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Anyone else on The Leonard Cohen Forum seen or heard tell of this? It blows! Democrazy™ Is Coming to the US, eh?

Who would Jesus bomb?
Teacher’s firing upheld

By: Donna Smith | The Oak Ridger [Illinois]
18 January 2007

CLINTON — At the end of a four-and-a-half hour hearing Wednesday night, the Anderson County Board of Education upheld its firing of teacher Deborah Ripley — the first tenured county teacher ever fired in school officials' collective memories.

Only member Wanda McCrosky voted against upholding the dismissal. Absent were members Dail Cantrell and Arthur Nelson.

J. Mikel Dixson, Ripley's attorney, said he and his client expected the ruling since this same School Board upheld Director of Schools V.L. Stonecipher's recommendation to fire Ripley on Sept. 14. He said he and Ripley will appeal the ruling to Anderson County Chancellor William Lantrip and continue up through the appellate courts to the Tennessee Supreme Court if they have to do so in order to restore Ripley's teaching career.

Ripley was fired Sept. 14 for what Stonecipher said was behavior that was “violent and irrational, inappropriate comments and declarations, and the presentation to students of inappropriate audio material from a compact disc.”

At Wednesday night's appeal hearing of Ripley’s dismissal in the Robert L. Jolley County Administration Building, Clinton Middle School Principal Sue Voskamp and Stonecipher told of the happenings of May 17, when they characterized students as frightened and angered by erratic behavior on the part of Ripley, their eighth-grade reading and homeroom teacher.

Ripley told a different story, one of chronic depression and a year of intense stress as her 83-year-old mother called her repeatedly for help and with claims that she was dying, added onto the already hectic life of a teacher, wife, and mother of two.

However, Ripley maintained that the events of May 17 wouldn't have happened if she'd been able to keep her May 12 doctor's appointment. And, that the events of May 17 wouldn't have resulted in her firing if she hadn't played the song, “The Future” by Leonard Cohen for her reading students — and she hadn't left that CD behind for Voskamp, Assistant Principal Bob Stokes, and Stonecipher to find and read transcribed lyrics for.

“If I had taken the CD, I don’t think we would be here,” she told the board.

Ripley requested the hearing, asking that it be closed to the public. However, the School Board opened the meeting to the public late Wednesday afternoon after consulting lawyers with the Tennessee Press Association and Tennessee Organization of School Superintendents.

Ripley admitted to a lapse in judgment in selecting that song to play for the 13-year-olds to listen to, write about, and discuss in reading class. Looking back, she said the cynicism of the poem performed to music wasn't understandable to the young students — and apparently not to some adults.

<quote>
Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St Paul
Give me Christ
Or give me Hiroshima
Destroy another fetus now
We don't like children anyhow
I've seen the future, baby
It is murder
</quote>

“The poem was cynicism,” Ripley told the board. “The song is anti-man, it is not anti-God. If man keeps doing this … this is your future.”

Voskamp said on May 17 she received a report that students were “alarmed, upset and a little fearful” because of a problem in Ripley's homeroom class. However, a teacher close to Ripley's classroom told the principal she'd given Ripley a break from class and she was back in class and doing fine.

Shortly after that, during second period, a young female student came to the office “angry and upset” from Ripley's class, the principal said. She again contacted the nearby teacher to get to Ripley's class and the principal headed in that direction.

Voskamp said she met Ripley on her way to the office.

“She (Ripley) was visibly upset, and she said she felt she was going to die,” Voskamp said. The principal said Ripley spoke of her doctor's appointment the next day and her medications. Voskamp said she sent her home for the day.

The principal said she contacted Stonecipher that day and asked Ripley's 40 students to write statements about what happened.

Although Dixson objected to the reading and interpretation of the students' statements, calling them hearsay, Voskamp told a story of what students said in written statements had gone on during the first two periods of school.

She described, using the students' statements, Ripley as being out of control, angry, throwing a book bag out the door, another against a wall, tearing up their school projects, throwing files and a soft drink can into the trash can, spewing soft drink on a student.

