Rochester, NY teacher gets suspended for washing students mouth out with soap

[Wain]

Maybe there would have been a better way to handle this, but I can't believe for a moment that it is worth even raising a fuss over.  The teacher was obviously thinking about ways to punish that wouldn't be abusive or scarring.  

While I agree that teachers need to be watched in order to protect our kids from potential bad ones, I also think we need to stop micromanaging every little thing they do or say.  They're people too, and since in America most of them are left with the job of raising somebody elses kids, they certainly deserve a break more often than they get, and shouldn't be suspended over every single little thing they do or say when it really never hurt anybody.

Once upon a time (or so I'm told and have read), parents supported teachers and worked together to make sure their children were respectful both in and out of the home.

Now there's this whole "my kid is special and HOW DARE YOU touch/speak to/look at my child that way?" attitude, and it's really just a bunch of egocentric bull**** that most often comes from parents who can't even deal with their own lives, much less their kids.

I do realize that this isn't always the case, but it sure seems like it a lot of the time when I read news articles like this.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

What I read now here is quite another problem, or let I say problems:
The system does not maintain the law properly plus a bad social structure.
 
Allowing physical punishment won't cure that.

On the contrary.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

KennyR wrote:
laws and liberalism be damned.

And what about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay?

[KennyR]

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
What I read now here is quite another problem, or let I say problems:
The system does not maintain the law properly plus a bad social structure.

The law is the problem. It makes teachers and authorities powerless to act against abusive students. And so social structure suffers. If it is not changed, students will not become any less abusive, only more so. Bringing back physical punishment might not help, but blaming teachers for any failure of the idea that they're supposed to be angerless victims who'll never fight back and shouldn't be respected is even worse.

And Guantanamo Bay is not a school, Speel, and has no place in this debate. Even if it did the people there are not following any law, not even a bad one.

[mikeymike]

Excluding a kid from the group is punishment enough.
Putting a kid in a place wich is empty and without anything that attracts attention does miracles.

Something tells me you didn't go to a "trouble" school :-)  There were at least twenty kids in my year in secondary school who were regularly suspended.  Like they cared.  They continued being troublemakers all the time I knew them.  Last I heard, at least two of them are currently in prison.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

KennyR wrote:
The law is the problem. It makes teachers and authorities powerless to act against abusive students.

fancy talk. ppl do not know how to use the law, because they do not know the law properly.

Bringing back physical punishment might not help, but blaming teachers for any failure of the idea that they're supposed to be angerless victims who'll never fight back and shouldn't be respected is even worse.

If a teacher is being attacked physically, she/he may defend her/himself physically, according to the law (at least, the Dutch law that is).

[mikeymike]

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
If a teacher is being attacked physically, she/he may defend her/himself physically, according to the law (at least, the Dutch law that is).

That's a lot of comfort for the teacher.  16 year old lad versus a young female teacher who is poorly paid for a job that demands the patience of a saint.

I'm not suggesting that teachers should be allowed to "slap their pupils around", but consider what you're saying from a practical, people living their life point of view.  I wouldn't expect anyone to work in a place that leaves them open to such abuse for such a pittance of a salary and very little real defence.

The media is almost always against the teacher in cases like this, as is the law.

fancy talk. ppl do not know how to use the law, because they do not know the law properly.

Should a country be fit for normal people to live in, or does everyone have to be a lawyer in order to exercise their rights?

If you're a good person, the law should be on your side, not an uphill struggle to get an injustice against you taken care of.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Should a country be fit for normal people to live, or does everyone have to be a lawyer in order to exercise their rights?

A citizen is obliged to know the law correctly.

mikeymike wrote:
If you're a good person, the law should be on your side,

Can't you understand your own subjectivness? What's exactly a 'good' person? A person who obeys the law or a person who thinks he can deny the law if it doesn't suit her/him well?

with a few million ppl living in a country, there are also a few million slightly/extremely different views of a 'good person'

Bring back Workhouses!

