In a case that calls up Dickens’ novels exposing the conditions for children in Victorian England, an arbitrator recently returned a teacher to the classroom whose practices seem taken right off the pages of Oliver Twist.
The school dismissed the teacher.
However, an arbitrator returned the teacher to the classroom despite the fact that the teacher was found to have:
- Called students loser, sissy, liar, knucklehead, idiot, crybaby, and chubby butt
- Put students in the corner for extensive periods of time, sometimes up to three days
- Twisted students’ arms behind their backs, pushing their heads, hurting them sometimes to the point of tears
- Triggered students to incite a reaction for the teacher’s own benefit
- Put a humiliating sign around a student’s neck
- Used a student’s phobias to upset him: specifically, planting ketchup packets for a child to find, knowingly producing a phobic reaction.
On appeal, the Court of Common Pleas upheld the arbitrator’s reinstatement of the teacher, finding that, while the teacher’s practices had been proved by the school, they were not against public policy.
Thus, the Court of Common Pleas of Northampton County, Colonial Intermediate Unit #20 v. Colonial Intermediate Until #20, Education Association, PSEA/NEA, CV-2014-205 (May 1, 2014), upheld the teacher’s reinstatement by an arbitrator. The decision is being appealed.
Dickens could not have done better, nor could Charlotte Bronte, both of whom wrote about the abuses against children in schools. In Jane Eyre, the head of the Lowood School, Mr. Brocklehurst, proudly proclaims, “My mission is to mortify these girls; to teach them to clothe themselves with shamefacedness and sobriety. “ In a situation resonant of the teacher who put students in a corner for extended periods of time, Mr. Brocklehurst orders Jane Eyre to stand on a stool, saying, “This is the pedestal of infamy, and you will remain on it all day long. You will have neither food nor drink for you must learn how barren is the life of a sinner. Children, I exhort you to shun her, exclude her, shut her out from this day forth, withhold the hand of friendship and deny your love to Jane Eyre, the liar.”
In David Copperfield, David’s headmaster, Mr. Creakle, like the teacher returned to the classroom in our day and age, orders that David Copperfield wear a sign around his neck, David’s to read, “Take care of him. He bites”.
Like the today’s teacher, Oliver Twist’s master, Mr. Bumble, drives him to tears, whereupon Oliver Twist is advised by Mr. Bumble, to “cry your hardest now, it opens the lungs, washes the countenance and softens the temper. So cry away.”
And, of course, famously, Ebeneezer Scrooge counters a request for alms for suffering children with, “Are there no prisons? Are there no union workhouses?”
Dickens and Bronte both have their child characters cry out against the abuses inflicted on them.
Dickens has David Copperfield say that “in a school carried on by sheer cruelty, whether it is presided over by a dunce or not, there is not likely to be much learnt.” Students in such a school are “ too much troubled and knocked about to learn; they could no more do that to advantage than anyone can do anything to advantage in a life of constant misfortune, torment and worry.”
In Oliver Twist, a kindly soul says, “It is because I think so much of warm and sensitive hearts that I would spare them from being wounded.”
Jane Eyre explains that, she had expected that “school would be a complete change; it implied a long journey,” “an entrance into a new life.” When she becomes a teacher herself, Jane says, “This morning the village school opened. I had twenty scholars. But three of the number can read; none write or cipher.” “Some of them are unmannered, rough, intractable, as well as ignorant.” “I must not forget that these coarsely clad little peasants are of flesh and blood as good as the scions of gentlest genealogy; and that the germs of native excellence, refinement, intelligence, kind feeling, are as likely to exist in their hearts as in those of the best-born. My duty will be to develop these germs….”
Not so the teacher just returned to the classroom: his practices are not against public policy. By law.
To quote Dickens again, if that is the law, then “the law is a ass, a idiot!”
Today’s remedy? Please, Sirs, we want some more….legislation, that is, to prohibit arbitration of teacher dismissals. Or, God help us, every one!
Signed: Tiny Tim, Oliver Twist, Jane Eyre, David Copperfield
CAVEAT EMPTOR. The Freundian Slip is a publication of the KingSpry Education Law Practice Group. It is intended to inform the reader about interesting, important or entertaining developments in our practice area. It is not intended as legal advice and reading The Slip does not make you our client, although we would be happy to have you as our client if the need arises. (c) COPYRIGHT John E. Freund, III, Esquire. 2014.
