A tenured teacher at a San Diego high school has been put on paid leave while the district investigates an allegation that she refused to allow a 14-year-old student to leave class to go to the toilet and instead told the girl to urinate in a bucket.I've written several posts on the topic of students' leaving class to use the bathroom, and glancing at these two, I see that my views on the subject have morphed over the years. Nowadays I let students leave as long as I'm not instructing--I don't take their phones first, but I toy with that idea (see the last link for the reference).
A claim filed by the student's attorney said the Feb. 22 actions of art teacher Gonja Wolf were meant "to humiliate and disgrace" the freshman at Patrick Henry High School.
The student was instructed to go to another room out of view of classmates, urinate in a bucket and then dump the urine in a sink, according to the claim.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
What Could Possibly Motivate A Teacher To Act This Way?
If the allegations in this story are true, I'll just shake my head in wonder:
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3 comments:
My guess -- a class where the same kids ask to go to the bathroom at the same time and in the same order every day? Or maybe kids who hang out in the hallway yakking during passing time and then ask to go to the bathroom the minute they walk through the door. Or perhaps the female student who for the 45th straight day is claiming that she needs to go to the restroom because she is having her period.
We have a real problem with kids going to the bathrooma and engaging in all types of activities. One of my colleagues was publicly castigated by an administrator because she allowed a girl to go across the hall to the bathroom where the girl called her forbidden boyfriend out of another class to meet her. Yet, the one time that I didn't let a kid go, because it was literally two minutes to the bell, the kid wet himself. I am not kidding. I had to call the janitor and walk the kid to the nurse to call home for clothes. Keep in mind, I have a policy that pretty much allows kids to go whenever a test or other monitored activity isn't in action, but we have so many kids who simply do not care what others think or kids who are mainstreamed because of a variety of issues that failing to let a kid go could wind someone up losing their job.
My rule has always been to let kids go, whenever they ask, until it sickens me. At that point, the answer is always no. Why does urinating in a bucket save time? And why did she just happen to have a bucket?
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