Tag: Classroom

Tonight, Chuck is obsessed with a speech Chief Justice John Roberts gave to his son's 9th grade graduating class. » Subscribe to MSNBC: http://on.msnbc.com/SubscribeTomsnbc About: MSNBC is the premier destination for in-depth analysis of daily headlines, insightful political commentary and…

They grow up on church, military, patriotism and traditional family, and they come from a world different from mine. As I prepared to teach about abortion and gay rights for the first time in 2003, I approached the classroom with trepidation. One joy of teaching is when students surprise you, and I soon discovered that my fears had been unwarranted. Thus, well before gay marriage became legal, I was telling friends back home that if my students were any indication, the question was not whether, but when. It turned out that the issue that most angered my students was the Vietnam War. And there is no question that both conservative and liberal actors mobilized around issues like abortion and gay rights. These were patriotic families who felt let down by their country. Years later, I encountered something similar when I researched U.S. veterans who had sustained radiation injuries during their World War II-era service and who later became ill with cancer. The 1970s gave rise to the culture wars, no question. I had to go beneath the surface of our debate and ask why this issue had stirred them.

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Hours after an armed teacher in a Northern California classroom fired a gun and injured a student, the head of the National Rifle Association proposed placing a second armed teacher in every classroom, to shoot the first armed teacher before he or she can do harm. “Had there been a second armed teacher in the classroom to shoot the first armed teacher, this regrettable incident would never have occurred,” Wayne LaPierre said. “The only thing that stops a bad teacher with a gun is a good teacher with a gun.” The N.R.A. executive vice-president said, “In a perfect world, you would have a third armed teacher, in case the second one messes up, but right now I’d settle for two.” He blamed anti-gun activists for blocking measures that would allow multiple teachers with guns to shoot at one another and thus keep the nation’s classrooms safe. “It’s time to stop the madness,” he said.