SanibelMan suggested this, but this was a transcription of oral comments by the superintendant in a television news story. So I wouldn’t blame Mr. Dearing for poor punctuation.
The damage to the teacher’s aid was not done by “social mores” or legal policies but by a criminal parent. The accusation itself has not hurt his reputation or credibility. He was quickly exonerated (which is typical) and is universally being perceived as a victim himself and as the most sympathetic player in this drama.
I thought Hank the Angry, Drunk Dwarf had passed.
You remain an idiot.
As others have pointed out, “things” didn’t get out of hand. One moron father got out of hand.
When one is not thinking clearly is precisely not the moment when one should not be confronting people.
I guess that, to the “twinkie” defense and the “i was drunk so not responsible” defense, we’re going to have to add the “idiot parent” defense to our legal pantheon.
And i couldn’t give a flying fuck about your “Mama Bear” mode. That sort of thing is understandable if the danger is imminent and if you’re actually protecting them, but once the alleged event is in the past, you need to calm the fuck down and let the appropriate authorities investigate. If you fly off and assault someone based on mere accusations by one of your children, you should be thrown in jail, too.
Bolding mine.
Hey, moron, NO-ONE HURT HIS CHILD. You keep conveniently forgetting that. Which is why you should not assault people based upoon mere accusations.
Sorry, ivylass, I can’t get this logic. I mean, I understand this explanation but it’s inexcusable. We’re in a society here. It’s not acceptable to react without reflection and evidence. What if a woman at Daddy’s job says he sexually harrassed her? Apparently we need to start carrying brass knuckles in our pockets, since there’s the possibility that any of us could be falsely accused of malfeasance and henceforth assaulted by some half-cocked jackass who thinks he or she has all the facts from an infallible source.
See, I taught for several years in inner-city Houston, at a very tough 1-8 school in the Fifth Ward neighborhood. A lot of parents have this attitude - kick ass first and get the facts later. I’ve seen teachers cursed at, threatened, and heard stories of damn-near assaults over what a child claims happened. The reality is, children lie. I don’t mean this is a pejorative or dismissive way. It is an aspect of development - testing limits and so forth - and many times a kid will omit key facts, stretch the truth, or flat out create things out of thin air. I was an honor student and I did it. The best students in my school did it. As a teacher and administrator, when a student came to me with a complaint or accusation, it was time to comfort the child and simultaneously find out what happened. Not to immediately side with the student or the other party. It’s possible to be sympathetic without blindly swallowing every fact from the child’s perspective.
I have a sneaking suspicion that a child who would pour a coke on another student’s head isn’t the most reliable or truthful. I think if Idiot Dad was truthful, he could find examples in the last three months where his daughter was less than truthful to him.
Part of the reason we can’t get smart, talented individuals to enter classrooms is because of this fucked-up idea that it’s acceptable to take action as this asshole did. Who wants a job where the possibility of this scenario exists, and you might have to take a fist to the face because some idiot thinks he has all the facts?
This clearly sounds like the reflections of someone who is an experienced, tenured, and likely union-affiliated teacher, DtC. My school was about 99% Black. One of my fellow rookie teachers was hardworking, dilligent, caring - and a White male. He taught third grade and in his first year, a student started a rumor that he looked up her dress. You can imagine what ensued. He didn’t get into trouble but that rumor made the rounds in the community and in the school. It never got to the point that he was disciplined - but the poor guy had the reputation as being skeevy. And what could he do about it?
Teachers and administrators are not a monolithic group. I am certain that my fellow teacher was passed over for honors and recognition that I received because his reputation was damaged. Even a false, throwaway type of allegation can be incredibly damaging.
Really? What if another kid decides to try this a couple of years from now, you don’t
think there are those who would remember this first incident and begin to suspect that
maybe there was something to it after all?
It’s human nature that this teacher’s aide will be affected by this for many years and
the likelihood that it will have a negative impact on the way that he connects w/
students.
This incident could even be a part of his personnel file and follow him for many years.
There are always those who believe “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire”.
I disciplined my son.
He called the cops.
I got in a lot of trouble.
Bullshit right back atcha, sweetie.
The first time I read this story they had the father stating “my daughter doesn’t lie” while no-where in the rest of the report was anyone even suggesting it … yet.
In my experience parents who are most adamant, and the first to insist, that their children do not lie, are the ones who really know, deep down, that their children are devious little lying thugs. But to admit that would be to accept some of the responsibility.
So a pretense of standing-by their unjustly accused offspring is needed.
