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Teacher suspended for washing students mouth w/ soap

A

AmdInside

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

ROCHESTER, New York (AP) -- An elementary school teacher was placed on paid leave for washing a boy's mouth out with soap after he shouted an obscenity at a classmate.

Lori Thomas, 48, who has taught for six years at inner-city School 22, said she was stunned when a 10-year-old boy directed "a vile, very nasty sexual reference" at a third-grade girl in March.

Thomas said she didn't want the boy, who had frequently been sent home for unruly behavior, to earn another one-week suspension.

She took the boy to the nurse's office, she said, "put a drop of soap on his lower lip, washed it out immediately and told him I never wanted to hear filth like that coming out of his mouth again."

"Old-fashioned ways work," she said unapologetically.

The boy behaved for the remainder of the day and didn't complain to his foster mother, Thomas said. The boy's brother told district officials what had happened, she said.

Thomas was suspended indefinitely. The district could either fire Thomas -- even though tenure provides such teachers "a lot of protection" -- or level "a lesser amount of discipline," said Joanne Giuffrida, personnel chief in the 6,000-employee school district.

"I wish we could have handled this more expeditiously too," Giuffrida said. She said an investigation will likely be completed within two weeks.

More than 40 relatives of children in Thomas' class have asked for her to be reinstated.
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I like how the article states that "The boy behaved for the remainder of the day". I hope the teacher wins this battle. Its so stupid that parents send their kids to school without proper manners or morals. Teachers should not have to be concerned with disciplining students to this extent. To many punk kids in schools today.
 
hahahah kinda funny in an absurd sort of a way. I thought it was something you tell kids, not that you actually do it 😕

maybe she watched supertroopers and got the idea there ? 🙂
 
I agree that parents need to put more effort into the children's upbringing, but forcing a child to accept soap into their mouth can be an emotionally damaging thing. I remember when I was in 1st-3rd grades, I had a teacher (mentor) who used to forcefully hit the chin to where the mouth would snap closed if we talked back. There was a risk of our tongue being between our teeth at the moment. I don't know if that was beneficial to anyone in the long run; probably harmful.
 
While I don't think the teacher's action warranted such a huge uproar, it's clear to me that the teacher's an idiot. Why? Because she actually disciplined a child in such a way that NO ONE is taught to do in education school. Seriously, what teacher would EVER put soap a in kid's mouth in today's litigious society?

Physical discipline does NOT belong at school. If parents want to spank their kids or put soap in their mouths, that's fine. But it is definitely NOT a teacher's place to utilize those types of discipline techniques. She should have simply called or written the foster parents to inform them of their student's actions.
 
Good for the teacher. She did something that I'd like to do but never would out of fear of what the laws are these days.
 
She could have just given him the 'look.' I know that scared the crap out of me when I was a kid...

If not, a yell always works.
 
Originally posted by: GigaCluster
I agree that parents need to put more effort into the children's upbringing, but forcing a child to accept soap into their mouth can be an emotionally damaging thing. I remember when I was in 1st-3rd grades, I had a teacher (mentor) who used to forcefully hit the chin to where the mouth would snap closed if we talked back. There was a risk of our tongue being between our teeth at the moment. I don't know if that was beneficial to anyone in the long run; probably harmful.
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So you didn't talk back, right?
 
Teachers ought to be allowed to shoot and kill students, within guidelines. Not firing squad style, but more along the lines of in the heat of the moment, just whip out the gun and blow the little bastard away. Sure, you probably want to limit them to two or three a year. And the teacher should probably have to provide some justification, however arbitrary. I think this would solve most discipline problems in school.

EDIT: ok, that was tasteless. But teachers need SOME way to discipline their students. We have taken all the power away from the teachers and given it to the kids.
 
Originally posted by: GigaCluster
I agree that parents need to put more effort into the children's upbringing, but forcing a child to accept soap into their mouth can be an emotionally damaging thing. I remember when I was in 1st-3rd grades, I had a teacher (mentor) who used to forcefully hit the chin to where the mouth would snap closed if we talked back. There was a risk of our tongue being between our teeth at the moment. I don't know if that was beneficial to anyone in the long run; probably harmful.
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There's a huge difference between hitting someone and potentially causing physical harm and putting soap in a kids mouth. I think being emotionally traumatized from soap is a load of horsesh!t.
 
I don't know why there's a huge difference -- in both cases something is done against the student's will, and outside the teacher's designed role. As jumpr says, I don't think that a school is a place for discipline. If someone is misbehaving to where education is impaired, they should be removed and dealt with by either administration or the parent. A teacher has no business prescribing punitive measures for misbehaving.
 
hmm, kids get arrested for a food fight, and this teacher gets suspended with pay for putting soap in the mouths of other people's children.....

...punishments seem reversed to me.

edit: sp
 
this story is pretty funny. i dunno how i would feel if a teacher did that to my child, so im not sure what shoudl happen in this case.
 
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