I try to avoid unnecessary profanity. In part, I figure that I’m saving my profanity up for really important moments. That way, if someone I know hears me using profanity, they know I’m worked up about something. Maybe it doesn’t work that way. Also, it’s how I was brought up. I’m just uncomfortable with it.
Meanwhile, for other reasons, the Supreme Court remains a place where you just don’t hear casual F-bombs being dropped. So the deliberation that led to last week’s decision in Mahanoy Area School Board v B.L. were interesting because the speech at the center was decidedly profane. A spectator could be forgiven for listening in to see how the proper and conservative Supreme Court handled an incident of free speech that included four separate instances of “the f- word.”
Their decision might have surprised some, but as a long-time teacher and principal, I found that the decision aligned with common sense interpretations of free speech.
It also allowed me to reflect on meeting and learning from Mary Beth Tinker, who was at the heart of the most famous free speech at school case prior to this week’s decision.
America’s Foremost Snapchat Thought Leaders:
“The adolescent must never be treated as a child, for that is a stage of life that he has surpassed. It is better to treat an adolescent as if he had greater value than he actually shows than as if he had less and let him feel that his merits and self-respect are disregarded.”
Maria Montessori
The Supreme Court upheld that speech that served to harass another person in school was NOT protected. These and other specific definitions often became the subject of conversation at our school, so I provide you with this week’s word:
harass
verb
ha·rass | \ hə-ˈras ; ˈher-əs, ˈha-rəs \harassed; harassing; harasses
Definition of harass
1a: EXHAUST, FATIGUEI have been harassed with the toil of verse— William Wordsworth
b(1): to annoy persistently
//was harassing his younger brother
(2): to create an unpleasant or hostile situation for especially by uninvited and unwelcome verbal or physical conduct.
//was being harassed by her classmates
//claims that the police were unfairly harassing him
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Make it a great week!