u/SafeTraditional4595

Looks like we don't have enough teacher stories lately, so here is another one. Surprisingly the media has not picked up this one, so here is the original document:

https://teacherregulation.gov.bc.ca/documents/FormsandPublications/ProfConduct/DisciplineOutcomes/RONNE_CRA_20260409.pdf

This is a summary of what happened:

- Student says the word "pussy" in the hallways. The word was apparently used to mean "coward".

- Teacher considers that that use of the word is mysginistic and contronts the student. She says "do you think women are weak?" and "women can be stronger than men".

- Somehow, that interaction turns into the teacher "forcefully questioning the validity of religion", and she said "that is philosophy, i am a scientist".

- These comments were said in front of students of multiple religious backgrounds, which made the students uncomfortable.

I'm going to say, a lot of the teacher disciplinary outcomes are actually deserved, and, if anything, they are too light (like the creep who was grooming a grade 11 student that was posted here a few days ago). But I think it is a stretch to discipline a teacher on this one. She got a four day suspention of her certificate. The groomer got a 3 weeks suspention. I don't think these punishments are proportional to severity of the case.

I seem, however, to be in the minority here. I posted this in r/CanadianTeachers and the concensus there is that this teacher indeed deserve to be disciplined. So, I'll open a discussion here to see what non teachers think.

I was reading the BC teacher disciplinary outcomes (yes, I do that some times). I like how the incidents range from "wow, disciplined for this? This could have been any of us" to "how the heck this teacher gets to keep their license?"

The case I wanted to discuss is this:

https://teacherregulation.gov.bc.ca/documents/FormsandPublications/ProfConduct/DisciplineOutcomes/RONNE_CRA_20260409.pdf

I summary, this is what happened:

- A student used the word "pussy" in the hallways. The student was apparently using the word to mean "coward".

- The teacher considered this use to be misogynistic, and confronted the student about it.

- During the confrontation, the teacher "forcefully disputed the validity of religion", and said "that is philosophy, I am a scientist".

And that's pretty much it. Then is the usual paragraph about multiple students feeling offended by what the teacher said. The teacher got a letter of discipline, a four days suspension to the teacher certificate, and had to take two courses about creating a positive learning environment and cultural sensitivity.

I wanted to get other teacher opinions on this, because to me I don't think this should be a disciplinary offence. At most a talk with the principal asking to be more careful with your words. But even then... is criticizing religion considered emotional abuse against religious kids now? I am from Mexico, which is mostly Catholic. I was an atheist since high school. My teachers ranged from super religious to hard-core atheists, and they were not afraid to share their beliefs. I had a teacher who would tell us before Christmas break "and remember that the real meaning of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Don't let all the bells and whistles hide it's true meaning". And then another teacher who would shit on the Catholic Church, or ranting about why the whole idea of God was stupid. And I as a high school student I liked having that range of teachers. It does not mean I had to agree with either of them, but I liked been exposed to these very different types of people.

But now it looks like religion is almost a taboo topic for teachers. Anything you say can have a student feel offended. I teach math and science, and, as someone who is quite interested in the philosophy of science, I wish I could talk and have discussions about the interplay between science and religion more freely. But in the current climate, I avoid the topic altogether.

Sorry to ask what may be a very basic question, but I am a math teacher who was pretty much forced to take a middle school science class. My background in in math. I also tried to search for the answer of this before posting it here.

I am currently doing ray diagrams for curved mirrors. For concave mirrors, if the object is farther than the focal point, the image is real and upside down. If it's closer than the focal point, the image is virtual and straight up. If I take a real concave mirror and look at my reflection, I can see with my own eyes that my reflection is inverted when the mirror is far away, and upright when the mirror is close.

But I don't see any difference between a virtual and a real image. They both look to be behind the mirror. I actually had the idea that because every time you look at an image in a mirror it appears behind the mirror, only virtual images were visible with your own eyes. Real images form in front of the mirror and had to be projected on a screen. But clearly I can see both.

So I'm just a bit confused on how this works in real like. Looks like both virtual and real images are visible with your own eyes. And in both cases they appear behind the mirror. Is there any visual way of distinghish them?

Background: I am teaching pre-calculus 10. This kid was recommended to go to the non-college bound math classes by his math 9 teacher, but he insisted in doing pre-calculus 10.

Since his diagnostic test I almost know this kid was not ready for pre-calculus. Then he got almost zero on his first exam. I recommended him, his mom (single mom), and admin to transfer to the non-college bound math classes multiple times. Admin agreed with me, but he and his mom refused do the change.

After multiple exams with near zeroes, his mom emails me saying that she is worried that her son might fail the class. Then she starts asking what he can do to pass. She asks me to give him a take home project instead of in-class tests. I'll obviously won't do that, so I tell them that there is no shortcut to pass the class, if he can't understand the material then he won't pass.

At some point her mom tells me that she hired a tutor for his son for which she had to do a "major economic sacrifice", and to please let her know if I see improvements in his next exam. In his next exam, the kid hands me the exam blank. He tells me that he spent hours with a tutor but he had no idea what the tutor was talking about, so he was just going to fail the class.

So here we are. He knows he is going to fail. I know he is going to fail. I offered to give him some lower level math work to do during class. "Can I pass if I do that?" he asks. I reply "No, you can't pass with this, but it can help you slowly build up your math skills so maybe you can take this class again in the future." "There is no point, then", he says. So he pretty much just spends the class browsing his phone. He is not really distracting his classmates. And I'm just letting him since I feel there is nothing left for me to do.

That's why I'm posting this. Do you think there is anything else I should still be doing for this student? And for reference, I checked his transcript and he is also failing his other academic classes (Science, Social science and English). He is only passing PE, trades and art classes.

I just grabbed a new Casio FX-300ESPLUS2. Not the most advanced calculator out there, but sufficient for pretty much any high school class that does not require graphing. And it was just $10.

This is still a two lines calculator, with a dot matrix display that allows to show fraction, it can handle fractions and roots symbolically, can do exact-value trigonometric calculations, has basic statistics functions, has a battery that lasts forever and if you take care of it it can last for a long time.

It's also not a product that can be sold at a loss because the real business is in the replacement parts (like printers and ink cartridges).

Other than the production cost, someone has to design it, and I'm sure there are more overhead costs for Casio. Then it has to be transported, and then the Amazon, Target or Walmart where you bought it should get a slice of the price too.

Then how the heck can it just be $10? Do these actually take less than a dollar to produce?