May 26, 2005
Spare the Rod
I was really disturbed by the news story about elementary school teacher, Christa Price, whose contract was not renewed by her principal/superintendent Dr. Dan Doerhoff. Ms. Price disagreed with Dr. Doerhoff's "punishment" of a fourth grader, which she asked Dr. Doerhoff to reconsider. He refused.
The child was required to gather rocks alone in the playground as penance for refusing to do her schoolwork. The playground, although covered by a security camera and fenced, is open to the road. Ms. Price went outside and helped this child gather rocks, because she considered the situation inherently unsafe. I'll bet she saw the punishment as unnecessarily soul crushing, as well.
Although this happened in September, Dr. Doerhoff did not renew Ms. Price's contract this spring, and refused to sign her recertification, in spite of seven years of service, all with excellent evaluations. He said that Ms. Price had been "insubordinate". Seven other teachers in the same school have resigned in protest.
A closed school board meeting (aren't these things always closed) was held to review legal and personnel issues. Mr. Doerhoff was most forthcoming after the meeting, as you can see.
This is not the first display of Dr. Doerhoff's leadership style. Another child is being disciplined for googling whitehouse.org (which is often mistaken for whitehouse.gov), and bringing pornography into the classroom. I think Dr. Doerhoff could consider this a legitimate error on the student's part. After all, the child was not searching for trixiebearsherbreasts.org. (Addendum: I just went to whitehouse.org and discovered a Bush parody. The pornographer who owned the domain name donated it to the antineocons, a long time ago . Hmmmm. Add that to the list of Dr. Doerhoff's over reactions, or perhaps his association between liberal and porno)
Thankfully The Cass County Democrat Missourian and a large group of parents are questioning Dr. Doerhoff's actions.
I am left to wonder where Dr. Doerhoff received his his training in child development. Paris Island? I am relieved that good folk in a red state will not tolerate misuse of power (and blatant spin) by a bullying authority. Dr. Doerhoff is not setting limits, he is crushing spirit and retaliating punitively.
Ms. Price (and her colleagues) should be commended for her courage in standing up for a child's best interests by being "insubordinate", even at great personal expense. Since this story has hit the national news, I hope that she is receiving hundreds of job offers from schools who would love to have a teacher like her. I also hope that Dr. Doerhoff is receiving hundreds of "insubordinate" emails, since his email address is readily available on the internet.
After thought: Alice Miller, in her book "For Your Own Good" argues that German childrearing practices which included cruel punishment and the expectation of blind obedience to authority, produced adults who followed authority without question, and worse, identifed with the aggressor, thus creating a culture who could embrace Hitler's leadership, and ultimately lead to the holocaust. I have the same concerns about "For Your Own Good" argues that German childrearing practices which included cruel punishment and the expectation of blind obedience to authority, produced adults who followed authority without question, and worse, identifed with the aggressor, thus creating a culture who could embrace Hitler's leadership, and ultimately lead to the holocaust. I have same concerns about "For Your Own Good" argues that German childrearing practices which included cruel punishment and the expectation of blind obedience to authority, produced adults who followed authority without question, and worse, identifed with the aggressor, thus creating a culture that could embrace Hitler's leadership, and ultimately lead to the holocaust. I have the same concerns about fundamentalist Christian childrearing practices.
Photo note: I am always surprized by what I can find in my archives, even if it isn't always a great photo.