â??Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Arizona:
A. If a person who provides classroom instruction in a public school engages in speech or conduct that would violate the standards adopted by the federal communications commission concerning obscenity, indecency and profanity if that speech or conduct were broadcast on television or radio:
For the first occurrence, the school shall suspend the person, at a minimum, for one week of employment, and the person shall not receive any compensation for the duration of the suspension. This paragraph does not prohibit a school after the first occurrence from suspending the person for a longer duration or terminating the employment of that person.
For the second occurrence, the school shall suspend the person, at a minimum, for two weeks of employment, and the person shall not receive any compensation for the duration of the suspension. This paragraph does not prohibit a school after the second occurrence from suspending the person for a longer duration or terminating the employment of that person.
For the third occurrence, the school shall terminate the employment of the person. This paragraph does not prohibit a school after the first or second occurrence from terminating the employment of that person.
B. For the purposes of this section, â??public schoolâ?? means a public preschool program, a public elementary school, a public junior high school, a public middle school, a public high school, a public vocational education program, a public community college or a public university in this state.â??
Just saw this and figured it would be interesting to see what others thought. I feel like this is ridiculous and would hinder all education, especially higher learning. I’m interested to know how this bill would work with tenure at the university level. Would tenure be the only way to discuss even minority controversial topics? Thoughts?
[quote]pushharder wrote:
This essentially says a teacher can’t curse or tell dirty jokes in the classroom. Ya’ll telling me this would “hinder education?”[/quote]
Yes, because with the way the bill is written, it would include any art (literature, movies, films, pictures, paintings) that had curse words or objectionable material that is presented by the instructor. This would close down discussion of any number of topics. Who decides what’s indecent, would talking about the holocaust in a history class breach that? What about discussing law cases, say on the freedom of speech, that wouldn’t be allowed (and there are 3 law schools in AZ). What about film production or history: you’d have to keep the movies G rated. Also, what if an otherwise good teacher or instructor happens to curse in class, just this week many of my instructors in vet school would have been suspended with such a law.
Arizona is already known for having a terrible school system. I was lucky and got through it alright and on my way. Some of my favorite teachers would occasionally swear and it in no way hindered my education. They were generally the ones that wanted us to look at controversial material and try and open our minds to new ideas. This bill would hinder most of these teachers and instructors and would even stop future teachers entirely from pursuing appointments within this oppressive system. I’ve been a substitute teacher in the past and enjoyed it and wanted to eventually become an extension veterinarian at a university, hopefully in arizona but with this law I wouldn’t even consider it.
Yes thats the intent but you shouldn’t legislate professionalism. If you can’t teach a class without using profanity, you shouldn’t be teaching. Unfortunately once this is law, it could be interpereted to where discussion of certain subjects could be–to some–considered profane.
AZ has elected some idiots , they see themselves as cutting edge Republicans , if I did not know better I would say we are living a remote location cut off from civilization
[quote]Grneyes wrote:
I was just going to ask what they consider profanity because, on TNT for example, you can’t say “ass” but you can say “bitch”. [/quote]
[quote]Grneyes wrote:
I was just going to ask what they consider profanity because, on TNT for example, you can’t say “ass” but you can say “bitch”. [/quote]
I actually think that people are somewhat blowing this out of proportion. The standards talk a lot about context and what “reasonable” people would think. That being said, I do believe that they have opened themselves up to a lot of lawsuits because of this law with parents on both sides of the spectrum suing to have their way seen as “reasonable”.
[quote]atypical1 wrote:
I actually think that people are somewhat blowing this out of proportion. The standards talk a lot about context and what “reasonable” people would think. That being said, I do believe that they have opened themselves up to a lot of lawsuits because of this law with parents on both sides of the spectrum suing to have their way seen as “reasonable”.
james[/quote]
I see what you’re saying but I disagree. I don’t think it is blowing this out of proportion–in the last couple centuries, when was the last time that a government body or agency actively tried to DECREASE their involvement once a law was on the books? It’s a one-way street. It may be slow, it may be a long long time from now, but it’s one way only, and I don’t like it.
Besides that very important detail, this also messes with education, and while not a tin-foiler by any definition, I really REALLY dislike anything that purports to delineate what can and can’t be discussed in a high level class at the university level. For that matter the really dislike anything trying to prohibit subject matter in ANY class, because education is where you define how you go about trying to make sense of your world–you limit the discussion there, and you eliminate other things by definition. It’s the same thing as defining your terms in fact: you define the terms and you define the scope of the discussion. Same thing here.
That being said, I understand this in the context of pre-school/elementary school given the extremely young age and development status, even though I think there is no bloody WAY you need a law to enforce that. And in any case there is absolutely no justification whatsoever for including the university level in this law.