I think that the issue is that teachers shouldn’t be dishing out any kind of physical discipline other than maybe making them sit in a corner. Other forms of discipline (sending to the principal’s office, extra assignments, detention) should be fine.
Kee-rist, it’s not like she fellated him with a bar of Irish Spring.
For the record, Colophon, I wasn’t pitting the teacher (this is MPSIMS), and thought the sarcasm of the thread title was fairly clear. 
My generation was one of the last to suffer physical abuse at the hand of strangers. When we behaved as evil-mouthed cretins in school, the teachers kicked our asses, and sent us home to our parents, who kicked our asses.
When neighbors caught us screwing off and getting into trouble, they kicked our asses, and took us home, where our parents thanked the neighbors for kicking our asses, and then took us inside for round 2.
In retrospect, I’m thankful for the ass kickings I received, because those folks didn’t want me to get into more trouble down the road. It worked. 
Only time will tell if the practices today are valid, but I for one, have my doubts.
Too bad she couldn’t kick his ass. She should’ve let the girl he was talking shit to kick his ass for 10 minutes, and then break it up. F**kin’ punk.
Well, consider me (and a lot of other people by the looks of it) whooshed.
And yes, I did notice later that this wasn’t the Pit. That’s what comes of browsing two sections simultaneously. Good thing i didn’t delve into the expletive bag…
Instead of taking the “Let’s keep doing what’s not working” approach, she decided to try something else. Good for her!
So the parents should be hanging around the school all day to dish out discipline? Or are you saying that giving the kid a vacation from school is somehow instilling discipline and responsibility? Sorry, but when you turn your kids over to others for care and keeping for such long periods of time, I think you need to be prepared to allow those people a fair amount of lattitude when it comes to determining appropriate disciplinary action.
If it was only “a drop” of soap and she washed it out immediately, then what was the freakin’ point?
I think someone is misremembering here. Or fooling herself. Or lying.
I got the mouth-washed-out-with-soap treatment exactly once when I was a kid. Two things:
- It didn’t kill me.
- I never ever uttered the offending phrase again (at least, not in front of my mother.)
Should teachers have this right? Well, one time in grade school when I ducked some cleanup work I was supposed to be doing, the teacher came outside, grabbed me, and rather forcefully propelled me back inside to finish up, yelling at me the whole way. Again:
- It didn’t kill me.
- I never ever ducked cleanup work at school again.
What can I say? I was kinda thick as a kid. I needed lots of memorable persuasion. And if steps like these hadn’t been taken, I might not have turned out to be the cheerful, well-adjusted person I am today.
This is beyond the lattitude I think any teacher should have. I wouldn’t think highly of a parent doing this to his or her own child either.
I’m the same way… except I never got my ass kicked and I still didn’t get into trouble.
Sounds like a candidate for Teacher of the Year to me. Good for her. I hope she’s vidicated years down the road when the little shit ends up in prison.
And yet another reason why my kid will NEVER set foot in a public school.
Gotta go with the teacher on this one. Spanking, absolutely not, caning, no, slapping, no. I am absolutely against teachers hitting students. But washing out a kid’s mouth with soap doesn’t bother me in the least.
If the kid ends up in prison, won’t that just prove she was wasting her time with soap? Shouldn’t she have skipped right to punching him? :rolleyes:
Coming back to think about it, that’s one of the most obnoxious, snotty things I’ve read around here. You think kids in private schools are automatically better-behaved? You think there are no spoiled brats there? Do you think all kids in public schools are like that?
ok…if i may offer a little insight from the “trenches”…i will simply say that whether educators like to admit it or not, kids can get under our skin…in a good way, and in a bad way.
button-pushing is a favorite hobby of lots of people, and they hone their skills in school…whatever kind of school that may be.
that said, the big magic point in this situation is not whether the teacher was justified and should or should not have “soaped” the kid. it has to do with the parameters of her role in the classroom and the emotion that motivated her actions.
when a student pushes a teacher to the point where the teacher thinks, “i’ll show you, you little rat” (and they do it often), it is at that moment that the teacher should step away. no matter how badly the kid might be benefitted by a “soaping” from somebody, it was not the job of the teacher to make her point by being that somebody.
and, if i can rant a little longer please…teachers who genuinely care about the adults their students grow into will be careful to treat the kids with respect and have standards of behavior for them to live up to. since they are kids (and not dogs or grownups), they will be continually testing teachers to see what is acceptable behavior. how the teacher treats them and expects them to treat others shows them what’s expected.
sorry. i’m done.
