Via Fark comes a followup to the story about Jim Piculas, a substitute teacher who was fired for, among other things, wizardry.
It’s amusing; the teacher is distancing himself from the wizardry comment, though in this new article he never blames the reporter in the original article for inflating the story (which is starting to sound like what happened, at leats in part). This article is more about nasty emails the school received (none from here, I trust), and how this story rolled out of control on the internet.
Well, sure. It’s the internet. Of course, I wrote about this story when it came out. As I wrote it I remember thinking that all I had to go on was this one source, so I linked the story as "As reported by Channel 10 in Tampa…" Perhaps I should have expressed more doubt to its veracity, but the article quotes Piculas well enough to see that this was the thrust of his story.
I try to be careful when passing on stories I see, because you never know how accurate they may be. And I’ve made my mistakes! However, in this case, given the quotations by Piculas, any problems can be laid squarely at his feet and those of the reporter who originally interviewed him. Piculas talked about the wizardry point to the reporter, and it would be monumentally naive to assume the article wouldn’t focus on that. It’s difficult to know if Piculas himself put a lot of emphasis on that part or if the reporter did when writing the story.
One thing I’ll agree with him on: he does take to task the people who wrote nasty letters; not that they supported him, but that the letters were mean-spirited. I see no reason to do that; all writing angry letters does is make you look foolish and make the subject of your letter dig in their heels. In cases like that, honey is better than vinegar.
But the real lesson here is be careful what you say to a reporter: what they think is important and what you think is important may be very different things.
May 18th, 2008 at 10:10 am
It’s worth noting that vinegar can be sweet, or more exactly, can be used for sweet things. There’s a Persian drink (the name escapes me at the moment) that’s vinegar based. Vinegar, mint, sugar; it makes a thick syrup that’s cut with water for drinking. Very sweet and tasty, with the vinegar bite to give it a little kick.
Just to cut down on that anti-vinegar bias.
May 18th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Abolish anti-vinegar thinking! When reading that article, I seriously lost (even more) faith in humanity, and was slightly skeptical about how well it was reported, but even if there is only a small spark of truth in this matter, it is still wrong in big way.
May 18th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Phil,
Not to insinuate that this is waaaay more common that you realize, but this sort of stuff happens in public schools all the time.
You only hear about it when the teachers don’t know how to fight back (or don’t know enough to have a union rep present when this is going on). The proper retort is to inform the principal about the collection of Harry Potter books in the school’s library; I guarantee that you will not hear anything about wizardry or wicca for the rest of the school year.
Ethan
May 18th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Balsamic Vinegar can be used in chocolate desserts to accent the chocolate flavour and give you a deeper, richer chocolaty experience. This anti-vinegar rhetoric wounds me deeply. Many of my favourite foods include a variety of vinegar as an ingredient.
May 18th, 2008 at 11:31 am
The lesson here is that sensationalistic news stories should be treated with the same degree of skepticism as UFOs sightings, even — and perhaps especially — if they reinforce your own prejudices (i.e., that schools in Florida are run by drooling morons).
May 18th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Phil, props for following up (just like you said you would). Being a skeptic, I wasn’t proud of some of the things that were said on this board based on such flimsy “evidence,” but I feel better knowing it’s leader did the right thing.
May 18th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
So did you see the first comment to the linked article?
“No employer should ever higher this idiot.”
What delicious irony!
May 18th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
No no no, Phil. There was certainly blame to be had to the reporter, but you’re absolutely wrong to lay the blame at the original reporter for this. Look carefully at what you are doing in this post–you’re rationalizing:
“However, in this case, given the quotations by Piculas, any problems can be laid squarely at his feet and those of the reporter who originally interviewed him.
…
But the real lesson here is be careful what you say to a reporter: what they think is important and what you think is important may be very different things.”
Previous blog:
“At first I was having a hard time thinking this story was true, but then realized it happened in Florida. I’m surprised they didn’t burn him.”
