Please don't sneeze - you may get me in trouble.

[Gameface]

I can agree with this.

But you have to admit, for a teacher to specifically ban that phrase it sure looks like the teacher's intent is to specifically single out religion. There is really no good reason to ban it otherwise especially considering how you put it here, that it is an all-but-meaningless phrase that is really used as a social lubricant more than anything else. So why would the teacher single it out if not to take a jab at religion?

Taking a jab at religion... I don't know. "Religion" seems pretty quick to scream and holler when its overwhelming presence, dominance even, is mitigated in any way. This teacher has also banned "hang out" which also seems pretty damn petty. The phrase has meaning as far as common usage is concerned, even though the literal interpretation doesn't match. Maybe, just maybe, this teacher is trying to prove a point about the way we use language. It's also possible that she doesn't like public expressions of religious belief. It's even possible that both things are true at the same time.

 

[LogGrad98]

Taking a jab at religion... I don't know. "Religion" seems pretty quick to scream and holler when its overwhelming presence, dominance even, is mitigated in any way. This teacher has also banned "hang out" which also seems pretty damn petty. The phrase has meaning as far as common usage is concerned, even though the literal interpretation doesn't match. Maybe, just maybe, this teacher is trying to prove a point about the way we use language. It's also possible that she doesn't like public expressions of religious belief. It's even possible that both things are true at the same time.

Yes that is possible.

To me it kind of seems like one of those "which of these is not like the other" kind of things. Hang out and some of the other phrases mentioned have commonality that doesn't really fit with "bless you". Could be that I am religious and also view it as innocuous, I fully admit that. Here is a purported picture of the offending phrases:

Also, kind of as an aside, it is ineffective to tell people what not to do without showing them what TO do as a substitute. If I tell my kids not to say "hang out" I better tell them what to say in its place or what they choose to substitute for it may be far far worse. I could end up hearing them say "don't say hang out, my dad doesn't like that..so you wanna go **** around?" Obviously this is info we do not have, maybe the teacher did that, but to just ban phrases seems petty to me anyway, as you said.

So maybe the teacher herself is just petty. Could be.

 

[One Brow]

Do you really think the official rep of the school, in an official statement, is going to cop to it when the teacher behind closed doors was ranting about getting those "god-speakers" out of her classroom because she is sick and tired of their red-neck backwards "beliefs" that are so obviously ********?

edit: obviously I am not claiming the teacher did any such thing, but we don't know do we? We can't say one way or the other, but you better believe the school will spin this every bit as much as they are claiming the student did.

Based on what I have seen in the past, I think that if the teacher had done such a thing, the school would have said something along the lines of making sure procedures were followed in the classroom. If the teacher were particularly difficult about the matter, they can be suspended or fired over it; schools are expected to take such First Amendment breaches seriously.

 

[One Brow]

A vibe I am getting here from our atheist friends on the forum is that religious people obviously have agendas, but atheist people don't. Am I reading that wrong?

My vibe is that the school would not support an atheist teacher who was berating the religion of their students.

 

[TroutBum]

My vibe is that the school would not support an atheist teacher who was berating the religion of their students.

This.

The student was looking for attention, and she got it. Good for her.