Teaching Doesn’t Hurt
May 10, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Education, Gender, Legal Issues, Safety
Linda Powell, a primary school teacher at St John’s CE in Kearsley (UK), has been suspended amid claims that she allegedly struck a 7-year-old girl. As reported in the Bolton News, the school has faced controversy before about its treatment of special needs students: In 2006, parents claimed that boys with special needs were being dressed up as girls, and that children were being physically abused and, as punishment for misbheaving, were “forced to suck a dummy.” Mel Livesay, who belongs to a parents’ action group, says that her 10-year-old autistic son was dressed up as a girl:
“He has autism and it really affected him. It still does now. For a long time I did not know why he did not want to go to school and why he would cling to the railing not wanting to go in.”
There’s education and then there’s punishment, and those are two completely separate things when it comes to my son’s—to any child’s—learning.
Jeff Stimpson
Jill Cornfield