This question stems from a story that I read in the Washington Post. It seems that in Maryland, a teacher’s aide taped several student’s mouths shut while they were in the cafeteria during lunch time. A sixth-grade-student said the teacher’s aide did this because the students disobeyed an order to stop talking. This happened at the Flintstone Elementary School in Oxon Hill, Maryland and one of the students whose mouth was taped shut is only six-years-old. Six-years-old! Now, as disturbing as this is, do you think this is an isolated event? Let me answer you – No!

Just to see how many times this has happened, I googled the phrase, “teacher tapes kids mouth shut” and received tons of stories about this happening. It happened in 2007 in Queens, New York at Flushing Fields Play School. The student was only four-years-old. It happened in 2008 in Lafayette, Indiana at Battle Ground Middle School. The student was a special-needs student. It happened in 2006 in Bakersfield, California at Bakersfield High School. It happened in February of this year in Nashville, Tennessee at the Park Avenue Elementary School. This teacher even went so far as to tape the student to their chair while they took a test!

I could go on and one about this particular incident happening at schools across the country. Because it’s happening at so many schools, in different regions of the country, it makes me seriously think that this is a common occurrence in our school system. It’s not until it becomes newsworthy that the school administrators take action! Why in the world are school administrators allowing this to happen? This is so wrong for so many reasons. One being it’s dangerous because it’s extremely difficult to breathe when your mouth is taped shut! As a parent, I cannot think of any excuse of why this would be acceptable. What about you?

Should we allow teachers to discipline our children? If so, how much leeway should we give them?