Saturday, September 22, 2007
Teacher loses job after assigning adult comic to 13-year old female student
In Connecticut, Guilford High School English teacher Nate Fisher gave a 13-year old girl a copy of EIGHTBALL #22 as an individual reading assignment. The book contains adult content including references to rape, various sex acts and nudity. Upon learning about the book’s content, the girl’s parents complained to the school. They believed it was inappropriate for a male teacher to give this type of book to their 13-year daughter, especially when she was the only one to receive the book.
The parents felt that they were brushed off by the school. They then took the matter to the police. Upon learning that a male teacher gave a 13-year old female student a comic depicting nudity and various sex acts, the police went directly to the principle. The school’s administration then launched an investigation which resulted in the teacher resigning.
The mother of the girl has weighed in over at The Beat in the comments section with her side of the story including many of the details the newspaper reports lack.
The girl is now the target of harassment from fellow students. Teacher Nate Fisher was popular with the other students and they now blame the girl for Fisher resigning. This from the New Haven Register:
The girl’s mother said her daughter has been “crying every night” and asking not to go to school because students who liked the teacher are blaming her. The mother said that some students set up a group on Facebook, the social networking Web site, calling for Fisher to be reinstated and criticizing the student. The family called the police when, they said, a video was posted on the site with a picture of their daughter and a song with the lyrics “Don’t hesitate to exterminate.” The Facebook page has since been removed.
Nate Fisher doesn’t have a job right now because of the actions of Nate Fisher. It’s not the fault of the girl, her parents, the police, or the school.
The girl and her parents deserve no blame in this whatsoever. The parents acted appropriately. The teacher had a responsibility to know what was and was not appropriate.
He clearly didn’t.
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This is the first time I’ve heard of this incident, and it sounds like some folks need to think back to age 13. I think the student sounds like a prude and the parents even moreso. If anybody remembers being 13, it seems like only 10 years ago to me, adult content was far from unknown. People seriously need to rethink the “innocence” of “kids” these days. When I was 13, my friends were doing oral sex, pot and enjoyed the drink. I went home to porn every night. How is this content scaring? It’s not. Those friends all grew up and out of their transition just as they should have. Though I still do enjoy porn.
The truth of the matter is that the reason why those kids are blaming her is because they liked the teacher. He was probably “on their level” and “understood” what it’s like to be 13. Eightball is NOT pornographic material. It may have somewhat explicit content, but I’d recommend reading the comic before anybody goes ballistic over what the teacher gave the student. And we’re not talking about elementary school kids here. I can recall the best english teacher that I had during high school. She led us through a war story that was school approved (and is common throughout the country) but depicted extremely violent war stories which, yes, included rape and sodomy among other things such as drug use (which if you want to touch that topic, go look at MANY school approved books across the country).
I’m afraid that taking a stand like that still puts plenty of blame on the parents. Skewing a story and handing it to police is a poor choice of action. If they didn’t want their daughter to read the comic, they could have just made that happen and worked with the teacher. Finish. No need to go any farther. They need to keep their “high standards” (again, prudish standards) to themselves.
She is not 13 she is 14. That is just to clarify! And hey Dan Brown has sex in it and almost every kid in Guilford has read that! So that’s just my thinking!
Anon.., according to the girl’s mother, she was 13 at the time. She just turned 14.
Do you know this girl personally??? The thing happend 3 weeks ago! she turns 14 in august! im just saying!
To Kill A Mockingbird’s story centers around rape, and I read that when I was 15. What miracle of maturation occurs between ages 13 and 15 (besides becoming eligible for employment)?