Utah, USA: Uproar and apologies when public school teacher forced Catholic student to wipe Ash Wednesday cross off his forehead

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Yet you chose to claim knowledge of it.
Until that point, it had not been mentioned.

Once pointed out that you are making claims to what you cannot know, you suddenly decide it irrelevant.

I am finding your argument less and less coherent as we go.
 
When all is said and done, one fact remains. This young student will always remember being humiliated for his Faith. Sincerely hope that his parents will make darn sure that he has an understanding of being a soldier for Jesus and that his suffering is pleasing to Our Lord. The way he behaved was Christ-like and will teach others, including the teacher, the meaning of our earthly life and the eternal life. Defending our Faith is being asked of each of us. Its the best fight he could ever be asked to engage because it protects from all the other dangers.
 
Well at least you spoke with this one instead of just claiming what they would say.
However, I think you missed something.
It was done.

The student got their extra credit.
The teacher did not lose their job.
The world did not end.
 
No, you are building a straw man and claiming it indefensible.
I told you you have misunderstood a few times now. But you keep claiming to know what I said better than I know.
 
OK, can you tell me what I’m claiming that you didn’t say?

Did you or did you not insinuate a good way to handle the situation (since you’ve observed it) would have been for the teacher to assign extra homework in the form of: Turn in a single page report on Ash Wednesday. If satisfied, extra credit, if not disciplinary action.
vz71 said:
In this case the teacher simply let the ashes stay and upped the ante.
“Turn in a single page report on Ash Wednesday tomorrow. If I am satisfied with it, you get extra credit…if I am not, disciplinary action for class disruption.”
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Maybe you weren’t saying it should/would apply in this case and that’s what I’m missing…🤷‍♂️

What I’m stating is: If that situation had been brought to court (required extra report) in order to freely practice their religion (and use a protected symbol), the school and teacher would get blown out. My guess is the school would just end up settling, due to the blatant violation.
 
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Hoping so, as I no longer understand what I’m missing or construing incorrectly.
vz71 said:
Well at least you spoke with this one instead of just claiming what they would say.
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IDK if this is a veiled shot at me but…my wife has been a public high school teacher for nearly 20 years, I didn’t think I needed to point that out. She just went through all this training a couple years ago for the whole “pastafarian craze” If your scenario had gone to court, the school and teacher would have some 'splaing to do…
vz71 said:
It was done.
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I don’t think anyone is disputing that it was or wasn’t.
 
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I am old and lived in simpler times. I can’t think of an analogous situation that I viewed, or that plausibly might have happened.

Back in those days, we wrote on individual slates, and sat on common benches and all thought alike.
 
I lived in more homogenized times in more monotoned surroundings.

Things got more sparky in college. I recall debating the psych prof I graded for, on the concept of religion, in front of the class. His idea.

And my, yes, politics everywhere. I was a ripsnorter.

But in the lower grades, in the Eisenhower years, not much going on that might have looked like these ashes.
 
It seems to me that we are lacking a crucial piece of evidence. Was the child in question actually disruptive? I can imagine swaggering, pointing the smudge out, general clowning to be conspicuous. That would be disruptive. Please note, I am not saying that the child did any of these things!

Of course, I realise that nobody here was actually there, so would we ever know the truth without cctv.

What made the teacher react? How did they describe the situation?
 
This attitude of the “Irish” Catholics toward the Byzantine rite Catholics is why there is a schism in the United States. This attitude cost us many people.
 
When I was in high school the history teacher said that convents were brothels.
 
We also don’t know if the student has a history of attention-seeking behavior. Teachers are human and their perceptions are tainted by past events. If a child is generally well-behaved in class, they are going to be taken more seriously when they try to explain a behavior the teacher doesn’t understand. If a child is frequently disruptive, the teacher is more prone to stop listening.
 
There’s a really good novel that addresses some of these issues. It’s meant to be a young-readers’ book, but I read it as an adult and I was amazed at how clearly it demonstrated how media (even prior to social media) can take an event and make it something completely different than it was. In short, there’s a smart-mouthed teenager, resentful that his English teacher didn’t give him a free passing grade so he could be on the track team, being rude during the school’s morning announcements. When the National Anthem began to play, he began humming it in a mocking tone, despite being told by his teacher to stop. By the next day, the media all over the country had dubbed him a victim of an anti-American school that didn’t believe in singing the National Anthem. The teacher, who was one of the best in the school, is fired. The school loses some of it’s funding as punishment for their anti-patriotism. The kid gets moved to a private school that doesn’t have a track team. On the first day, the teacher makes a big deal about how such a thing would never happen at their school because they believe in patriotism and invited the kid to lead the class in the National Anthem. The kid then breaks down in tears because he has to admit that he never learned the words. It’s a good, scary book.

 
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