Some students claimed that Ripley had academically threatened them and cursed, which Ripley vehemently denied Wednesday.

Voskamp said the reading students' statements told of Ripley playing the CD of the Cohen poem/song and writing phrases from the song on the board. Ripley reportedly said she wondered who Jesus would bomb and talked of how Jesus wouldn't go to war like President Bush and that Baptists scare children with fire and brimstone stories.

She reportedly was sitting on the floor with the CD player, singing along, and rocking, the principal said..

Jerry Shattuck, the Anderson County School Board’s attorney, showed a photo of Ripley leaving the building and flashing the peace sign symbol at the camera.

Ripley said some students' statements were lies, while some others were exaggerated. She said during some of the events which students had described as being upsetting, they were instead laughing.

She said her classroom is small and that she had tossed the gym bag into the hallway because she'd nearly tripped over it and she'd previously told students not to bring their gym bags and bookbags into the classroom. She said the gym bag’s owner went and got his bag, and she did nothing else because it was no longer in the way.

Ripley said she'd asked the students if they wanted to take their projects home and they said no, so she was breaking them apart to fit them into the trash can. In regards to throwing other things around, she pointed out that the final day of school was only days away and she was trying to get books and other things picked up and put away.

During reading, she said, they'd been talking about poems and earlier in the year she'd played “Eleanor Rigby” by the Beatles for the children and they seemed to enjoy it, talking about it and writing about it. Ripley admitted by the time May 17 came about she was in a “state” and shouldn't have picked the CD in question.

She said she was sitting on the floor with the CD player turning the player’s volume down during the song's one sexually suggestive line, “Give me crack and anal sex,” and she pointed out no students wrote about that line so her actions had worked. She said she was singing it and writing parts of the poem on the board because students were complaining they couldn't hear or understand the words of the rest of the song.

The statements about the war, Bush and Baptists were made as she discussed the song with the students, she said.

Dixson and Shattuck pointed out only two other minor problems in Ripley's 15-year personnel file.

Ripley said she was supposed to go to the doctor on May 12, but when she called the vice principal and asked for a substitute he asked her if she could postpone her appointment because it was difficult for him to obtain enough substitutes so late in the year. She did and rescheduled for May 18.

Asked repeatedly why she didn't tell Stokes that she was having mental or emotional problems, she pointed to the stigma attached to having such problems.

Doctors' statements presented during the hearing indicated a history of chronic depression, as well as some other mental/emotional problems.

“I was overwhelmed with stress by May,” Ripley said. “By May 17, it didn't take much of a straw to break the back. … I felt that I should not have been at school.”

Ripley said she has since been prescribed changes in medication and feels that events such as those that happened May 17 would not happen again as long as she continues with her medications. Shattuck asked how the board could be assured of that.

Board Chairman John Burrell asked Ripley if she thought a woman with her mental problems should be teaching children. Ripley pointed out that she had a good record with 15 years of teaching. She said there are many other teachers on these medications, too.

Dixson pointed out that Ripley was initially denied unemployment, but awarded it by a judge when she appealed it.

Voting to uphold her dismissal were members Burrell, Martin, Peggy Hayes, Ron Hagans, and Greg Crawford.
http://www.oakridger.com/stories/011807 ... 9030.shtml

BoHo
--
THE ITEM THAT HE SENT HER:
http://www.judithfitzgerald.ca/leonardcohen.html
ADAGIOS III — ELECTRA'S BENISON, BOUND!
http://www.oberonpress.ca/titles.pl?v=new
JUDITH FITZGERALD'S EVER-EVOLVING WRITESITE:
http://www.judithfitzgerald.ca/
LEONARD COHEN'S OPEN BOOK OF LONGING:
http://tinyurl.com/yno7z7
POET PARLIAMENTAEIRIAL JUDITH FITZGERALD:
http://tinyurl.com/38ssjq
THE AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW:
http://tinyurl.com/2h6op6
SUNITI NAMJOSHI'S BRIGHTSITE:
http://tinyurl.com/37jjvy
J.F. ON AL PURDY & ELI MANDEL @ CBC:
http://tinyurl.com/2vdrdq

Not 'til this minute, BoHo . Here we go again... this is a publicity coup if one didn't care about the nature of the publicity. This, at the time that Spector's trial is about to ensue . I suspect there will be a number of people showing up here now. Conservative types, liberal types, extreme types, who-knows-what types. At minimum, curiousity seekers.