Do you see your mistake now? You’re believing something that has insufficient evidence in proportion to your own prejudices. Those bad information producers! They should be checking their facts!
Well, guess what. You were an information producer too. So was everyone reporting in the blog about the wizardry complaint and why it was important without evidence that it was even involved. So if you’re going to blame the reporters, blame yourselves.
…still, reporting isn’t the real problem, though it’s key to spreading an UL (this would have been an urban legend even if it were true, mind you).
The real lesson here is that you should verify facts before even BELIEVING them. (And for the record, this type of thing is by no means new–this was the sort of thing the term “yellow journalism” was invented for).
It has nothing to do with reporting.
May 18th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Isn’t this the way its supposed to work?
1 You get some information–you form an opinion (hypothesis).
2 You have some questions about the veracity of said information.
3 You check out the information (experimentation).
4 You revise your opinion (theory).
BTW: malt vinegar is best on fish and chips (theory–backed up with lots of testing).
May 18th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I’m not saying people should write angry emails, but I suspect getting hundreds of angry emails does make one reconsider his or her position a bit. Better than anger, though, is a well-reasoned argument.
Schools are often between a rock and a hard place. Parents can be totally irrational when it comes to their children and their beliefs and schools are directly in the line of fire.
May 18th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Well, lolife, I get lots of angry emails telling me *of course* the Moon landings were faked. Oddly, they get deleted with a wry smile.
People in the general populace who think they are in the right will rarely listen to reason.
yy2bgggs, it seemed reasonable to me that a television reporter *who had quotations from the source* would have an accurate report. And I was careful to say that the wizardry was *one* reason he was let go. At some point you have to decide if something is worth reporting or not, and this one seemed to be at the time. Honestly, it still does, since it still seems to be that one reason he was let go was due to accusations of wizardry.
May 18th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
I can’t say I’m especially inclined to raise my opinion of the school district. I don’t condone the kind of vicious phone calls and e-mail they claim to have received, but I didn’t see anything in that article along the lines of, “Of course he wasn’t accused of wizardry. That’s ridiculous.” All they did was say the reason he was fired was not because of “the magic trick”.
If he actually was accused of wizardry, then the district still deserves ridicule, regardless of whether or not that accusation had any weight in the decision to fire him.
May 18th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Phil:
“yy2bgggs, it seemed reasonable to me that a television reporter *who had quotations from the source* would have an accurate report.”
But that’s the thing. The reporter did NOT have quotations from the source about the wizardry claim. From the Tampa Tribune reporting:
>The telephone call that spelled the end of Jim Piculas’ career as a
>substitute teacher in Pasco County came on a January day about a
>week after he performed the disappearing-toothpick trick for a group
>of rapt middle school students.
>Pat Sinclair, who oversees substitute teachers in the Pasco County
>School District, was on the phone. She told Piculas there had been
>a complaint about his performance at Rushe Middle School in Land
>O’ Lakes.
>He asked what she meant.
>”She said, ‘You’ve been accused of wizardry,’
>” Piculas said.
This is the only place where an actual accusation of wizardry comes from in the story (from the internet), and though it appears that Pat Sinclair said it when reading, you see that the source of information here is NOT Pat Sinclair, but Piculas himself. Everything else said about wizardry comes from Piculas.
To me this raises some serious questions about veracity. I’m not saying it wasn’t true, but there’s no evidence I have outside of such second-hand reporting from a let go employee that a supernatural belief in wizardry had anything to do with it (and I still don’t see the evidence, though I admit I could just be missing something).
I do see some suggestion that the magic tricks had something to do with it, but I suppose I have a bigger imagination into possible reasons why it was deemed inappropriate.
May 18th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
The original reporter from channel 10 in Tampa had a duty to double check the facts — and in this case, since the story is pretty incredible, the fact checking had to be even more thorough then usual.
It is clear that the reporter did NOT do that.
