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

[T_Bone]

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/Northeast/06/11/teacher.soap.ap/index.html

 :lol:

Give me a break.

[KennyR]

I don't want to sound like an old conservative here, but I wish teachers would do that more often.

And soap isn't poisonous, not is it physical or sexual assault...nor is it prolonged psychological assault...so I don't see any basis for the suspension. Apart from typical lawsuitism. (to coin a phrase)

[T_Bone]

plus it was just a drop of liquid soap! And administered under supervision by the school nurse ;-)

Sheesh. I hope she get's to keep her job.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

But it's a physical assault.
You can physically get kids out of the school, but you cannot punish a kid physically.

Rules are rules, otherwise ppl gonna interpret guidelines for themselves.

Whats the big deal? I agree with KennyR on this one

[Speelgoedmannetje]

JonoPike wrote:
Whats the big deal?

human interpretation of right and wrong.

Physical punishment should be banned, and banning such can ONLY very absolute, even these cases which are not harmfull should be banned for legal reasons.
And legal reasons are not built for multiple interpretations.

Next time it's a teacher who thinks it's reasonable to beat a kid up with a wooden stick.

Next time it's a teacher who screws a kid to let it understand what it said.

Physical punishment, or the fear/threat of physical punishment is sometimes the only thing that keeps undisciplined, unruly little buggers in line.

Part of the reason that the Education system today is so piss poor is because there is no discipline - Kids can get away with nearly anything, and they know it.

[KennyR]

Oh hell Speel, it's people with ultraliberal views like that that caused the whole school system to turn into total sh!t. Teachers get abused and attacked on a daily basis. It's just liquid soap on the mouth, not being thrashed with a stick, humped from behind, or thrown out a plate glass window. What do you think teachers should be, the eternal victims in a system that never ever will take their side? Because that's what they are now, that's why I'll never be a teacher although I'm qualified to be, and that's why there aren't enough teachers around anymore.

I'll be nobody's victim, unless now and again I get the chance to score even. And with the current teacher system, that's impossible. If the rules don't allow change, then it can only get worse.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Is it so hard to understand a phenomenon called 'law'?

You think 'law' is an ultraliberal imagination?

It's simple: if a student is causing trouble, kick it out of school. That's a legal thing you can do.

[KennyR]

Laws are supposed to be there for everyone, not for just one party. Laws that don't support both parties don't deserve to be followed.

And kicking students out of school is utterly pointless. Someone else has to get them then, don't they? Better they just get punished properly.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Punishing should ONLY be done by law.
Otherwise, we can have all kinds of institutions which can punish.
For instance: the Maria Magdalena houses.

Laws that don't support both parties don't deserve to be followed.

Laws do not support parties.
Laws have to be obeyed. Period.

Someone else has to get them then, don't they?

Eventually, no. If one do not want to learn, nothing will work.

[mikeymike]

Speel, kids need discipline.  There are times when parents or teachers need to employ more drastic methods of enforcing discipline, and in a way they are failing in their ability to enforce discipline by resorting to such methods, but sometimes kids need to at least be threatened.

If a (troublemaker) kid knows that a parent or teacher can't enforce discipline, then they'll run amok.

Of course allowing parents and teachers to use more drastic methods of discipline will mean that the system will be abused.  No system is perfect.  But having a system is better than no system.

IIRC, my parents have never hit me, but I was threatened with it enough times (IMO, justly so), and the threat (and the belief/surety that they would carry out the threat if provoked) was enough to stop me acting like a little ******* !

When I was in primary school I remember a kid getting his mouth washed out with soap :-)

There are problems with where to draw the line, but IMO it is absolutely necessary to give parents/teachers the authority/responsibility to threaten and carry out more drastic forms of punishment.  It is dangerous to say things like "as long as there are no lasting marks" as there are some horrendous forms of punishment/pain/torture that leave no marks, including mental abuse.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

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.

Allowing physical methods to enforce discipline leaves WAY too much opportunities open for wrongdoers (plus a big grey area between enforcing discipline and abuse).
Besides that, a kid isn't immune for the law either.

[KennyR]

Speel, I knew some very bad kids when I was growing up. The class under me was one of the worst ever, and attacked bus drivers, teachers, and damaged property. The system did nothing to stop them. One of them was murdered shortly after leaving school, by one of his own gang.

I knew someone too who kept getting kicked out of schools because of his very serious behaviour (putting knives to people's throats, theft, etc). The social seclusion only made him worse and more extreme. I think he's in jail now. The system failed him, and everyone he affected.

And finally, a teacher was raped at my high school. I have no idea who did it (maybe even the guy above), but the teacher never came back, obviously. The system did nothing to protect her.

What do we do with people like that? Keep moving them around? Slap their wrists? Get all touchy feely with them? Why is it the teachers who always get the handcuffs and aren't allowed to do anything about this scum?

No, I'm afraid to say it, but sometimes people need their asses kicked, and hard. If the system isn't working, you need a new system, laws and liberalism be damned. Unless people with your lax views get out of schooling, Eyso, I will never be a teacher. What you call law is one sided, biased, and unfair.

[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.