Not sure what to say about all this. I wish she'd initially played "Suzanne" or something of that nature for the students. In these volatile, politico-religio-military times, that song apparently needed some intro for that grade level. This was done in the 'Midwest' where people tend toward conservatism, especially in small towns [that's more the nature of small towns, right?]. In my conversations with a woman friend years ago, born in Cuba and raised in Puerto Rico, she and I talked about the huge differences in education and the topics covered. There, they have in-depth discussions, very early on, of communism, socialism, and all the other isms... and there's a much deeper understanding of politics, social systems, and the 'deeper' stuff that affect people for the rest of their lives. My sense is that this material wouldn't have been shocking, for them, at that grade level; or in this school, at a higher grade level. The latter is up for grabs, though, depending on how conservative this school district is... even the higher grades might have been shocked.

However, at that grade level, students are going to take a situation and run with it, dramatizing the events, joining in the fray with how they were affected. It could easily be that a girl went to the office upset. Her home environment could easily make that so. Also, a lot of things are happening right now, with Iraq war, the debate over committing huge numbers of more soldiers to the 'goal,' and the value of the 'goal' itself. People around the country are increasingly more impacted by the war, with people from their communities dying over there. We're hearing of one roadside bomb after another, helicopter crashes, suicide bombers, IEDs everywhere, political rancor everywhere.

Selection of that particular song is like opening a Pandora's box of things that extend far beyond the classroom and permeate our lives in disturbing, unnerving ways. The question of what's in a song lyric might better be asked of another of Leonard's songs... to use that song to justify the premise that Jesus would have done as Bush has is taking a huge, unfounded conceptual leap... but did she really say that remains a question. What she told the Board as to the meaning of those lines could have been what the students were told, as well, but by the time the bandwagon was hooked up to the old mare, the more dramatic the better, and here comes Jesus patting Bush on the back.

It's been a long time since I've been in an 8th-grade classroom, but, if things are the same [or less 'sophisticated' than when I attended], the intensity of this song probably requires a class of older students, for more mature understanding and discussion of it.

The teacher's description of events in the class that day ring much more true than those given by the students, per this news report... a band-wagon indication in itself.

The girl who went to the office upset could easily be influenced by the cognitive dissonace between what she's hearing at home and the powerful nature of Leonard's lyrics... that kind which we love him so much for creating. Very vivid and visual and potentially scary to a child who doesn't have a framework for processing them.

Take a little of this, and add a little of that, throw in a goodly portion of something else, apply some heat, and you have a news story that looks like fire in the sky. That's the feeling I get from this.

Did the teacher use her best judgment in just 'laying this song on' her students? It doesn't seem to me she did. Are these particular students too young to properly process these stand-alone lyrics from a song probably none of them have ever heard. Even "Pump Up the Volume" or "Natural Born Killers," films which might reasonably connect children that age with Leonard's work is now more 'down the list' than not, in its relative 'obscurity' for their potential exposure.

Should the teacher be fired for this? No way. I'm still not sure of her true intent, what she really wanted to impart to her students. Sure can't glean it from the report. If Jesus, Bush, and bombings is it... well ... and bringing religion into the classroom in such a way is supposed to be prohibited [I think the application of/violation of/disciplinary measures related to that 'rule' might, at least could, depend on how conservative the district and particular school]... and what she said to the Board makes a whole lot more sense. With that comment, she appears to be a fan of Leonard's. With the one the students claim, she appears to be a religious far-rightist, who had only heard about this song. It seems to me to be the former.

