Yes… You Read That Correctly… A Teacher in Cloverdale, California Was Arrested After Allegedly Starting a Fight Club in Special Ed Classroom… How Was This Ever A Good Idea?
Most of you will have seen the cult classic film Fight Club. One of the most iconic movies of the modern era, it basically is about a secret movement where men unleash their pent-up frustrations on each other in an underground setting. Yes, there’s way more to it than that but you don’t talk about Fight Club.
Somehow a teacher in Cloverdale, California decided that it was a great idea to allow his Special Ed students to fight in class as a solution to sort out their differences. While this is admittedly awesome in principle, it’s probably not a good idea to let kids leave your class with black eyes.
Federico Vargas, a 41-year-old high school teacher was arrested and charged with 4 counts of child endangerment and 11 counts of contributing to the delinquency of minors.
Fight Club
Reports have revealed that several teenagers were injured during the violent encounters, with at least one requiring hospital treatment. According to Sgt. Chris Park from Cloverdale Police Department:
“[Vargas] was refereeing the fights as you would see in a boxing ring or an MMA type fight.”
Quite a novel solution, but in an age where corporal punishment isn’t even allowed, it’s probably not smart letting your students batter each other.
Suspended
Cloverdale Unified School District Superintendent Jeremy Decker said that school officials contacted police last week after learning of the alleged fighting “due to the serious nature of these allegations.” Decker said:
“The teacher has worked at the school for eight years and has been put on leave. To have our students potentially be put in an unsafe environment — it just rocks me. Just know as a superintendent this has my full and undivided attention and we will do everything in our power to get to the bottom of this and make sure all of our kids are safe.”
How do you even begin to deal with a situation like this? It’s absolutely insane, but not the first time it has happened as a math teacher was arrested back in April 2018 for a similar system in his classes. Guys you need to relax.
Not Impressed
Despite most rational human beings agreeing with the fact that running a secret fight club in your school is a bad idea, not everybody agrees. Unsurprisingly some of Vargas’s students totally support their now suspended teacher and believe he was offering a solution to a problem that actually had effective results. One student anonymously told KRON 24:
“He’s the best teacher and he’s the only one who all actually cares about his students. It wasn’t like he was making us fight. Two kids had beef [and] wanted to fight each other and this [was] his best solution.”
Right. Well, you can bet that this wasn’t one of the kids who went to the hospital anyway. Project Mayhem is underway folks. Don’t tell everybody.
