You've heard the saying "kids are cruel?" In a disgusting case out of Iowa, the kids picking on a 9-year-old boy were being egged on by an educator who sounds rather cruel herself. The music teacher told students to spit on little Jaxon Kindopp.
His mom is furious, and who can blame her? Being spit on is degrading, plain and simple.
My daughter went through a -- mercifully short -- spitting phase, and while it bothered me because it was pretty disgusting, I was probably more upset because of what it stands for. It's a pretty universal sign of contempt, isn't it? We nipped that phase right in the bud because we couldn't have our child thinking it was OK to treat other people that way.
In the case of little Jaxon, he told his mom that he blew a raspberry at another friend. That's when the teacher asked him how he'd like it if he were spit on, and called the other kids around to let loose with the saliva (Jaxon's mom found out, by the way, when another school staffer called her to report on this teacher's unbelievable "discipline" techniques).
Now, I don't know about you, but if she was so concerned about a little spittle coming off a raspberry -- which, by the way, is very different from actually spitting on someone -- why did she compound it? Did she not think about how unhygienic this whole thing was? Not to mention how cruel it is to have other kids gang up on one child?
Jaxon's mom has taken the fight to the school, and they've put the teacher on administrative leave. If I were her, I'd be pushing to have the teacher fired. Anyone who would dare degrade a child on purpose shouldn't be working with kids.
What would you do if someone spit on your child?
Image via istolethetv/Flickr
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Comments 32
This shows exactly why children and teenagers are doing the things they do these days, especially when it comes to bullying. Everytime I turn around, I read another horrific end to a bullying tale, and then right behind it is a story of a teacher (unrelated to the bullying tale) doing the same thing to student's even younger than the ones in bullying tale. We need to create a better system here, or our children are doomed.
WOW! I remember when I was in the 4th grade and the class never like this one girl because she always acted like she was better than everyone else. The teacher sat us in a circle and one-by-one give reasons why we don't like her.
Stories like this seriously make me consider home-schooling.
When my son was in public school (K-2), I would get called in these horrified tones that he was "spitting" on other children when in reality he was blowing a raspberry. As I reminded them, there's a big difference between "spitting in someone's face" and blowing a raspberry. Schools are nerts and need to rethink their "no tolerance" policies because while raspberries are unhygenic and kind of annoying, labelling them as aggressive behavior is nonsense. And this teacher should be fired but won't because the union is a juggernaut.
Also, I had a teacher like this in 4th grade, who decided that it was OK to make up funny nicknames for me and opened the door for the bullies.
We like to think the people entrusted with educating our children are actually qualified.
Spitting is disgusting under any circumstances. Spitting on other people is anti-social.