Posted on 01/30/2005 7:20:12 AM PST by Millicent_Hornswaggle
Teacher: 'It Wasn't Anything Malicious'
POSTED: 8:29 am EST January 28, 2005
FORT WAYNE, Ind. -- A high school teacher charged with using a rubber stamp to batter a student is also being sued in federal court by the teen and his father.
The misdemeanor charge alleges that South Adams Junior-Senior High School teacher Robert D. Vickery, 46, of Hartford City, stamped a 16-year-old student several times on the hands and head in class last April.
Vickery said the student, Brent Newport, broke a tape dispenser during a class, which Newport denied. A few minutes later, Vickery approached Newport at his desk and stamped him on the hand in front of 10 other students, the charges said.
Newport put his head down on the desk and covered his face with his arms while Vickery stamped him several more times, the charges allege. Newport washed off the ink that was on his face, head and hands at the end of class, a police report said.
If convicted of battery, Vickery could face jail time and up to a $1,000 fine. A trial has been scheduled for March 14. The school has not disciplined Vickery.
During an interview with police, Vickery said he did not intend to hurt Newport.
"I mean it wasn't anything malicious or ... trying to hurt the kid or anything like that. I mean it wasn't excessive ... or at least I didn't feel it was," Vickery told an investigator. "It just got ... out of hand from the standpoint that the playing went to a point where (Newport) got upset about it and that was my fault."
(Excerpt) Read more at thelouisvillechannel.com ...
Note to self: don't stamp the kid who broke my stapler. Use stickers instead.
OMG!! Abu Ghraib all over again.. Oh the humanity.
I'd be so embaressed if my 16 yr old son considered being stamped 'battery'.
What does the stamp say? Dumbass?
Let the punishment fit the crime. Vickery should get forty lashes with a wet noodle.
You guys are killing me. ;')
I particularly loved the ruler across the knuckles for sloppy penmanship.
"Please Sister! May I have another?!"
Sister Clarissa would have given this kid AND his parents something to complain about. Not only would the kid get it, but the parents would as well.
Well, they sent us to the Principals offics first, then called the folks, then made you wait till one or both turned up.. wait wait wait wait.... THEN the spanking in the office, to be followed at home by the full metal throttle. Quite effective. As a military brat, if you screwed up too much, they'd take a stripe from your dad.. and if you don't think that motivated raising an obedient child, you'd be wrong. Losing a stripe because of a stupid kid would've been too humiliting and a reflection on the family as a whole..Soo.. it was a LOT more than shape up or ship out, it was shape up or die. LOL!
In my old Catholic school in the 1970s, in the 6th grade, one teacher banged a kid's head against the blackboard so hard, a triangular piece of the blackboard it fell out. Nobody thought it was any big deal.
Us kid's even christend the missing triangle "Daniel's triangle" after the kid whose head created it.
I could not even begin to count how many wooden yard sticks were broken over my hands and head when I was in school. But it worked, you behaved for a while until you forgot exactly how much those things hurt.
Did they use the blunt edge of the ruler or the edge that had the metal strip for a straight edge? Oh, I forgot, the razor strop was for the old fashioned principals. The truly up to date and sophisticated ones used that cricket paddle thing. I liked that better compared to the razor strop...kinda like throw me in the briar patch please;-)
Amen! Teachers didn't scare me, but the thought of my Dad kept me on the straight and narrow.
For me, it was a 3 foot solid wood pointer!
Easy money for daddy, though.
Through the years, I got the Nun's ruler on the hand, a screwdriver handle bopped on my head, paddled more than I care to remember.
The paddles were mostly home made, most had large holes drilled in the application end.
More than a few had "Board of Education" painted on them.
The teacher was simply trying to "stamp out" carelessness.
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