Support For Suspended Teacher Grows After Video Surfaces of His Fight With A Student Over A Bag of Weed

A teacher in Santa Monica, California was put on leave last week after he got into a physical altercation with a student he suspected of dealing drugs in his classroom.

It's a story that literally could have happened in any state, this one just happens to be in California and just on the surface, you would focus on the words 'physical altercation with a student' and you'd automatically side with the student. After all the teacher is not only older, but is also the high school wrestling coach.

But one of the teacher's other students in the class pulled out his cell phone and shot a video of the fight. And now students and parents alike are siding with the teacher and calling for the resignation of the superintendent who placed him on leave.

Science teacher Mark Black asked the student to hand over his bag of marijuana and when the student refused and the two got into the fight which was captured on the video below.

The entire community is backing Black. They say he did the right thing by trying to confiscate the weed and then acted in self-defense when the student attacked him. The school says it will conduct an investigation into what happened.

Have the laws and school bylaws become so restrictive that teachers feel they are unable to do their jobs for fear of repercussions like this? Have students become so emboldened that they know the laws as well and feel they can push the limits without fear of penalties?

I grew up in a very different time (as did many of you reading this). I remember my 6th grade teacher pinning a student against a chalk board who had threatened him and thrown a pair of scissors at him. I remember an 8th grade shop teacher kicking a metal trash can across the shop before boring through all the desks to reach a student and haul him out of class physically after the student threatened him. Needless to say I never saw either student in school again after those incidents. Our high school principal was a former defensive lineman for the Los Angeles Rams in the 1950s. His knees were pretty shot by the time we knew him, but we also knew that if you crossed a 'line', Gene Cady was just as apt to chase you down like he did quarterbacks back in the day.

These days the page is flipped in a lawsuit happy society, where school boards are afraid of parents and their lawyers, while students are allowed to get away with a LOT more than we ever dreamed of.

Is it the cranky old man in me coming out again? With all the cases of bullying in the schools that we see now (including two of my granddaughters) to school shootings and more, I back this California science teacher 100% for taking back his classroom and doing the job that he is obviously passionate about and shaping young minds.

What's your take?