I've been trying to figure out why the John Freshwater situation has me so bothered.
It's not as though child abuse is uncommon - unfortunately. The fact that this man is forcing his beliefs on everyone else's kids . . . that's commonplace as well. And although I don't like it when my kid is hurt accidentally at school, I don't fly off the handle and start threatening litigation.
Some of Freshwater's defenders claim that the burnings are being publicized as a smokescreen for what they say is the real issue - Freshwater's refusal to remove his personal Bible from his desk. This refusal just doesn't bother me, except that his defenders are using it to turn the situation into a discussion about religious persecution instead of what constitutes proper behavior for a science teacher. A student reading his/her Bible during non-instructional school time - lunch, passing time, recess - is constitutionally kosher, even though emails continue to circulate false rumors that the ACLU has banned the Bible from public schools.
So why is this situation giving me nightmares?
What keeps coming back to me are memories of the methods course all aspiring science teachers had to take. Much of the class was focused on using lab apparatus & supplies safely. How to get kids to wear goggles over their eyes instead of on their foreheads. How to store and handle acids. The importance of limiting class size. How to repair electrical equipment. How not to do the "Bed of Nails" demonstration. Why we don't have kids handle mercury anymore. Why we don't show Jearl Walker's hand-dipped-in-molten-lead demonstration. How to walk across hot coals safely, and why you bother to do so. The emphasis was always on keeping the students safe.
This focus on student safety goes beyond the science classrooms. I've observed day-to-day school operations for 20+ years of teaching across the Midwest, and the first priority is always, always, always student safety. Fire and tornado drills, drug dog protocols, practice for Columbine-type incidents, cleaning up hallway spills immediately . . . the list goes on and on. We devote much time and effort to keeping these kids safe, and it's always fine by me that we use a bit of class time to help make sure kids remain safe.
And what did this teacher do? He burned kids. On purpose.
He violated the basic trust inherent in in loco parentis - in the absence of the parents, the school district is responsible for the safety of those kids.
It didn't matter that the owner's manual for the device stated in no uncertain terms that contact with the body was to be avoided. Because he thought he knew more than the device's manufacturer, kids were hurt.
And because he thought he knew more than the established science community, his boasting tongue lied to students about science.
The 50,000-V sparks he applied to those kids have started a fire of his own making. He abused the trust parents placed in him, and his career should rightfully go down in a great forest of flames.
posted by Cheryl Shepherd-Adams
