A teenager at a high school in California was suspended after a teacher found a poem in her personal notebook with the line, "I understand the killings in Connecticut; I understand why he pulled the trigger." According to Salon , Courtni Webb and her mother, "told NBC’s Today that Webb was simply expressing herself and exploring ideas about helplessness and darkness that she believed were behind the Newtown massacre. 'Never in my life have I heard that you couldn’t mention a tragedy that happened. I didn’t say that I agree with it, I said I simply understand it' Webb told Today, noting that the she felt the school was making her look like 'a monster.' Her mother said that she believes her daughter’s free speech is being violated."
No threat was made, and there was no reason to believe that the poem was anything more than a creative outlet for Webb. (We still encourage creativity, don't we?) That this was a personal poem, not part of any assignment, I question why the teacher had access to it in the first place, but even if it had been part of a school assignment, I fail to see the reason for the suspension other than a "no tolerance" policy taken too far.
Try to see it from the teacher's POV. "Ignore a possible threat, be held responsible." English teachers are especially under pressure to interpret possible threats (English teachers were a source of info and underwent considerable scrutiny after Columbine and Va Tech). While I agree that students SHOULD be able to explore dark shit via poetry in school, I can also sympathize with a teacher taking it very seriously. My 2 cents as a former hs English teacher in training...
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