Posted by Eilan on December 08, 1999 at 03:16:27:
I heard the most disturbing story recently in my Foundations of Teaching class. My professor told us an incredibly sad and shocking story about a teacher,I think from Missouri. It was a high school, I believe, there were students running around with guns shooting other students and this one teacher PUT HIMSELF IN FRONT OF ONE OF THE STUDENTS and got shot in the leg saving the student. Well, of course he couldn't work until he was healed so he asked for Worker's comp so he could get by until he could work again. Well, the idiot school board said that he wasn't entitled because throwing himself in front of a student in danger of being shot WAS NOT IN HIS JOB DESCRIPTION!!!!!! Is that not the saddest and most ridiculous thing you've ever heard??? Well, of course the community wouldn't hear any of that. This amazing teacher HAD done his job. When parents drop their students off at school in the morning, they expect the teachers to keep their kids safe. That is what this man did and the whole community got behind him. He got his Worker's Comp as he deserved. He went above-and-beyond what many teachers consider their jobs to be and the school board tried to penalize him. Well, it's teachers like this that are the good ones. Those who know that their students are important and that it's their job to protect them. It's just sad that the board would say something as stupid as "It wasn't in your job description to save a student's live by endangering your own." Teachers like that should be hailed as societies hero's in my opinion!