Aw, c'mon - what teacher hasn't wanted to do this to a chatterbox in class?
Ben Deacy was silenced by teacher Annie Sturrock because he made too much noise, said the headteacher at the boy's school. Miss Sturrock - described by her boss as "inexperienced" - then wrote in Ben's school report: "Excellent work - once I taped up his mouth!"
Ben's mother, Kay Morgan, 45 and from Cardiff, said her son had felt humiliated by the reprimand. She said: "He wants to go back to school because he does like it, but he doesn't want to see that teacher.
"If a parent had done that they would have had the social services on to them."
Don Barnfield, Ben's headteacher at Llanrumney High School, claimed the Miss Sturrock's actions had been merely "symbolic".
He told the South Wales Echo: "What seems to have happened is an inexperienced member of teaching staff has made a grave error. "The pupil was talking a lot during the lesson and a piece of masking tape, a very small piece, was put on his lips."
Don Barnfield needs to learn what "symbolic" means. When a teacher holds her fingers to her lips to indicate that a student should be quiet, that's symbolic. When a teacher wants to tape a kid's mouth shut and then actually tapes the kid's mouth shut, it's no longer symbolic, although I doubt it's an act that would bring the weight of Social Services down on a parent.
Posted by kswygert at February 11, 2004 03:40 PM