As for her personal life with anti-depressants and/or other medications, who knows the seriousness of that situation and how it impacts all this, and who knows what she may be pulling in to try to save her job, her career. I have no trouble believing that she felt pressured into changing her appointment. I've substituted some and some school systems are desperate for substitutes. I know some teachers here and I wouldn't go into teaching junior high or high school to save my life. The pressures of teaching 'these days' are enormous. The focus is more on testing success than on learning. I'm not surprized that 'other teachers are taking these same medications' and, depending on the school and the level of administrative support, "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" could be happening, absent the "Post."

Well, no matter what this teacher really intended or really said or did, or what her interpretation/misinterpretation of Leonard's lyrics really are, this has certainly caused a furor. As she noted, and it seems she may be right, if she hadn't left the cd behind, she probably wouldn't be standing in front of the Board.

I'll be interested to see how this plays out at the appeals level. I feel badly for the teacher.


~ Lizzy

hi Boho in my simple launguage .my understanding is that
the wall is representing the division betweem good and evil.
and he wanting it back to restore equalibrium.in the world
stlalin/ST paul
Christ / hiroshima

abortion/MURDERinnocent souls dicarded like ciggerette ends.
we dont like children any how.its just the lust of the flesh.

dont get me wrong sex is agift from GOD but in loving meaningful.
relationships.where you are blessed everytime .

and the future well read the book of revealations.
and as far i am concerned its already begun.
1000 years of hell on earth.
REPENT......................................................................................

The issues are complex and far more complicated than they appear to be; the germane aspect of the story is the teacher knew she was in peril and asked for a break and was denied it. Catch-22 and it cost a mother her job in a world where two incomes are needed to make ends meet. It's unjust, IMO, for that reason.

Secondly, when I was in Grade Eight, I knew the score. Even back in the sixties. I was listening to LC in '67 / '68 and reading him even earlier; so, I don't get the problem. In Grade Seven, we read "Shane," a novel I will never forget; it was amazing to me; and, I still love it. We were given lectures on pregnancy in health class; and, I don't see why Grade Eighters (given the multi-media-deluge dynamics razing culture with sex and violence and wars and . . .).

It's like Margaret Laurence's brilliant novel, The Diviners, being banned in Canada. The teacher broke down, that's clear; but, if she did the right thing, how can one, in good conscience, blame the victim? That's the stinger, for me, anyway.

And, the song drips irony. Of course, Leo is conservative (small "c"). He is being sarcaustic, abso-deffo. He's not pro-abortion or we would not be blessed with Adam and Lorca, would we? Abortion was easier to get during those days than it is now. My own thoughts on the issue remain private since religion and birth control are a matter of private discussion between the two human beings involved. I believe both parents have a right to make this decision; and, that's where the law fails every man in North America, at least.

But, LC's songs are not autobiography, especially on The Future; it's another song cycle modelled upon [deleted because it's part of my book]; and, this is a narrator speaking, not Leo. As Andrew pointed out during our discussion, Literature is imaginative rendering, objective correlative, all those things. Leo's personal philosophy has nothing to do with art he creates.

I hope the woman gets the help she needs (and knew she needed) and the justice she deserves.

Personally, I never discuss religion, politics (except with Dem whom I love to see in full flight when he's on a rave-a-rant extravaganza, being the wonderful passionate Greek he is and, natch, but one of the reasons I love him), or sex. After all, sex is nobody's biz but the three people involved, right? L!

I don't mind saying I'm a practising Catholic, I vote Liberal; and, I love [deleted by the censor board]; but, I will not defend the indefensible; these things are beyond me, in fact. It's pondering the imponderable. I believe what I believe. Is all. There are far more important issues, IMO, like the slaying of the Individual in our utterly post-human world, the way in which both art and the sacral languish in cultural desuetude, and the fact image is capital and The Spectacle has reduced us to nothing but commodifornicators, always making us feel deficient for not having the latest gadget. McLuhan foresaw this in the fifties; I've grown up believing it.

