Teacher bans ‘bless you’ from health class

[freeatlast]

A California health teacher prohibits students from saying “bless you” after another sneezes and even issues grade deductions as punishment for the common courtesy, according to a report by KFSN in Fresno....
http://blog.chron.com/believeitornot/2011/09/teacher-bans-‘bless-you’-from-health-class/

 

[mcdirector]

So what do they get to say when someone sneezes? This is so universal and so engrained that any misguided attempt to stamp it out will fail. IMHO of course.

I was at a district meeting on Thursday and teacher were sneezing all over the place. *Bless you* was said more times than I could count.

 

[Salty]

Call me different, but I never say anything when someone snneezes.

 

[mcdirector]

In talking with some other teachers, I remembered a MS class I had once that could have taken the bless you thing to the nth degree. That could have very well been the case here. This teacher should have dealt with the discipline separately from the grade however.

 

[Amy.G]

Teacher bans ‘bless you’ from health class

"Please put this on your status if you know, are related to, divorced from, or dated someone who suffers from Stupidity. People need to understand that Stupidity is real and should be taken seriously. You could be sitting next to a Stupid person right now. There is still no known cure for Stupidity and sympathy does not help. Sometimes a 2x4 to the back of the head helps, but not a lot. But we can raise awareness!"

 

[Jim1999]

Perhaps the students should be saying "gesundheit"! It is equally a wish for good health.

Cheers, (oops) happy everyone,

Jim

 

[Benjamin]

I was going to say that my children would be instructed to put "God" in front of "bless you" and if any grade deductions were handed out Dad would be down to the school and deal with this situation.

I see from the article parents did complain:

He deducted 25 points from a student’s grade for saying “bless you,” but after complaints from parents, the teacher said he’d find another way to discipline them.

Whoo boy, I would consider that a cowardly threat of revenge against my child and along the issue of his prior irrational behavior would be going about him losing his job! grrr

 

[Salty]

The blog in the link stated "that saying “bless you” disrupts his class" If that is the case , then I don't have a problem with it - as long as it covers all talking; including gesundheit

So is the issue saying "God, bless you" or is it just religious speech the teacher does not like?

If I get that fact straight - then I will continue the discussion.

 

[annsni]

In talking with some other teachers, I remembered a MS class I had once that could have taken the bless you thing to the nth degree. That could have very well been the case here. This teacher should have dealt with the discipline separately from the grade however.

That's what I was thinking. I remember in high school, the kids were out to annoy the teacher and would have done something like this:

Mike sneezes.
Mary says "God bless you."
Mike says "Thank you."
Bill says "God bless you."
Mike says "thank you."
Jimmy says "God bless you."
Mike says "thank you."

and so on and so on with 20 kids. THAT is disruptive. Oh and of course kids would have pretended to sneeze as well so it would have happened every 5 minutes. I can totally see a teacher getting bothered by that and cutting it out completely. I wonder if that is what happened here.