In retrospect, we can say that the BA should have looked for signs of good reporting before posting the information the the blog. But the truth is that ALL of us want (and need) to trust the media.
Poor reporting is becoming very common. “Reporting” that is thinly disguised sensationalism and entertainment is rapidly becoming the usual thing.
I suggest that instead of writing to the school, we should write to channel 10, and other “news” outlets that provide crap instead of news. We should tell them that we want news, not entertainment, and we won’t buy their paper or watch their show until they provide quality, well researched, intelligent news.
May 18th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Well, in all fairness, it was Florida.
May 18th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
It would seem that the news source was about as reliable as they ever are.
It would also seem fitting to take much of the incredulity expressed in the original topic on the subject and simply redirect it at the reporter.
May 18th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
I think what we might ask is: what kind of circumstances would lead us to believe this in this incredible lunacy without thorough checking anyway? The answer is, too many school boards trying to water-board evolution, and too many legislators working of “freedom of education” acts that are nothing but religious hogwash. If you live in a world where lots of people are acting stark-raving loony, and claiming 2 + 3 = 7, it is really not hard to believe another minor case.
May 18th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Sailor:
Let me get this straight. You’re asking for whose fault it is that you believe something without checking your facts… then you’re coming to the conclusion that it’s those damned Floridians?
Damn those Floridians!
May 18th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
@yy2bggggs
Actually, if your quotes are acurate, to me it appears as if Sinclair was talking about the complaint itself. A complaint registered from a 3rd party in which the 3rd party accused Piculas of Wizardry. Neither Sinclair nor Piculas used the term wizardry in the first person.
So on the surface, what we potentially have is a students parent who doesn’t like magic tricks. Now I wonder what kind of person doesn’t like magic tricks…
May 18th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
This is a classic case of mob mentality being driven by lies and an unwillingness to check on the facts. The people who sent abusive emails should be ashamed of themselves and have the decency to apologize. But I don’t expect them too. Most likely they will have the same attitude some expressed on this site and justify their actions with a “blame the victim” attitude (in this case the school board). Who’s to blame? Everyone who jumped to conclusions.
May 18th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Dagger:
“If your quotes are acurate”
Very fair. Here, check for yourself:
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/may/06/pa-presto-teacher-out-of-a-job/
“to me it appears as if Sinclair was talking about the complaint itself.”
The question isn’t so much if Sinclair was talking about the complaint as it is if Sinclair even said that at all. The key part here is this:
>He asked what she meant.
>”She said, ‘You’ve been accused of wizardry,’
>” Piculas said.
Piculas said. So, it’s second hand information from Piculas. And who is he? The guy who was let go; i.e., a biased source.
This doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, but it’s very believable that it didn’t. Piculas has both the opportunity and the motive to lie, and his reputation is… well, zilch. He’s just a random internet guy. You honestly have just as much reason to believe he would be giving an accurate quote as you do I would (I would say even less, since he’s biased, but I suppose you could reasonably interpret my defending my points as a bias).
May 18th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
yy2bgggs, it seemed reasonable to me that a television reporter *who had quotations from the source* would have an accurate report.
FWIW, I wait at least a couple days and see how other reports come in on any unusual story. Even the usual ones.
The prime example I use is how everyone knows how outside the John Benet Ramsey house, on the night of the murder, there was fresh snow with no footprints! Very incriminating! Couldn’t have been an intruder! It was reported over and over nationally.
There was little to no snow on the ground. Archival video footage from that night clearly shows it. The shots of the Ramsey house show a lawn clear of snow.
But everyone *knew* it. People *still* use it in arguing over the case. It was reported as quotes from “investigators”.
May 18th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
YOU CANNOT PASS…. Journalism 101!
May 18th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
yy2bggggs, I know the quotation was from Piculas himself. I would consider him a first-hand source; after all, he was there. However, he is then quoted by a reporter, and that’s where the trail gets hazy.
