A first-grade teacher has been charged with disorderly conduct after she cut off the braids of 7-year-old Lamya Cammon after the girl continued to play with them in class. However, she might not face criminal charges.
The teacher had told Lamya not to play with her beaded braids and, when she continued to do so, she allegedly called her to the front of the class and cut them off with scissors.
As the other children laughed at her, the teacher allegedly said “Now what you gonna go home and say to your momma?”
The response was a bit surprising: a $175 fine. I would have thought battery might be a more likely charge. One article below says that there will be no criminal charge and only the fine.
For the full story, click here.
“kind of adaptation”
You can think I’m out of line all you want, Ms. Double Standard. Huff and puff is your standard retreat when you cannot defeat a logic.
Oh, I forgot. You’ll be ignoring that just like you’re ignoring “equal rights” means equal – this includes the “right” to be subject to the capriciousness of human behavior which has cruelty and violence as a subset behavior both sexes are perfectly capable of. Borgia’s anyone? Women cannot enjoy equality and be a protected class at the same time. That’s one of the big issues facing the feminism movement – some of you ladies want it both ways. That’s as stupid as racism. Women should be able to stand up for themselves against aggression just like any man. The inequity of this situation is not sexual in nature as both are females. The inequity of this situation is the abuse of power by one in a position of authority. Female on female aggression in the specific. Why that kind of pokes a hole in that whole “men demons/women saints” logic, doesn’t it?
But that illogic doesn’t matter, does it? Why I haven’t seen that kind of since reading Douglas Adams. What you don’t see doesn’t exist, does it?
Even if it’s your own bias.
Buddha,
The above post is way out of line. Yes, I will be ignoring your posts from now on.
Well Jill
How about “lighten the f*ck up” then?
If you don’t like it? Don’t read it. You too can selectively read.
Get better logic if you don’t like having holes poked in it and you telling me not to assume motive after what you just did for me?
That’s just hypocritically funny. You are perfectly willing to assume a motive of sexism on my part but it’s somehow inappropriate for me to assume your motive?
ROFLMAO
I hope that was clear enough for you, Jill. I have a low threshold for hypocritical nonsense.
Buddha.
Here is what you wrote, the intent is clear:
“I’m going to tell her daddy told me I could kick the shit out of anyone laying hands on me without my express permission if I thought their intention was violence against my person and that if I couldn’t? I should call him. So I’ll just go call him when you’re done…” A mother as well as a father can teach her child the art of self defense. However, I’m letting your words speak for themselves.
I would appreciate your leaving out what you believe to be my motives in exchanges with me. I am happy to argue ideas but that’s where it begins and ends for me. I will not engage with you in any posting that contains personal attacks or things like, “lighten up”. You are allowed your feelings and I am allowed mine.
Striking someone in self-defense is perfectly appropriate no matter your sex. This is why I think all children, but especially little girls, should receive martial arts training. If they did? These kinds is situation would 1) occur less frequently and 2) they would be less likely to be solved with violence from either party if both parties understand the rule is “Don’t touch without permission or there will be immediate consequences.”
Stronger and weaker have nothing to do with that. A smaller opponent can defeat a larger opponent – that’s the point of martial arts training: self-defense against larger or better armed opponents.
That you somehow find that testosterone inappropriate is beside the point. That’s how it works. Self defense has nothing to do with sex. And you also missed he pertinent part of the joke above too. LAWYER. Now, given if that were a real exchange between a child and a teacher, the outcome has actually been steered AWAY from violent resolution by the child’s warning. Unless the teacher likes being sued. Did you miss the quotes? Or are you really just mad because we’ve been at odds on a couple of issues lately (sometimes by my deliberate provocation to move a conversation along, but if you want to hold Devil’s Advocate against me, well, you’ll have to deal with that)?
If you should have learned anything by now Jill it’s that I think women are by far the stronger sex, so if you want to through out the sexism stick, I’ll be glad to take from you. If you just don’t like it that a man disagrees with you, you better make damn well sure he’s actually a sexist before throwing that one out. You have seen what I do to arguments like that, right? I’m equal opportunity.
So, unless you just wish to gender disparage some more, you need to lighten up. 1) It was a joke. 2) In reality it would have worked out most likely to be the exact opposite of your contention – the hard words would have precluded or discouraged the hard violence. 3) The best way to avoid trouble is not to be there when it starts. Words don’t bruise.
So which is worse, hard word or hard fists? The one and only correct answer is “hard words if they avoid hard fists and fists only as a last resort”. Not all escalation ends in violence. It’s a two-edged tool. It can end or prevent violence as well when properly applied.
Byron,
My husband is a combat vet. The military is very clear about what they are doing in boot camp. The drill “instructor” will say it: “We’re going to break you down and build you up”. It takes a lot of work to get most people ready to kill others. They have to tear down your sense of self and replace it with the one they want to create. Fortunately, that doesn’t work all the time. It’s working more as they become more sophisticated with their techniques, but as a testament to the human spirit, even so, many resist.
puzzling,
I’m very glad you wrote in on this topic. Your points are right on. Clearly this teacher needs to be fired and charged. This was an act of violence against a child.
