A teacher washed out a kid’s mouth with soap after he said some naughty words to another child. She was immediately suspended. Relatives of other students in the class want her back. I’m not sure I do, to be honest… I don’t think teachers should have to deal with this crap in school, but I think that the soap punishment should be handed out by the parents, not the teachers. It sounds like she wasn’t cruel about it (took the kid to the nurse before doing it and only used a drop), so I don’t think she should be fired.
There ought to be better recourse for teachers when students aren’t behaving properly. Expulsion only seems to move the students to another school, so I’m not sure how effective that is. I have a sneaking suspicion that it comes down to whether you spend more money on the overachievers or the underachievers… In other words, special cases require special attention outside the norms. Some schools focus on the bottom end outliers which other schools focus on the top end. Special attention is expensive…
Then there is the level of parental involvement, which I also wonder about. How does it vary and why?
June 13th, 2004 at 9:06 am
ugh. Yes, the punishment is harsh. Perhaps the incident should be a wake-up call about the need for better discipline assistence in schools. But honestly, much of these issues are diminished with smaller class sizes. I see Sujal saying that the top loses out or the bottom loses out, but if the numbers are more manageable, then we can serve everyone. There’s my mantra: Smaller class sizes. Smaller class sizes — oh, but look, what’s happeneing: bigger class sizes! When I started at Ware, my first class sizes were around 15, 15, and 18. 15 or below is ideal. Do you know how much attention I could give to a class of 8? Top or bottom, or MIDDLE — they all need and deserve a lot of attention. and the kid swearing, chances are, he was doing it FOR attention.