Is soaking the crayons of an autistic child in hot sauce the best way to teach him to stop eating them? Probably not, but neither should it have cost a teacher her job ... or so says a Judge who recently ruled on the case of a Florida teacher who did just that.
In February, special needs teacher Lillian Gomez was fired from her job at Sunrise Elementary School in Kissimmee after she soaked an autistic boy's Play-Doh and crayons in hot sauce in an attempt to get him to stop eating them. She was also accused of force feeding them to him, but she has denied that.
According to WFTV, the school has spent more than $50,000 in attorney fees fighting to keep her out of the classroom, but she hasn't backed down in her quest to get her job back. Friday, a judge recommended that she be allowed to go back to teaching at the school, and parents are outraged.
If she force-fed the student anything that would be one horrific, inexcusable thing. Assuming she just soaked the crayons so that the boy would get a little spicy reminder to keep them out of his mouth, however, doesn't outrage me so much.
I remember being in first grade when a boy wouldn't stop sucking his thumb. The nun teaching the class would repeatedly take his thumb and dip it into his jar of paste. He just started eating it off, so it wasn't very effective, but it was her attempt to help learn a lesson as gag-worthy as it was for the rest of us to watch. I doubt it scarred him for life, and I don't really see this hot sauce incident as much different than that.
Were they model teaching practices? Certainly not, but as far as I can tell neither were done out of anything but good intentions. If that autistic boy had choked to death on a crayon, I'm sure we'd be outraged that the teacher was letting him eat the crayons.
Did she make a bad choice? Absolutely, but I don't think it's a choice that should cost her the job. Mostly, I think it's yet another wakeup call as to how much work there is needed to improve the way we educate autistic children and help those who teach and provide services to them so that they are better equipped to handle their challenging jobs.
Do you think this teacher should get her job back?
Image via Monica's Dad/Flickr
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Comments 49
Did.....did the author of this article start defending that teacher? For. Effing. Real? -.-
And a sidenote... I hope her significant other decides she masturbates too much and sticks hot-sauce on her vibrator. That'll learn her.
First of all, with this child being Autistic, he would already have a team of specialists working at the school that help him. He could have Pica, a condition that causes people to eat such things as dirt, laundry soap and other things that should not be eaten. The route I would have taken as the teacher would be to alert the parents and special education staff and let them formulate a plan that would help him safely get over this habit. I would not feel it was my place to just make that decision on my own.
I don't think it was appropriate for the teacher to do it, even if it was effective and relatively harmless (as opposed to other forms of discipline). As others have said, he could have had an allergy or he might have reacted badly to the unexpected sensation. She should have spoken with her colleagues first and the child's other specialists to find another way to get him to stop eating the crayons. I don't think it's abuse--there are so many worse things you can do to a child--but it doesn't have any place in a classroom when there are so many better alternatives. I know hot sauce is a common discipline technique in the home; my own father used to dip my thumb in hot sauce and wrap it in gauze to stop me from sucking it. Of course, that backfired on him...I sucked my thumb until elementary school and now I like hot sacue. But it shouldn't have been done at school, and especially without letting anyone else know. That tells me the teacher knew what she was doing was wrong and did not seek more appropriate aversion techniques.