There’s probably no field where this is truer than in education. K-12, that is. Multiple insinuations of wrongdoing (cheating, slacking, not giving a shit, kiddy-fiddling) often become reality in the minds of administrators and parents… and students. My ninth-grade P.E. teacher was something of a bitch - always yelling at us, that kind of stuff. Someone claimed that she once went into the women’s locker room and groped a student. Never had concrete evidence that this happened, and I’m fairly sure if it did, she wouldn’t be working there. (This wasn’t a small town, this is the Austin Independent School District.) Didn’t matter. This coach was known as the “dyke coach who molests girls.” Kids would learn this as freshmen and pass it along to each successive generation.
Fucked up, ain’t it?
Parents everywhere need to embrace the notion that kids lie. You lied, right? Everyone has told a lie at some time in their lives. Do you remember wishing the ground would swallow you at some point as a child, and when it didn’t, opting for a lie instead?
Whenever there was a discrepancy between what my child said and what I heard from a teacher, I called a meeting. Said child would accompany me and restate what was told to me. The teacher had the opportunity to counter what was said.
Sometimes it was surprising to find that the teacher back pedalled considerably, and sometimes it was disappointing to hear my child do it. There are two sides to every story. Opening a dialogue to get to the truth is the only way to teach honesty. In following that format my child learned that what I was after was the truth. Action would be pursued depending on what the truth was. If the child was correct in their claim, I would do whatever was necessary to be their advocate (and it did happen).
The parent who claims “my child never lies”, is naive and too trusting. Or perhaps too self-absorbed to spend the time necessary to fill in all the moral gaps in raising an honest child. It takes no time to punch out a perceived offender and 18 or more years to raise a child to behave ethically and honestly.
A little trick for any of you who have small children. If I suspected a child (under 5) was lying to me, I’d get the “magic spoon”. The story went that if the child was telling the truth and I touched the spoon gently to the kid’s lower lip - it would feel cool. But, if the kid was lying, the spoon would feel quite hot. Oddly I never got the chance to see if the spoon really did turn hot. Many truths were blurted whilst the spoon hovered inches away. Before you object to my tricking them that way - tell me if you know of a more immediate consequence illustration? The understood that the power to be honest was within their grasp - and their control - and no one was hurt.
After the age of five, you can also send their toothbrushes away for forensic testing to ensure it gets used every day . . . 
I think the father’s first mistake was in abandoning the meeting scheduled with school officials to discuss the situation. School officials maybe share some fault in this, in that they probably should have had Mathis there to provide his side of the story as well.
No way in heck though that it’s okay for Swafford to have gone into that classroom and certainly not to have committed a violent act, even more so with no more justification than an unfounded accusation. A school classroom is one place society insists remain safe and his turning it inot a place of dangerous confrontation is inexcusable, no matter how justified Swafford might have thought himself.
With such a volatile subject as molestation, you’ve got to make sure some mechanism is in place to keep untethered escalation to a minimum. There wasn’t anything that I read in the report that should have given Mr. Swafford the impression that due process would not be followed if he’d continued to meet with school officials or that Mr. Mathis, if guilty, would escape punishment.
hear·say (hîr’sā’)
n.
Unverified information heard or received from another; rumor.
Law. Evidence based on the reports of others rather than the personal knowledge of a witness and therefore generally not admissible as testimony.
Seems to be close enough. Would you prefer “unsubstantiated story”? “Fib”? “Lie”? “One side of the story”? Take your pick.
So to see if someone lied you lied to them? Seems a little odd to me, however I have no children, no desire for children and have absolutely no idea how you would teach a child not to lie. Is tricking them the accepted method of teaching them about such things?
The irony is not lost on me Queuing - it’s not that different from: “hit your little brother again and I’ll give you such a smack”. However there are times that I feel younger children benefit more from a bit of myth while illustrating what a thousand sensitive explanations and lectures cannot achieve.
The Sandman, Santa Claus, Tooth Fairies - why not a magic spoon?
I meant to say that “I feel younger children at times benefit more . . .”
So by the ‘law’ definition, this isn’t hearsay. She didn’t hear about the teacher touching her and report it to her dad. She was involved in the ‘event’.
If she had heard that the teacher touched her friend, and reported that to the dad, that would be hearsay.
Close enough only counts in horse shoes and handgernades.
At five I already knew Santa Claus didn’t exist. Of course, I wouldn’t have been smart enough to look scared, then when the spoon approached close enough, suddenly blurt out the “truth” 
my guess? from watching Paris Hilton, and The OC, and so much other crap that’s out there today.
Well, Zebra, in all fairness, where “hearsay” comes in depends on what stage of the process you’re looking at. When daughter told dad a story, that was not hearsay. When dad told others the story about his daughter, that was hearsay.
If I testify that a particular thing happened to me is that hearsay? If the father were to claim that his child was molested, that would be hearsay, but her evidence was not hearsay. Merely false.