And, Leo did tell me he was absorbing McLuhan's ideas right around the time he was writing Bird On The Wire watching electricity coming to Hydra and the way in which McLuhan had an effect on what he wanted to convey with that narrator, that song, the reason why Tom Sakic, Jack, and yours truly harp upon the fact it is "The" Wire, not "A" wire. It makes all the difference to the importance of that song's underlying "message" in the medium Leo chose to deploy it.

So, let the lunaticktactudinals come; let 'em vent; but, remember, we always attack ourselves first (if we have a conscience and, from where I'm sitting, most everyone who currently posts here seems to have a well-exercised and clearly defined one). You cannot listen to LC's music or read his novels and poetry and not have one, I guess. Oh, there are (and always will be the psychopathic narcissists who make the rule; but, everybody knows the dice are loaded; everybody knows the game is fixed . . .).

Your essay, clearly written off-the-cough, is eloquent, and thoughtful. I admire the way you say things, you make me love Americans; it's Manifest Destiny and US Foreign Policy that troubles me. I think it troubles anyone who loves the work of LC, though; so, I am not among enemies here; and, let 'em come. I know how to step into the ring; I can deliver a few TKOs. It just gets less and less attractive to do so. I look at these zaniacs and I wonder what happened to them to shrivel their hearts; in the final analysis, I pity the loss of love and joy and light in their darksome world.

HTH.

Love, Jf/ox
p.s. LC hates cops and courts and all of that; they'll have to subpoena him if he appears at Spector's trial, I know that for a fact
--
THE ITEM THAT HE SENT HER:
http://www.judithfitzgerald.ca/leonardcohen.html
ADAGIOS III — ELECTRA'S BENISON, BOUND!
http://www.oberonpress.ca/titles.pl?v=new
JUDITH FITZGERALD'S EVER-EVOLVING WRITESITE:
http://www.judithfitzgerald.ca/
LEONARD COHEN'S OPEN BOOK OF LONGING:
http://tinyurl.com/yno7z7
POET PARLIAMENTAEIRIAL JUDITH FITZGERALD:
http://tinyurl.com/38ssjq
THE AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW:
http://tinyurl.com/2h6op6
SUNITI NAMJOSHI'S BRIGHTSITE:
http://tinyurl.com/37jjvy
J.F. ON AL PURDY & ELI MANDEL @ CBC:
http://tinyurl.com/2vdrdq

already done boho or is it liz./

Hi Judith ~

Yes, you're right regarding the [presumed] crux of the issue being that she ASKED for time off and was advised they couldn't afford to be without her... can't you just postpone your appointment?? [I've seen it happen aplenty .] Of course, they didn't know the nature of her appointment, or the possible ramifications of her not making it to it. She's absolutely right on the stigma:

Board Chairman John Burrell asked Ripley if she thought a woman with her mental problems should be teaching children.

... attached to any med that comes within the conceptual vicinity of the mind.

I only say "presumed" because I don't know this teacher, personally, and know how things can get said in desperate attempts to save a desperately needed job, as you've duly noted ~ need of two incomes; I with one [and one on the overall, American scale of those in the professional fields, ain't so hefty ~ welcome to Florida... ] can heartily attest to that. The crux of it all, would seem to be that matter rather than the content of Leonard's song.

If there's documentation or testimony, in any way, of her prior request for leave, this will go a long way with any appeals... and presumably made the difference in her being awarded Unemployment Compensation. A woman taking meds and dealing with chronic depression, in addition to the stress of her mother's situation and pressure on her, not to mention that of the classroom alone, likely knew her limits, since she was the one who requested the time off.

I can only speak to what I remember as the classes I attended in 8th grade [and must remember, too, our own age difference ~ all these bloody reminders ~ and how that impacts what was considered 'suitability' at that time, plus the level of sophistication in the alternate areas where we lived... mine could hardly be considered 'progressive' and it was coming from more the 'Ozzie and Harriet' realm]... and even that doesn't account for the children today vs. those of 'yesterday,' and today they're privy to and aware of a LOT more than we were. There remain pockets of provincialism, where they're not really exposed, and not knowing this town or school system, this could be one of them, where the materials used in the classroom are much more 'controlled' and conservative.