Abusive school 'students' that regularly abuse or bully, oh, and have no academic prospects to succeed, should be thrown into slavehouses, and never let out. A few advantages could include:

Extremley cheap labour
Takes strain off prisons

[that_punk_guy]

I was a "problem child." Two things to note:

1. They got me back on track without the need for anything like this. Hence, it's an unnecessary physical violation.

2. If anyone had tried to put soap in my mouth, I'd have probably bitten their fingers off.

I certainly would not have returned to school with a renewed willingness to co-operate.

[KennyR]

Sorry Eyso, come back to this thread when you've got a clue. What you're writing has the echo of "ivory tower" all over it.

[mikeymike]

Should a country be fit for normal people to live, or does everyone have to be a lawyer in order to exercise their rights?

A citizen is obliged to know the law correctly.

Yes, but that should be taking into account that the law can be easily understood by the average citizen, and doesn't require that person to either be a lawyer or have one in order to make sure their rights aren't being stamped on.

mikeymike wrote:
If you're a good person, the law should be on your side,

Can't you understand your own subjectivness? What's exactly a 'good' person? A person who obeys the law or a person who thinks he can deny the law if it doesn't suit her/him well?

It's called idealism, Speel.

[mikeymike]

that_punk_guy wrote:
I was a "problem child." Two things to note:

1. They got me back on track without the need for anything like this. Hence, it's an unnecessary physical violation.

For you, it might well have been unnecessary.  But you aren't the "definitive" problem child.

2. If anyone had tried to put soap in my mouth, I'd have probably bitten their fingers off.

I certainly would not have returned to school with a renewed willingness to co-operate.

Horses for courses.  For example, some children can be clever enough to have the truth laid out to them of what their lives will become if they don't sort themselves out, to do the right thing.  Some aren't.  Some may need a more forceful approach, some don't.

It's not supposed to be a 'fix all' solution.  With people, I don't think there are any 'fix all' solutions.

[the_leander]

Having been the victim of kids like this poor teacher had to deal with so many times in my school life, I can honestly not shed a tear for this kid, moreover, if I saw the teacher, I'd buy them a pint.

What the teacher did may or may not have been right, but at least they were trying to do something!

Too many times in schools these days they are handstrung seven ways from sunday but "parents" wanting their perfect little angels (they are angels only when compared to the morning star) to be given special treatment, unable or unwilling to believe that their little darlings could possibly beat another kid half to death, or a teacher for that matter, or verbally abuse someone to the point that they contemplate suicide (or worse, follow through on that contemplation).

I for one say good on the teacher, I hope that it happens more often to such foul mouthed black hearted kids.

I know only too well how pathetic the system is at defending anyone from an under 16 year old bullying, having had several cracked ribs, and a broken nose without any way to get help (beyond imediate medical). Having a group of 20+ people giving you a group kicking (on the six or seven occations that happened to me, I recieved numberous bruises and on two occations cracked ribs) and not being able to get even one of them more then a light telling off.

And people wonder why some kids suicide and some do a columbine.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

KennyR wrote:
Sorry Eyso, come back to this thread when you've got a clue. What you're writing has the echo of "ivory tower" all over it.

sorry, but this is no argument.
I know way too much about different interpretations and the conflicts these causes, so I see the neccesity of an absolute rule.
Since you also claimed you do not participate in social activities whatsoever in your CV threads, and I am actually participating in more than one, for instance scouting, I think YOU are the one who's in the 'ivory tower' and that you have no clue about how to deal with conflicts within a group. You are just having an impulsive reaction on this case.

Speel, what in the name of the Toronto Skydome are you going on about?

Social activities have nought to do with this. This thread is about SCHOOLS. Whether or not KennyR is less sociable than you has nothing to do with what this debate is about. If KennyR didn't go to school, then your 'Ivory Tower' comment might have some credibility.

As for dealing with conflicts in a group, it looks like you are the one who has no idea how to deal with such things. If we tried problem solving as described in your posts, we'd be practically waving goodbye to freedom from criminals.

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It's not the rights of criminals that should have any importance. The emphasis should be on the rights of victims, and the rights or ordinary people not to become victims.