Without going into a lot of details, let’s just say that teacher, John Freshwater of Mount Vernon, was removed from classroom teaching pending an administrative hearing about insubordination. After a two-year-long administrative hearing process, Freshwater lost his job earlier this year. He and the Mount Vernon school system were also named in a federal discrimination complaint brought by a student’s family; the school district settled out of court and Freshwater, following an unsuccessful appeal, also had to pay damages to the family. Meanwhile, he filed, and later dropped, his own discrimination complaint in federal court against the school system.

So, after all these proceedings which suggest that Freshwater was to some degree culpable, I learn that he has the nerve to play the victim card on David Barton and Rick Green’s WallBuilders Live radio program.

Here’s a partial transcript, courtesy of Right Wing Watch.

Freshwater: When the 2007/2008 school year came along, there was a new principal, a new Superintendent, and three new school board members and what took place that year was they wanted me to removed my Bible from my desk. And I felt I have academic freedoms and I thought I had the right to have my Bible on my desk, so I left it on my desk in 2007/2008 school year and they told me to remove it and that was when they suspended me – April 16, 2008 – they suspended me without pay and I’ve been in litigation since then, the last four years.

Green: What’s their complaint about having a Bible on your desk? I thought teachers were allowed to do that?

Freshwater: You know what? I thought so too, but they said I needed to remove it from my desk. Here is what it comes down to Rick, and it’s this: there is a lot of fear in public school teachers, especially Christian public school teachers. They put fear into them and they keep them ignorant; they don’t teach them, they don’t train them on it, so what a teacher does is they take off their religious beliefs, they take their hat off before they walk into a public school building because they don’t want to lose their job. They really don’t have a good understanding of this whole thing called religious belief and separation of church and state, it has been convoluted, it has been putting fear in the people and it is sad, it’s very sad for a public school teacher in a public school in America today.

Freshwater conveniently omitted the religious posters on his classroom walls, the shelf full of Bibles for students to borrow, his teaching of creationism in class, and comments disparaging Catholics, among others, as not being Christian, which were significant charges that led to his removal from teaching and the federal suit against him and the school system. It is true his principal told him to remove his Bible from his desk, so it was not in plain sight. It is also true that Freshwater refused, and also refused to change any of his other actions that got him and the school in hot water.

As for the malarkey that public school teachers have to leave their religion in the school parking lot, there are no laws that forbid teachers from keeping a Bible in their desk, praying privately or stating their own beliefs in a non-judgmental, non-threatening way to their students. There are laws, however, that forbid them from teaching creationism or Intelligent Design as valid “scientific theories” or using their teacher’s desk as a church pulpit to preach to a captive audience.

i won’t even mention the unprofessional, nay, stupid, practice of using a Tesla coil (technically, a high-voltage, high-frequency vacuum leak tester) to give volunteer students skin burns in the shape of an “x” (or a cross, depending on your viewpoint). These charges were also part of Freshwater’s legal woes, if not the catalyst that brought his other dubious actions to light.

Cry me a river, John Freshwater. You’re not a victim here. You’re the instigator — you made your own bed, now lie in it.

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If any readers are sufficiently curious to read about the Strange and Curious Case of John Freshwater, this link will take you to the Panda’s Thumb, where Richard Hoppe has chronicled in excruciating detail the whole saga.

The end is this: he will be dismissed from his teaching job at the Mount Vernon public schools.

Actually, that’s the same ending as before, but he was entitled to an administrative hearing, which dragged on for almost two years. In a decision released this week, the referee for the hearing agreed with the school district, and said, “Yup, Freshwater is out.”

John Freshwater purposely used his classroom to advance his Christian religious views knowing full well or ignoring the fact that those views might conflict with the private beliefs of his students. John Freshwater refused and/or failed to employ objectivity in his instruction of a variety of science subjects and, in so doing, endorsed a particular religious doctrine. By this course of conduct John Freshwater repeatedly violated the Establishment Clause. Without question, the repeated violation of the Constitution of The United States is a “fairly serious matter” and is, therefore, a valid basis for termination of John Freshwater’s contract(s). Further, he repeatedly acted in defiance of direct instructions and orders of the administrators – his superiors. These defiant acts are also a “fairly serious matter” and, therefore, a valid basis for termination of John Freshwater’s contract (s). My recommendation to the Board of Education of the Mount Vernon City School District is that the Board terminate John Freshwater’s contract(s) for “good and just cause”.

