Kansas Teacher Fired For Pointing Out America's Penis

Students at a Kansas middle school are protesting after one of the school's most popular teachers was fired on Monday. The offense?

He made a penis joke about the shape of Florida.

No, really. Last month Shawnee Mission science teacher Ryan Haraughty drew a map of the United States in order to explain how the jet stream works, and when students corrected his rendering of the nation's largest peninsula he made an offhand remark that Florida "must be excited." This was hilarious to the students, because they are seventh graders, but school administrators were not so amused.

Haraughty, whose Facebook fan club has over two hundred members, plans to appeal his dismissal. Administrators, meanwhile, issued a wordy non-explanation for their actions, saying that the dismissal was tied to a number of events that happened over a long period of time. They declined to say what those events might be. One former student left this comment on the Facebook page:

Ryan Haraughty is one of the best educators I ever had in the public school system. His termination is unjustifiable in light of the sexually-charged culture of adolescence that undeniably pervades the halls of Mission Valley and every other secondary school in this country. Terminating one of your best does nothing to... protect the minds of school children, and everything to support the illusion of safety in the education system.

Meanwhile, about fifty students protested outside the school for two days, and now they are leaving Post-Its all over the school with the letter H on them. They're also wearing the letter H and some are carrying signs around the school. Those who took part in the protests were given unexcused absences for the two days, even in the case of students whose parents had given permission. The Kansas City Star reports that some of these students are being held in study hall, unable to leave to use the library or the bathroom.

[Erratum: We initially reported that the incident described in this news item happened in Missouri. The incident, in fact, happened in Kansas. We have corrected the news item and regret the error.]