Brickbat: You Can Leave Your Hat On

Thomas Washburn, who teaches kindergarten at Arizona's Adams Elementary School, has been charged with 25 counts of indecent exposure and child abuse after allegedly removing a female student's shirt in class. The girl was reportedly frightened and hiding her face in her shirt. Washburn ordered her to stop, and when she didn't, he pulled her shirt off, leaving her naked from the waist up.

Comments

[Snark Plissken]

Thursday morning, detectives continued the investigation and ultimately added an additional 24 counts of indecent exposure for each of the students present at the time of the incident.

I'm down with the child abuse charge but 24 counts of indecent exposure?

[Fist of Etiquette]

That's probably a combination of making sure he pleads to something less and placating an irate mother.

[db]

I am still amazed that these things keep happening in schools. You would think by now, that every teachers' lounge in the country would be plastered with photos of perp walks and Cleveland bridges under which sex offender teachers end up living.

[Ted S.]

The State is the biggest bully of them all.

[Ted S.]

Even one charge for a topless kindergarten-aged girl?

[JD the elder]

So theoretically, if you flashed NYC from the top of the Empire State Building, could you be charged with 8 million counts of indecent exposure?

[Fist of Etiquette]

The victim's mother described her daughter as "developmentally delayed" due to being born prematurely.

So naturally she was in a class with normally developed students. Many schools do this and not just for kindergarten. The dude was an idiot but they keep putting these special needs students in with the rest of the kids and wonder why shit doesn't get done and teachers snap.

[Snark Plissken]

Yeah, I believe it's called 'mainstreaming'.

[Austrian Anarchy]

Wasn't this the whole point of Cher's 10th or so movie "Mask"?

[SugarFree]

He wasn't retarded, just horribly afflicted by being Eric Stolz.

[db]

My mom, as a teacher, was terribly.frustrated withthis.practice. The amount of.effort each teacher.spends on the "mainstreamed" students ends.up.singnificantly reducing their ability to.work with normal students.

At least.in her diocese, the Catholic schools have been.taking on many of.these students.because they.get paid.by the public school districts to take these students off their hands.

The amount of additional training the.teachers.need to deal with mainstreamed students also eats into budgets and represents duplication of effort since they are no longer being served by a corps of specialized teachers.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

"the Catholic schools have been.taking on many of.these students"

Ha ha, everyone knows it's the *public* schools which take the troubled kids the *private* schools can't handle.

[Doctor Whom]

All students both can and should learn at exactly the same rate. I know this because defenders of the American educational establishment keep telling me so. (Note: This applies only to academic subjects, not the school football team.)

[db]

Equality of outcome: it's what's for dinner in America.

[Mainer2]

in a class with normally developed students

The progressives must be succeeding, because I fully expect someone to be upset by your insensitive suggestion that there is such a thing as normal.

[Clich? Bandit]

Premature does not equate to developmentally disabled.

[GILMORE]

Also, I hear it happens to lots of guys.

[Diggit]

It is my understanding that in Somalia,
kindergarteners are naked from the waist up all the time.

[GILMORE]

Libertopia!

[Ted S.]

I'm surprised PedoBot hasn't shown up yet.

[Ebriosa]

Well, I bet that really helped with the "scared" part.

[Cdr Lytton]

Will Washburn be suspended for 9 1/2 weeks?

[Plopper]

No sympathy for this guy at all.

Although considering I've had adults be similar levels of mean to me when I was a child I think the charges might be a bit much. For example, had the mother done a similar thing I seriously doubt any charges would have been brought against her.

Still don't feel in any way sorry for him though.

[Rod Flash]

Not sure about this. Wasn't it just yesterday Reason linked the story about the parents who were hassled by the police because their kid was outside with them and might not have been dressed warmly enough? I don't think parents are safe either.

[Mainer2]

That was in Britain, so a preview of what's coming here.

[Plopper]

I see what you are saying, but yeah it was the UK and I see these things as being two very different incidents.

In this case I see the teacher as breaking the NAP, and yes I believe the NAP should be applied to children too. So I see no reason why the teacher shouldn't be open to criminal prosecution.

In the case in the UK where the kid wasn't wearing warm enough clothes to please the state, no one but the cops were in violation of the NAP.

I'd feel sorry for someone who was thrown in prison for possession of child porn when they in no way contributed to any sort of actual abuse. As I can't see how the NAP is violated in such a case. But again, the teacher in this case did indeed violate the NAP without a doubt, so I think he should be open to criminal prosecution. The child abuse charge fits in my opinion, just not the others.

I also dislike the idea that parents "own" their children. I find it just as disgusting that this is the "conservative" attitude towards children as I do the leftist attitude that they are "owned" by the community.

[waffles]

When I was a ski instructor and had to do ski school for young children (4-6) there were times when the kids would come in from the snow and just start taking all of their clothes off. As an adult male, being in proximity to naked children made me extremely uncomfortable for these reasons.

As a children's ski instructor your job is usually to put clothes on the kids though. Undressing is typically left to the kids or their parents.

[SugarFree]

I'm sure everything can be put right by paying union teachers more.

[np]

I dunno. I've been around kids and some kids deserved to be smacked. I'm not saying this girl deserved any mistreatment at all (though from Fist's explanation above, the situation of mixing a special needs student doesn't help), just that I can understand how someone can snap, and aside from the abuse charge, the sex crimes charges just don't fit at all.

[Art Stone]

He broke the first commandment of primary school education - "Males shall not teach children".

[Mainer2]

..mother described her daughter as "developmentally delayed"

It's odd to think that "retarded" was supposed to be better, after imbecile-moron-idiot terms became perjorative.