Way back in 2008, Freshwater made a name for himself for two things: refusing to remove a copy of the Bible from the top of his desk, as directed by his principal, and burning a cross-shaped design on a student’s arm with a Tesla coil. (A Tesla coil is a high-voltage device that we physics teachers like to use for a lot of demos — on inanimate objects, not people.)

Freshwater was sued, not only for the burning, but also for the flagrant abuse of his teacher’s “bully pulpit” to teach his version of Christianity, which denies evolution, the Big Bang, and related scientific ideas. His room had many Christian-themed posters. His handouts and teaching style deliberately taught evolution was bunk and the story of Creation in Genesis was the literal truth.

Richard Hoppe at The Panda’s Thumb has covered the whole saga from beginning to end, even to the point of sitting through the interminable hearings regarding Freshwater’s firing. I blogged about the case when it first broke, but decided I would wait until the dust settled before resuming commentary. As it is now, I need to wait until the end-of-term dust settles here before I have time to do it justice. So, if you’re wanting details, read the articles at Panda’s Thumb.

I’ll get back to you on that.

The Panda’s Thumb has two articles this week demonstrating the misuse of teacherly authority. One is an update on the ever-continuing John Freshwater saga; the other a report on one teacher’s attempt to haul students to the Creation Museum in Kentucky.

Freshwater is a seventh-grade science teacher in Mt. Vernon, Ohio, who has paraded his particular brand of Christianity — and anti-evolution propaganda — in front of his students for several years. His superiors looked the other way until Freshwater used a Tesla coil to burn a cross shape on the arm of a student. The student and his parents cried foul, and the parties involved are now in a legal thicket.

Freshwater has been the subject of hours of administrative hearings regarding his continued employment. The boy and his family have filed a civil liberties suit against Freshwater and the school system. Freshwater himself has filed his own civil liberties suit against his employers, and another civil suit against the family, alleging they have slandered him.

During the administrative hearings, witnesses reported that Freshwater always had a Bible on his desk (despite his superiors telling him to remove it), maintained a stock of Bibles in a bookcase for students to borrow, had Christian-oriented posters decorating his science classroom, and made a point of teaching students that the theories of evolution and the Big Bang were bogus.

Testimony also revealed that other teachers in the same middle school had similar proclivities, but were somewhat less resistant to correction by their superiors than Freshwater was.

Meanwhile, in the Garden State of New Jersey, a history teacher was planning on hauling students to the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky (near Cincinnati), until a former student blew the whistle on him.

A couple of years ago, David Paszkiewicz ended up in the news after declaring to his students that dinosaurs were on Noah’s Ark, and that students who “reject the Lord’s salvation … belong in hell.” Now, as advisor to the Christian Alpha & Omega Club, Paszkiewicz planned to take club members during the school year to the Creation Museum.

A former student heard of the plan, and convinced the local school board to postpone the trip until after the school year ended.

Teachers are of course free to believe whatever religion they like. They can mention their religion to their students if they like, much as a teacher might mention his or her hometown or family members. But it is entirely inappropriate to use the classroom to inculcate a teacher’s particular religious beliefs.

[I am setting aside the obvious exceptions of teachers in religious schools, although even in those situations a teacher can cross the line of appropriateness.]

My argument goes beyond the Constitutional requirement that the government (public schools) not impose or favor a particular religion. Rather, preaching in the classroom is an abuse of power, much as molesting students is, especially when the teacher makes it clear that his or her beliefs are the only correct ones.

For example, Teacher A might be a born-again Christian. His students might be aware that he attends church every Sunday. They may see him reading the Bible on his off-time in school. That’s OK. It’s non-threatening behavior, and if he keeps discussion of his beliefs outside the classroom, perfectly appropriate. One might say Teacher A professes his belief by example.

Teacher B, on the other hand, may also be born-again, but more aggressive in her Christian outreach. In her classes, she might tell students that abortion is a sin, and that abortion doctors and patients are doomed to eternity in Hell. Her classroom might be covered with flagrantly religious posters and literature, and her lecture peppered with Christian messages and Biblical references.

Teacher A is operating within the best practices of a professional educator. Teacher B is not.

Freshwater and Paszkiewicz are confusing teaching with preaching. Schools are not churches. Students and parents expect that a public school or classroom is a religiously neutral zone. Religious beliefs of teachers and students might be acknowledged, but they should not become the focus of the business of teaching.

If Frost goes to his girlfriend’s prom at the worldly Findlay High School, Heritage Christian School will suspend him, thereby depriving Frost of the chance to participate in his graduation ceremony. The boy, bless his little romantic heart, plans to attend his girlfriend’s prom anyway. He’s never been to a dance before.

