a volatile teacher by keeping quiet and not antagonizing her, not planning an assault with duct tape and a steak knife.
Considering that the school is in Georgia, there’s a good chance there may be a racial component to this incident. I’ve never heard of White students plotting a retaliation over a scolding. Black students however tend to be a lot less disciplined, often have no respect for the teachers and there’s a variety of threats from assault to rape that the teacher has to worry about. Now it seems a teacher has to worry about being murdered by Third Graders!!!