Roanoke shop teacher in court for contact with student

Victor Terry had to have stringent rules in his shop class to prevent injuries.  He allegedly asked students to enter without making noise.  When one did not comply he put his arm out to keep him from entering.  Ms. Daniel, the student's mother did not approve.  Maybe she would have preferred a few less fingers on one his hands.

 http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/304892

Caldwell's statement said the facts suggested Terry "physically put his hand on the student's chest/arm area to stop his entry into the classroom" after the student was making a disruptive noise. He noted that the student later acknowledged "he had been making a noise" but then complied with Terry's directive and was allowed to enter.
Caldwell wrote, "I would note that there is some disagreement between the parties as to the exact nature of the touching but there is no allegation that this was in the nature of a strike or blow nor is there any representation of an attempt to injure or actual injury."
He said other video footage of the classroom and the student immediately following the incident "suggests that this was a nonevent in its entirety."

http://www2.wsls.com/news/2012/feb/07/botetourt-county-school-teacher-convicted-assault--ar-1671854/#fbcomments

Acquitted Chico teacher sues for back pay

http://www.chicoer.com/news/ci_19917822

Michael Sullivan allegedly ran his finger from a student's earlobe to her shoulder, and more.  Now he is suing the school district for back pay after being acquitted of these charges.

According to some of the people who posted comments on an article regarding this trial, it was because he attempted to grab a cell phone from a student during class.

http://www.topix.com/forum/city/gerber-ca/T2L4UHVQ7FC961KCJ

Enough hearsay: Bring cameras into the classroom

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/LAUSD-Miramonte-Elementary-School-Mark-Berndt-139058999.html

Teacher pleads "not guilty" to biting student

This case seems pretty bizarre. Imagine the scenario where a teacher and student are arm wrestling.  The students jump in to pull back the arm of the teacher and then one of them claims the teacher bit into her arm. A person's face is often close to their arm wrestling hand while doing this. It is not hard to imagine 4 or 5 other hands and arms in the mix and then one arm is strafed across the teacher's open mouth.  The students were over the line, jumping in, but that is beside the point. A man's entire career is on the line because there might have been some tooth marks in an arm for a few hours.  This is my "biased" guess as to what happened.

I find no sense of proportion in the justice of this event. As a teacher, one feels plenty of pressure from the students to liven things up.  Good teachers break up some of the monotony with events like this sort of thing, rather than barreling through academics, ad nauseam. Then something like this happens and the Monday morning quarterbacks come out and explain the pitfalls of this behavior.

http://hudsonvalley.ynn.com/content/top_stories/570451/voorheesville-teacher-accused-of-biting-student-appears-in-court/

latest on Ricardo Aldana

http://glewkimlaw.com/blog/2012/01/30/update-on-jserra-teacher-ricardo-aldanas-case/

Hopefully this is not a case of popularity trumping justice.  We shall see what happens when this goes to trial.

Miramonte elementary teacher pleads "not guilty." Student recants accusation.

We'll have to wait to see what shakes out of this.  There are still ongoing charges.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/02/girl-who-accused-miramonte-teacher-of-abuse-recants-her-story.html

Martin Springer stands to lose everything.

slave games

First an unthinking math teacher wrote a math homework sheet that involved problems with how many times a slave was beaten per day.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/01/teacher-who-assigned-math-homework-with-slavery-questions-resigns/
 He resigned.  Was it insensitive? Yes.  Should it end his career?  That's debatable.  But in all likelihood, it did.

Now there are reports that teacher's participated in a playground game involving escaped slaves (played by black kids).  The jury is out but, according to the school's investigation, this was something perpetrated by the students themselves.

slave games