Teacher charged with child abuse after "dragging" boy who sat for pledge

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Exactly. In basic public education, the goal is to produce compliant worker bees of the future. Religious indoctrination is usually running quietly in the background. It is only the occasional very special teacher that encourages critical thinking, while the rest of them value rote learning of programmed answers and are mini-authoritarians.

If you’re going to nitpick legal technicalities:

In this case assault would appear to be exactly correct:

Colorado Criminal Code:

Para 18-03-204:

(1) A person commits the crime of assault in the third degree if:
(a) The person knowingly or recklessly causes bodily injury to another person or with criminal negligence the person causes bodily injury to another person by means of a deadly weapon

Bodily injury is defined in para 18-1-901 (3) as:

physical pain, illness, or any impairment of physical or mental condition.

I’d link to the online source but it’s published by Lexis Nexis who (in keeping with their role as gatekeepers for the 9th Circle) give their webpages url’s that run to several paragraphs and I’m not going to shorten them for obvious reasons.

A brief google will bring them up easily enough.

Seems fairly obvious that there’s at least a significant degree of likelihood that the child in question will have suffered some degree of physical pain and that the teacher either knew that would be the case or was reckless as to whether it would.

You can say that you think that teachers should have the right to cause children physical pain but the great state of Colorado doesn’t seem to have made an exemption for them so…

Admittedly, it’s all a bit confused by the fact that lots of places on the web tell you that corporal punishment is legal in schools in Colorado but all I can find is that it is not specifically prohibited unless the child is disabled.

That of course does not mean that it is not in law an assault.

A child of course cannot.

Even assuming this child could, there is no version of this story that has the child physically resisting the teacher and preventing themselves from being dragged out that ends well for the child.

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If assaulting children for choosing to express themselves in a non-abusive, legally protected manner is part of your social bonds then count me out. It’s no wonder why there is a fascism problem now with attitudes like yours which enable them.

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I’ve been punched in the face by a black guy for being white at the wrong place at the wrong time. Doesn’t mean I am going to do mental gymnastics to equate other people, even those who have done wrong, as being the same.

Like I said, not condoning this lady in the least, but piling on the hate and emotions is exactly how people like that get their warped view of patriotism and what it should look like.

Interestingly, it was Christians who brought the successful Supreme Court case in 1943 to make it clear that children could not be required to recite the Pledge. Jehovah’s Witnesses, specifically. The grounds was religious freedom.

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From a legal sense it depends on the state, I think. In Minnesota where I teach grabbing a kid and dragging them would be considered a fireable offense and probably result in assault charges unless they were in the middle of a fight or otherwise a danger to themselves or others. Even then, there are specific ways you are supposed to do it, and you should have been trained. Though, a school staff member grabbed my child by the shirt dragged them to a different room, and threw them into a chair and was not fired and they pressed assault charges against my kid, so, I think it largely depends on who the police like more. I think bodily autonomy is a crucial foundation of our civil behavior, even for kids. I think if you are grabbing and dragging children you should not be entrusted with their care.

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What in her behavior constitutes basic civil behavior in your eyes?

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Hopefully not in a romantic setting – I would imagine some kind of “Centaur play”… Uhh… Okay just forget I even said that.

When I was younger, I used to think that having all school children stand and pledge their allegiance to their national flag was fascism. And even minor signs of the world’s military hegemon moving in that direction are internationally newsworthy to some degree. Even if it’s still all about the clicks.

What people can get away with doing to kids, and how well-meaning mechanisms meant to protect children can fail, is always shocking. But the US is quite extreme in what parents are officially allowed to do to their kids, and that is even more shocking.

Dealing with it should not involve that cops. Your point of view has made society miserable.

While I understand your intended analogy:

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I went to a French Lycee in New York in the 60s/70s. At our annual prize-giving ceremony, they played both anthems, US and French. There was one kid, against the Viet Nam war (we were all close to draft age) who didn’t stand for the US anthem. The president of the school got down off the stage and slapped the kid. It made the NY Times. There were no repercussions.

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Can I like this twice?

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Posted it over at the needs more likes thread!

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There’s a reason why Dolores Umbridge is considered by many as the scariest character of the series: she’s disturbingly credible.

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Are you saying that the matter of her criminal behavior should have been dealt with by an angry mob, or that it shouldn’t have been dealt with at all? I honestly can’t tell.

You have within your power to act civilly in the face of incivility.

It wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of people have experienced an Umbridge (of any gender) at their school. They give the more numerous good teachers a bad name.

Mine was my head of year at secondary school, who didn’t believe I was depressed because he had seen me smile once.

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