The superintendent is quoted in the second article saying that wizardry was not a reason he was let go (though she uses a litoses : "There were several compelling reasons for the dismissal, none of which were even remotely related to ‘Wizardry,’ as was suggested in the news accounts,” she wrote."
However, where did the superintendent get her information? From Piculas, or the principal? I can guess.
At some level, a situation like this becomes he-said-she-said. Without a recording, or a document, that’s likely all we’ll ever get.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:11 am
Ultimately, we’re all Bayesians with strongly-biased priors.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:19 am
B-b-b-but I thought the state of Florida actively teaches wizardry in its schools. I mean, Intelligent Design? What’s that if not wizardry?
–
May 19th, 2008 at 5:41 am
@ t3knomanseron
“There’s a Persian drink (the name escapes me at the moment) that’s vinegar based.”
Sekanjabin, also a few drops of balsamic vinegar with strawberries, a dash of white vinegar in caramel to impede crystallisation, and so on…
May 19th, 2008 at 7:12 am
I saw this as a featured story on both CNN and Fox web pages, and still didn’t quite believe it. Granted, they probably got it from the same AP source.
May 19th, 2008 at 7:28 am
We is SO smart in Floriduh:
“I’ve been called the worst things I’ve been called as a School Board member,” said Whaley.
Um…English much?
“You really can’t count on every Web site … because you’re likely to get information that isn’t true,” she said.
Gee, ya think?
May 19th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
BA
In your second quote above you used “litoses.” Did you mean “litotes?” If you did, I don’t see that the word applies in the context of the super’s response.
In a not unkind support of public school superintendents in general: they’re usually elected within their city or county school districts, are not directly professionally involved in education, and are generally unpaid, apart from meager stipends to cover travel or other small expenses. Most of them are genuinely concerned about how the schools are faring, but some are axe-grinders with specific and often controversial agendas of their own: the teaching of X in the classroom, salaries – nearly always too high – paid to teachers or administrators, or the “waste” of taxpayer’s money, or merely as a forum to get themselves publicly noticed, for example. Most of the folks I’ve run across in my experience have been not so awful; they ran for office generally because they saw the district’s need in one area of another and thought they might be able to help. I have seen a few who were totally at odds with the schools and the folks who ran them, however. But for the most part, these types don’t appear very often, and when they do they’re so obviously there to cause problems for everyone that they’re gone by the next term, with sorrowful goodbyes from the voters, one and all.
May 19th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
[...] This was talked about on the SGU and at the Bad Astonamy Blog and I’m now getting updating my blog post on it. It turns out it he wasn’t fierd for [...]
May 19th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Will M – Huh? I’ve never heard of an elected school superintendent. Around here, they are professional educators and are hired by the school board, which is elected. Google Paul Ash for a local example of a school superintendent being harassed by a know-nothing Interwebs idiot.
As far as “second-hand source”, the only two primary sources for the call between the substitute teacher and his supervisor are the two of them (unless the line was tapped or one of them was recording it or on a speaker phone.) The *reporter* was the second-hand source. It sounds like the reporter messed up badly by not getting both sides (though Sinclair might have declined to comment or referred all questions to higher ups.) If Sinclair fails to actually deny making the comment about the wizardry complaint, and Piculas doesn’t claim to have been misquoted, then all the evidence we have is that Sinclair said it. Has either of these occurred? (It doesn’t matter whether or not there actually was a complaint, only that Sinclair told Piculas that there was one.)
All the other quotes I’ve seen sound like classic Watergate non-denial denials.
May 20th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Nobody has denied that that wasn’t one of the reasons he got fired.
May 20th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
*sorry*
Nobody has said that that wasn’t one of the reasons he got fired.
July 16th, 2008 at 10:11 am
[...] Remember the teacher in Florida who was fired for practicing wizardry? I got some flack from posting about that, but it looks like I was right. Paul Hutchinson has [...]