Attaboy, Tyler!

Heritage Christian School, a Baptist torture chamber prison camp gulag school, forbids dancing, rock music, hand-holding and kissing, I guess because Jesus didn’t do that kind of worldly stuff.

I have my doubts about that. There’s that whole thing about water into wine…

Anyway, Frost followed the rules for Findlay High and got his principal’s permission to attend the bacchanalia orgy Animal House party prom.

“I expected a short lecture about making the right decisions and not doing something stupid,” Frost said. “I thought I would get his signature and that would be the end.”

[Heritage Principal Tim] England acknowledged signing the form but warned Frost there would be consequences if he attended the dance. England then took the issue to a school committee made up of church members, who decided to threaten Frost with suspension.

“In life, we constantly make decisions whether we are going to please self or please God. (Frost) chose one path, and the school committee chose the other,” England said.

Holy Judgmental Asshole, Batman! “To please self or to please God?” Is there an 11th commandment, like, “Thou shalt not have fun,” that only this church school knows about? Find me a Bible reference that forbids high school proms, Mr Principal Poop, sir. I challenge you.

(Does Ohio breed wacko Christians? There’s the whole fracas involving science teacher John Freshwater using his classroom to indoctrinate his pupils in his own kind of Xtreme Xianity.)

Meanwhile, the principal at Findlay High (the sinful apostate corrupt satanic public school) had this to say:

“I don’t see (dancing and rock music) as immoral acts,” Craig Kupferberg said.

Amen, brother.

The bill purportedly would have protected instructors from punishment or job loss if they presented “scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding chemical and biological evolution.” In fact, it was a ploy to enable suitably minded instructors to teach creationism or ID alongside evolutionary theory. Wording that is almost identical appears on a web page sponsored by the Discovery Institute, a pro-ID “thinktank.”

Full details are at The Panda’s Thumb.

Lest you think the bill might have had merit, allow me to provide a brief introduction to “creation science.” ID is just a variation of creationism, accepting an older age of the universe.

Creationism holds that:

• The account in Genesis is literal and true.
• God created everything in six days, about 6,000 years ago.
• Before Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, all animals were vegetarians, death was non-existent, and predation/parasitism were unnecessary.
• God got pissed at Adam and Eve, and that wily serpent in the Tree, and cursed them with unending toil, mortality, and slithering on the ground. With the Fall, God also rebooted Creation 1.0 to introduce carnivorism, predation, parasitism and all the unhappy biological problems all His creatures now face.
• At this time, dinosaurs and other now-extinct organisms co-existed with humans. (The Fred Flintstone Hypothesis). They were wiped out, and the fossil record created, with the Great Flood that chased Noah, et al., into a big boat. Instead of rebooting Earth, God just wiped the hard drive and reinstalled Creation 2.0
• The organisms now living have always existed in their current forms since Creation 2.0. Evolution does not exist, and Earth’s organisms do not have a common ancestor. It goes without saying that humans and apes are not related at all.

Believe it or not, some teachers in the US have actually managed to teach this nonsense in public schools. Ohio’s John Freshwater is but one notable example.

So, if your legislatures are considering similar “academic freedom” measures, be forewarned. The wolf is wearing sheep’s clothing.

Freshwater and school officials have been making their cases in adiministrative hearings since then. There have been six days of testimony so far, spread over several months. So far, the testimony suggests Freshwater was an insubordinate teacher who resisted his superiors’ efforts to bring him in line, perhaps because he believed God’s authority trumped theirs.

Members of the science department were supposed to bring their Tesla coils to the front office; Freshwater kept his. He was supposed to remove his Bible from plain sight of students; he put additional religious materials in his classroom instead. Ohio’s scope and sequence of science instruction places the teaching of evolution in the 8th grade and later, and forbids the teaching of creationism; Freshwater was telling his seventh graders that evolution was bunk, that the world was only 6,000 years old, and that humans and dinosaurs co-existed for a time.

Freshwater, who apparently is a very popular teacher and has won teaching awards in the past, is associated with rightwing Christian organizations, particularly the kind that just can’t seem to accept that old “separation of church and state” idea enshrined in the Constitution. They try to weasel their church teachings into the public schools in defiance of federal (and state) law anyway.

As a science teacher, my opinion is that Freshwater is a loose cannon on deck, and should be tossed overboard. Regardless of his extreme Christian belief, he has clearly abused his authority as a classroom teacher and has abused a captive audience of middle school students mentally and psychologically. He does not belong in a science classroom — any science classroom. That he was allowed to keep his job as long as he has is a disgrace.