7-year-old boy’s mouth was taped shut by his teacher for talking during lesson time. The boy suffered from respiratory problems and asthma and was left traumatized by the event to the extent that he refuses to go to school again. According to The Sun, he has already missed two weeks of lessons as well as the Christmas concert at Colwill School in West Auckland, New Zealand, he attends.
The boy’s mom was left horrified after her daughter, who goes at the same school, told her what happened. The boy only confessed what the teacher did after the parents asked him whether the incident really took place or not. The poor boy was afraid to speak to his mom and dad because he thought he would be in trouble.
In fact, the teacher put plastic labels on the mouth of a group of boys. However, after the mother brought up the issue, the school principal, Rob Taylor, wrote her a letter saying the rest of the kids enjoyed having their mouths taped.
Stuff obtained the principal’s letter which said: “Even though you chose not to follow the school’s complaint process, this did not stop me from dealing with this concern as if you had.”
“A careful and thorough investigation was finally able to be completed yesterday with the last of the parents of these children being interviewed. These things do take time, based on the availability of key people needing to be free to meet with us.”
“All children involved and their parents, excluding [student], have now been interviewed appropriately by the school’s Social Worker who informs me that [staff member’s] perspective that this was game [sic] that the children appeared to enjoy and wished to play with her was by all accounts the correct version of this event.”
Neither the boy nor his family was ever offered an apology by the teacher. “I asked my 7-year-old what he thought about all this, and he said: ‘When we do something wrong in class we have to say sorry and that we won’t do it again, why can’t the teacher?’” the mother said.
All the school and the Ministry of Education offered, instead of trying to deal with the issue thoroughly, was counseling for the boy to help him with the trauma he was forced to go through.
The family, of course, wasn’t satisfied with the outcome of the incident and the boy’s mom is trying to take matters in her own hands by standing in front of the school and the building of the Ministry of Education handing flyers to the parents whose kids attend her son’s school.
Further, a representative of the Ministry, Katrina Casey, encouraged the mother to to take up the formal complaints process with the board and to “contact our local office for further advice.”
What do you think of this? How would you react if a teacher taped your kid’s mouth during lesson time?