Hung Out to Dry

Scott Hardie | April 6, 2007
Can someone please explain to me why this teacher's choice of punishment is being treated so harshly? Or is it just another case of a teacher being villified for stepping out of the extremely narrow range of behavior allowed to her in the classroom?

Fyi, nothing in the article indicates why this is so inappropriate, but that may change between now and when you read it as more details are added. Please disregard in that event.

Jerry Mathis | April 6, 2007
I like it! Of course I went to school back in the days of the paddle, so a little clothespin seems like no big deal to me.

Kris Weberg | April 6, 2007
Leaving aside whether or not sticking wooden clothespins on kids' lips is painful in addition to being the usual humilition-based punishment, the basic questions of hygiene, potential harm, and sheer weirdness -- the teacher is sticking her hands practically into a kid's mouth if the clothespin is actually on or over the lip -- would tend to make the average school administrator a bit worried as to lawsuits.

Besides, all it takes is for one kid to somehow get bruises or somesuch from this, and it turns into a physical abuse scandal. That's why the teacher is getting in so much hot water over this. Remember also that the reasons the strictures are so narrow is in part because of the Some Idiot Somewhere Problem. You let this teacher do this, and Some Idiot Somewhere will take that as a cue to go even farther, or to do the same thing with a genuinely dangerous or incompetent twist.

Scott Hardie | April 7, 2007
Thanks for the explanation. So it's nothing inherent to the use of clothespins that's wrong, except the oral-insertion part, as opposed to other physical forms of punishment? I thought I had missed something that was especially wrong about clothespins that must have been obvious from the way the article didn't even explain it.

Kris Weberg | April 7, 2007
That'd be my guess, yes.