You think kids in private schools are automatically better-behaved? You think there are no spoiled brats there? Do you think all kids in public schools are like that?
Not at all. Rotten kids abound in all institutions of learning 
I know, however, that private school teachers are given more options than public school teachers are when dealing with stuff. Namely, private school teachers aren’t asked to just ignore the behavior or “understand” why little Johnny is flipping her the bird, etc.
Some of us grew up having our mouths washed out for saying objectionable words. As I recall, my misstep was in using the word jackass in reference to a mule. ( I wonder if I would have gotten the treatment if it had been used correctly – to describe a donkey.)
It was not a horrifying experience – just embarrassing since I was having a pajama party at the time.
I also got slapped really hard for saying “Good grief.” (This was just before we left for prayer meeting. My mother made me stand in the headlights of the car to make sure there was no handprint on my face.)
You really shouldn’t put soap in a kid’s mouth. It’s not made for that and who knows what chemicals are in it and who is allergic to what. It is a sort of physical “assault.” The teacher should have known better. But it wasn’t a major offense and she should be reinstated by now.
kilyth, slapping people can damage hearing. Slapping and hitting can also foster hostility in a person and make them want to slap and hit too. It perpetuates the problem.
sofia, welcome to SDMB! Good post.
Yeah, the kid probably is lying.
Oh, you meant the teacher was lying! Oh, well, that’s ridiculous. I’ve inadvertently gotten soap in my mouth, and a small amount is all it takes to get a reaction–the stuff does not taste good. So, she put enough soap in the boy’s mouth for him to get a taste (which happens almost immediately) and then washed it out. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
I’d send my kids to this teacher. But then, although I’m young enough that physical punishment was not done at my school, I’m old enough so that everyone in my neighborhood knew me. If I did something wrong (like rip the blooms off a neighbor’s flowers–I don’t know why, I just did) my Mom would know before I got home. And a good number of the neighbors would have also come out to tell me that they saw me and that they had called my Mom! In today’s world, I was once chewed out by a Mom who didn’t think I should have told her precious to stop pushing another kid (and I was mild–I basically said, “hey kiddo, stop pushing and wait your turn.”
While I would have done the same thing, if I were the kid’s MOM, and I sympathize with the teacher, it was a really stupid thing to do-what if, for example, the kid got really sick from the soap? I wouldn’t risk it.
I would be seriously pissed off if a teacher did that to my kid. Also, if his parents were made aware of his actions in school and they did nothing, there’s this little thing called “parent/teacher meetings”.
I don’t think this woman sounds like a bad teacher. I don’t really think she should be fired for her actions. I do think she used very poor judgement in this case. And, like I said, I would be so, so pissed if a teacher did that to my kid.
And it’s PAID suspension, by the way. It’s not like they kicked her out and left her with nothing pending this investigation, so I really don’t see what’s so horrible about her being placed on leave.
Speaking of his parents, this kid is in a foster home. He’s, what, a third grader? I’d like to know why he’s in state custody, and if he’s getting any help for whatever his problems may be. I’m not excusing his behavior, I’m only suggesting that the facts are a bit thin to be calling this kid a jerkoff.
Abbie: I think… well, we’re not in the pit, but let’s just say I can’t believe you would hope this child winds up in prison. Sick.
sofia: I’ve honestly never “picked on” a poster’s style but I hope like hell you’re not an English teacher.
The boy had frequently been sent home for unruly behavior minutes earlier, he tried without success to pick a fight with another boy, Thomas said
Whoever wrote that sentence should have his mouth washed out with soap. Or write 100 times on a blackboard 'I will remember where to put the period and start the next sentence"