[The classroom is a highly structured environment.]
First, you obviously have not been in a high school classroom in several years! They are NOT highly structured environments!
More importantly, no other children complained nor was “disruption” the cause for the trip to the Principal’s office. It was a BAD judgment call by a teacher and the Principal; one they should have never made!
[...there is no tolerance for dreamy ideals. Let the kids learn, and not be tossed into chaos.]
Good idea, so are you advocating that we get rid of teaching evolution in the classroom? Do you think that sex-education to teenagers isn’t chaotic (let me tell you - it IS extremely chaotic)!!
[...to be disrespectful.]
And then you go all the way off the reservation by comparing this shirt to being “disrespectful.” Really? Are you serious? It isn’t like he was wearing a dress and pumps (which I am certain that the school would expect everyone to accept as his “natural” expression of himself) - he wore a shirt that the teacher and Principal didn’t like - PERIOD.
I have been in a high school teaching for many days in the recent few years. I was speaking to the ideal of learning to say “highly structured classroom”.