My story of someone who went against the grain and got unjust punishment for it, is of my English teacher in high school. He was fired for using the word “fuck” in a poem that was part of an AP English course at our public high school. The poem was part of an English assignment that the students did weekly. It was called poetry roundtable. Every student, and the teacher, would write an anonymous poem. Then, everyone would read the poems and try to guess which poem was written by which person. It was a good exercise because you could see what others thought of you, and how you thought of others. For example, if someone wrote a poem about smoking you would probably guess it was the skater kid in class; however, it could very well be the sweet
…show more content…
Mr. Fish wanted the poems to be as true to yourself as possible. Mr. Fish was always going above and beyond to make the class more exciting for the students. Thus, this event was hosted at local diners, that were off campus, during school hours. On one of the days they left the school to go eat and read poems, one of the students was offended that a teacher would use the word “fuck” in a poem that he knows students will read. This student was arrogant to the fact that the very objective was to try to fool you into thinking it was written by someone else. I didn’t help Mr. Fish’s cause that the student was extremely Christian, and had powerful parents. Mr. Fish was fired after the student took a picture of the poem and brought it to her mom. Her mother brought it to the school board and told them she was going to take legal action if he was not removed. Sit-ins were hosted at my school in Mr. Fish’s old classroom, protesting the decision. Meetings were held on how to protest. Cars were painted with markers with quotes of Mr. Fish, as well as little fish drawings. An online petition was started by myself and one other student that ended up getting 10,000 signatures. These signature included students of Mr. Fish that were in their twenties, and it was signed by exchange students from around the world that had him. I went on the radio with 5 other students and talked about how large of an impact he had on Easley. He was
Mr. Fish wanted the poems to be as true to yourself as possible. Mr. Fish was always going above and beyond to make the class more exciting for the students. Thus, this event was hosted at local diners, that were off campus, during school hours. On one of the days they left the school to go eat and read poems, one of the students was offended that a teacher would use the word “fuck” in a poem that he knows students will read. This student was arrogant to the fact that the very objective was to try to fool you into thinking it was written by someone else. I didn’t help Mr. Fish’s cause that the student was extremely Christian, and had powerful parents. Mr. Fish was fired after the student took a picture of the poem and brought it to her mom. Her mother brought it to the school board and told them she was going to take legal action if he was not removed. Sit-ins were hosted at my school in Mr. Fish’s old classroom, protesting the decision. Meetings were held on how to protest. Cars were painted with markers with quotes of Mr. Fish, as well as little fish drawings. An online petition was started by myself and one other student that ended up getting 10,000 signatures. These signature included students of Mr. Fish that were in their twenties, and it was signed by exchange students from around the world that had him. I went on the radio with 5 other students and talked about how large of an impact he had on Easley. He was