NJ Substitute Teacher Allegedly Taped Students’ Mouths Shut – Is Corporal Punishment in School OK? [POLL/VIDEO]

Chewing gum was never ok in class – at least when I was in school back in the year of the “flood!”

So when a nun caught a girl in my class – a mild mannered girl no less- the nun placed had her spit the gum out and put it in her hair.

There was also a time when my mother, having gone to a Catholic School where she was brought up in Coney Island remembered an incident when a nun, frustrated by the constant babbling of one of the boys in her class, threw at textbook at the kid’s head – only to have it wind up on the head of the kid sitting in front of him.

Bad shot you say?

No, actually incidents that were commonplace in parochial schools at the time.

Many of us still bear the marks, badges of courage more or less, of those times.

However, we live in a more enlightened time – or so one would think.

And while kids can be unruly, to say the least, should a teacher ever get frustrated to the point of duct-taping a student’s mouth shut if the child won’t stop talking in class.

Would it not be better to send the kid to the principal’s office?
I’d think so.

But allegedly that wasn’t the case in one school in Elizabeth?

According to pix11.com:

An elementary school substitute teacher has been suspended after a 9-year-old girl accused the educator of taping her mouth and the mouths of her friends shut while the class played a “quiet game.”

The student told PIX11 News Friday morning that she and her friends were talking when they were supposed to silent. That’s when a substitute teacher allegedly covered her mouth, up to her nose, in tape, making it difficult for the third grader to breathe.

Four other students’ mouths were taped, the school said citing an investigation in the allegations.

(The student said) the teacher used tape to cover the students’ mouths, adding that “it hurt.” The little girl said the teacher used “duct tape and some kind of clear tape,” but the school refutes that, saying the incident involved minimally adhesive hobby tape.

The alleged incident happened May 28 at Winfield Scott School No. 2 on Madison Avenue in Elizabeth, N.J.
A parent reported it to the students’ usual teacher over the weekend. When the teacher, who was absent the day of the incident, returned to class Monday, she told school administrators.

The unidentified substitute teacher, who does not have a history of reported problems with students or parents, is no longer working at Winfield Scott, the school said.

The school is investigating the case. Police in Elizabeth and the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency are also looking into the allegations.

Whether or not this was a punishment or merely a game - does this seem right to you? Taping a kid's mouth shut - for whatever reason - is out of bounds.

Given that kids can be unruly, would you approve of a teacher administrating corporal punishment to your child?

If it were me, I’d take matters into my own hands. If my kid acts up, send him or her down to the principal’s office.

Done and done!