To reduce this all to 'Leonard,' however, remains absurd... completely bypassing the point of origin with regard to the teacher herself and her own state of being. Is this to suggest, however, that she would not have brought the cd into the classroom, or that she would have approached it differently as she used it for a reading/evaluation/understanding exercise that day? I'm vaguely reminded of the handling suggestion that parents are given, regarding potentially confusing or upsetting materials, that they watch or attend events with their children, so they can openly discuss it, for their children to process and understand it, afterward. Perhaps, her approach to the song might have been slightly different... speaking of irony and 'sarcausticism' ahead of time vs. just putting it on to play without framing it first.

You're SO right on the tendency and wrongness to just blame the victim [it's so much less complex and easier for them to wrap it up and dismiss it... requires so little on their part]... and, even moreso [if that's possible, and yes it is, in this case] since she obviously sought reprieve, prior to this, from being in the classroom, at all!

I hope Leonard does benefit from this exposure of his name, but I also know he would NOT want it to come at this woman's expense.

Thank you for your personal compliment in your last paragraph. I appreciate it. You're abso-deffo right that I wrote it [this, too ] immediately upon reading, quickly, and at one sitting. Are there some sort of waivers available, as a result of that ?


Love,
Lizzy

What does all this really have to do with Leonard Cohen?

LC hates cops and courts and all of that;

That funny...coming from a man who wanted at one time to be one.



YdF

It can't be a JF post without at least one needless neologism. I do especially like the 'TM', most amusing.

p.
(There may have neen other gems but i never read more than 2 lines of a post. Sorry.)

What a sad story this is. I feel sorry for Deborah Ripley, who clearly deserves a sympathetic and sensitive hearing. She would benefit from counselling and a leave of absence by the sound of it but not dismissal for misdemeanour or poor conduct. I worked in schools for over 20 years and know full well that far more strange and serious misconduct is either condoned or swept under the carpet. This is not a sacking offence. It's a bit strange, I'll admit, but has been dealt with in a draconian, undiplomatic and patently ridiculous fashion. Which is worse by far.

I fear that Ms Ripley was not popular with her students. Otherwise, there would have been no real grounds for complaint. My experience of teaching 13 year olds is that the lyric of The Future is tame compared to the content of thousands of freely available rap lyrics. The only really offensive line was apparently removed according to both sides of the story. The song isn't even pro abortion. It is an apocalyptic vision, but that's hardly out of keeping with the Bible Belt is it?

What a volatile society it is that finds such offence in the words of a mere song. The really chilling aspect of all this is that some of these children were apparently disposed to feel threatened by these words, when everybody knows that the fire and brimstone preached in many churches is much more threatening. You know what? If the song had concluded by saying that if you repent you will go to heaven there would have been no hysteria at all. It's a sad old world.

Really fine commentary, Robin.


~ Lizzy

The fact that they fired her as opposed to disciplining and suspending her suggests that they were looking for sometime for an excuse to get rid of her. I don't quite understand from the article whether she chose that particular song because it fit in with whatever her lesson plan was, or because of poor judgment due to her mental state. What I find rather ironical about the whole situation is the name of the Director of Education who recommended she be fired: Stonecipher! If that name doesn't suggest a very rigid person unable to interpret different truths, I don't know what does.

I certainly feel for the women. Given the lack of respect that teachers get in the classroom these days, I think most teachers deserve a medal. Perhaps she did lose her cool on that particular day, but as already pointed out, today's 13 year old students are not exactly the little angels that her accusers make them out to be.

Sherry

it's a scary world we live in now

People like to keep their eyes closed and get upset when the truth is shown to them. They SHOULD be scared. Stop obsessing over what Paris Hilton is doing and look at what's really happening in the world..