ROCHESTER, N.Y. "” An elementary school teacher was placed on paid leave for washing a boy's mouth out with soap after he shouted an obscenity (search) 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 of 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.
I heard about that on the radio this morning . i think it's stupid for the school to suspend her . geez the kid probably needed something much harsher .
I am glad to see parents coming to her defense....... i would!
even though i totally agree with what this teacher did, how much leway should teachers have when disciplining students. what punishments would you as a parent be willing to let teachers dish out?
On the one hand, many of us here want to applaude this teacher for doing the things that she did.
BUT
On the other hand, there have been many threads here where members have expressed how they would go nuts if a teacher were to so much as look cross-eyed at their kids.
Discipline, or more specifically, the lack of concensus about what constitutes the legal and moral bounds of 'appropriate' discipline is quite frankly one of the biggest things wrong with public education.
If it was any member of this boards kid who had their mouth washed out, they (well, some) would be screaming bloody murder.
I applaud this teacher for her actions. IMO the schools should bring back the paddle too. I got my but set on fire a time or two while in school and I survived just fine.
If you don't want teachers administering "dicipline" as they see fit then home school your kids. If you send them to a school, be it public or private, you are placing your children in the care of teachers and affording them the leeway to correct bad behavior as needed..
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well said, Dave 590. I cant wait to her what stealthycat has to say about this. I remember my grandpa telling a story about how his high school principle (a very small statured man) once threw the biggest kid on the football team out a second story window because he was repeatedly acting up in class and disobeying. This same administrator caught 2 boys fighting, called a school assembly, gave the 2 boxing gloves, and made them duke it out in front of the whole school!!
dogdr, my wife's great-grandfather was a teacher at a rural Tennessee school in the 1930s or thereabouts. He was having a lot of trouble from some pretty roughneck boys in his class, who started threatening him. The next day, he came in to class, set a handful of long, limber hickory branches in the corner and pulled out an old Colt and laid it on his desk and said "all right, any of you that wants me can come and get me."
Times have changed, ain't they?
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I had the paddle used on me more times than I can remember. But, the best deterrent I had was what I got when I got home. If a little respect and discipline was taught a home this story would be mute. My Dad didn't tolerate this kind of behavior. At home or in school.
I had the paddle used on me more times than I can remember. But, the best deterrent I had was what I got when I got home. If a little respect and discipline was taught a home this story would be mute. My Dad didn't tolerate this kind of behavior. At home or in school.
I'll second that!! Home life is the key. Teach them right at the house and you won't have to worry about your kids being disciplined at school.
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We need more teachers like this
