Should any teachers who allow students to watch the beheading of Nicholas Berg, or give out a web address where the beheading is shown, be punished?
Yes
No
0voters
VILLA PARK, Calif. - At least three teachers have been placed on paid leave following complaints they showed students the videotaped beheading of American Nicholas Berg in Iraq.
Villa Park High School English teacher Stephen Arcudi allowed students to use his classroom computer to see video footage of Berg being executed, school officials said.
“Because of our concern over his judgment and the way he handled the situation, we have put him on leave while we continue to investigate,” said Orange Unified School District Assistant Superintendent Cheryl Cohen.
Two other teachers were put on leave by the Grossmont Union High School District near San Diego.
Cohen said both a parent and a student complained.
Arcudi, 46, said he discouraged a student from trying to find the Berg video on the Web. But his students said Arcudi gave out the Web address where the video could be found.
“He said: `This is the enemy we’re up against and these are the things you don’t get to see,’” said Naim Dujak, 17. “He did not force anyone to watch it.” story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s … berg_video
If the job of a teacher is to educate students, and if these students will very soon be able to join the military and possibly be sent to serve in a place like Iraq, in which they may face the possibility of their own death, then doesn’t it seem rather absurd that any teachers would face disciplinary action simply by allowing their students to see the way things really are in the world? I think so.
The teacher did not force the students to watch the beheading, so why should he face punishment for simply supplying them with a website address?
The reality is that soldiers are indeed facing death in Iraq so the world, including students, needs to have the opportunity to see exactly what is happening over there in order to truly understand how out of control things are in Iraq.
As disgusting as the beheading is to see, what is the point of stopping people who want to see it from watching it? THis is the same logic that allows places like the USA to keep executing prisoners, which seems to be saying that capital punishment is a valid form of punishment, yet at the same time, most of the public is not given the chance to see an execution take place. Why is that?
I think that these teachers did nothing wrong and that they should not be punished in any way. Does anyone else care to comment? (Mods, if I have put this thread in the wrong forum, please move it for me. Thanks).
Firstly, I want to say two things - I haven’t seen the video, nor do I intend to, so I am ignorant of what is actually shown. However, from all accounts if it is a genuine video, it is clearly a video of a murder/execution. Secondly, I have intepreted the question the way I think you intended, which is ‘did he do anything wrong?’ and have answered yes. I don’t actually think he should be punished, other than perhaps a verbal warning, but I still think he overstepped the bounds of a teacher’s role. I envisage this will be an unpopular opinion.
Yes, this is a reality. Soldiers and their prisoners are indeed facing death in Iraq. The reality of the world is also that every day murder, rape, child molestation and other forms of violence and humiliation take place. I do not suggest that students be provided with details as to where they can watch these events taking place so that they can be ‘better informed’. I think it’s possible to form an opinion on these things without actually seeing them. No matter the reasons behind it, the video is the killing of a human being, and I don’t think you can ‘justify’ the viewing of it by minors merely because of its political import.
I think the students could easily have gotten the information somewhere else, and indeed, would have. The point is that I don’t believe a teacher should actively provide the information or the facilities to view what is essentially a murder, even though I have no objection to the students seeking it out themselves. I think it’s inappropriate to their position to ‘educate’ their kids by showing them, or providing the means to view acts of that kind. However, it’s a very fine line in this instance, because the students were not forced to view the footage, and it was easily available outside the teacher’s influence, so at most I’d give him a “slap on the wrist” for it. I don’t think he did anything morally wrong, but it was not proper behaviour in the strictest sense of the word IMO. Also if the students asked if he knew, and he told them, that would be a slightly different situation than if he announced the website without prompting and told the students they could watch it if they wanted ie “encouraged” them.
As a former high-school teacher in the US, I agree with daasgrrl on this one.
The question isn’t whether it was right or wrong of the teacher to supply the URL or let the students see the video (per se) – for a teacher, it’s more about who’s in the class. You really do have to avoid anything that is going to be highly provocative or “on the edge” with an average, mixed class of high-school students. It would have been OK to hold a discussion on the event (assuming that this guy was teaching history, social studies or something remotely related) but I can’t see a real pedagogical value to showing this tape EVEN in the context of such a lesson, unless it was a fairly long-term, integrated lesson on this topic. Showing it just like that without preparation or follow-up is irresponsible from a teaching perspective.
It was bad enough being in the classroom after Columbine (and we had gun threats and a death threat against the principal during my time as a teacher, all of which were taken very seriously.) High school is a scary place in the US for a teacher – you can’t touch a student, but they have no compunctions about laying hands on you if they’re a) crazed b) maladjusted, c) on drugs or d) God knows what. I never had any problem with my kids, thank God, but I could surely imagine it happening.
See the discussion on the Berg video in the Intl forum too. Turns out the video was perhaps a CIA plant, edited, doctored, NOT the real thing at all. Google around and you will see many theories that indicate it was not what it at first appeared to be. Perhaps this thread should be merged there.
Is this video not a “snuff” film, technically speaking? Why would anyone want to watch that? I remember viewing a clip purporting to show Daniel Pearl’s murder. It turns out that it was some video showing (apparently) a Russian soldier getting his throat cut by Chechnyan soldiers, complete with screaming and gurgling noises. I felt physically ill after seeing that (the memory still haunts me), and steer clear of any other video clips like that. Seeing stuff like that sure doesn’t make me a better person…
Although I agree with y’all in that the teacher went to far, I can kind of understand where he was coming from. The war in Iraq, like any conflict in a foreign country, has been sanitized and, to an extent, even glorified on television and in newspapers. Like the first Gulf War, it’s almost a Video Game War. Something like the Berg video - which I made the mistake of watching myself, and like Maoman with the “Daniel Pearl” one, will be haunted by for a long time - can bring home the reality of what’s actually happening there; that it’s not magical precision bombs blowing up only rooms where the bad guys are, and that the opposition aren’t just a bunch of stone-throwing ingrates.
That said, that teacher should not have done what he did. However admirable his intent may have been, it was decidedly poor judgement on his part. Now if, like daasgirl said, a student had come up and asked him about it at some other time, then it wouldn’t be quite so bad. Possibly still not the best choice of action, but not as bad.