I’d also like to address the sexism and retaliatory violence proffered by other posters. First of all, women can the shit out of other women, so there is no need to go to the daddy for hurting the teacher if you believe the answer is violence. I must disagree that violence is the answer. Cutting off the teacher’s hair or harming her in some other way will send precisely the wrong message to this little girl–that it is O.K. for a stronger person to hurt a weaker person.
Both parents confronting this woman in a mediation setting and having the woman apologize and take full responsibility to the child for her violence, that would help this girl. Having the woman face charges, that will help this girl and stop her from abusing any other child. The rest is testosterone based vigilante action.
Byron–
I would never have sent a child to time-out or to the principal’s office for playing with her hair. Young kids fiddle with things all the time. I doubt most principals would want children being sent to their offices for such minor things. If the child was being disruptive in class, that would be a another matter. Good teachers know how to handle situations such as this one without losing control–or having to get help from an administrator. That teacher was most definitely WAY out of line!
P.S. You can believe me when I say that there were days when I was teaching that I wanted to pull my own hair out!
Elaine:
the student for not listening to the teacher. The teacher should have put her in time-out and then if that did not work she should have been sent to the principal’s office.
But that teacher was out of line to cut that little girls hair and should be fired in my opinion or maybe required to take some additional courses in elementary education.
Puzzling:
I agree with you on all but one point, Military Boot Camp.
At this point it is voluntary and they do not necessarily “break” your spirit. The United States military is as good as it is because there is plenty of free thinking. There needs to be some degree of uniformity in a command and control situation/organization.
The fact that the military does not vote in lock step is some proof that they are not broken individuals paying allegiance to one “god”.
This story reminded me of the Magdelene Laundries, where nuns publicly cut the hair of their female students as one form of punishment. It’s clearly abusive; I’m not sure how people can try to explain this away because the teacher was a “good” teacher.
Any mind who could construct and act out such a punishment is far too dangerous to remain in charge of children. The teacher should be dismissed for cause. Criminal charges are merited.
“To gain the submission of the women, the nuns are shown using a variety of common forms of abuse designed to break down people’s self esteem and individuality, and to stop them from resisting the will of their captors. These techniques include: 1) cutting off the hair of women who resist, 2) verbally humiliating and ridiculing the women’s bodies, 3) forbidding the women to speak to each other while working, or to go to the bathroom at will, 4) forbidding the women to leave the convent or to ever see their families, 5) beating the women when they assert themselves, 6), retaining arbitrary control over how long the women need to work until they have earned their freedom, 7) dispensing punishment on an essentially random basis to provoke maximum fear in the women. We should be clear that these techniques are not restricted to convents by any means, but rather can be seen on display in many different settings, religious, institutional and otherwise, panned and elevated both where people need to gain control over the behavior of other people. Some of these techniques are even used for socially sanctioned purposes (e.g., instructors at military boot camps use head shaving and verbal humiliation, etc. to produce soldiers who will obey commands).”
http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=3129&cn=2
FTR:
They are called Platts or commonly referred to as Corn Rows. SB:
They are called Plaits or commonly referred to as Cornrows.
Worn only by women in Africa and by both genders in the US.
Byron–
Do you mean a time-out/a trip to the principal’s office for the student–or for the teacher?
wow, I agree with Elaine.
Not wow in the sense of I find myself agreeing with Elaine, but wow in the sense that someone would take such liberties with another person no matter how old.
I think a time-out or a trip to the principals office would have been a better course of action.
“Now what you gonna go home and say to your momma?”
“Momma? I wouldn’t worry about momma. I’m going to tell her daddy told me I could kick the shit out of anyone laying hands on me without my express permission if I thought their intention was violence against my person and that if I couldn’t? I should call him. So I’ll just go call him when you’re done assaulting me. So the pertinent question is what are you gonna say to my daddy? He’s grouchy. Did I mention he used to be a lawyer?”
I had a coach pull my hair once trying to be a macho douche bag. After I told him he had 10 seconds to release me and then whacked him in the head with a pylon, my parents got his ass fired almost immediately. That’s the minimum this “teacher” deserves.
Those are not braids, well they are if your white.
They are called Platts or commonly referred to as Corn Rows.
If I were the childs father the teacher would never have to worry about teaching ever again. Fertilizer come to mind, compost ya never know, lots of abandoned warehouses in Milwaukee…..
That’s a fine example for teaching students how to deal with frustration! What was that teacher thinking? It appears she doesn’t have the kind of temperament that one needs if one is going to be working with young children.
If I was daddy there would be criminal charges of battery, after this teachers hair was looking like a 7 year old cut it.