Another Female School Teacher Goes Off the Deep End...

[Buddy-Rey]

...And is punished with a mere wrist-slap.

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    Teacher forces preschooler to relieve herself in front of other students
Jennifer Geiger, Producer
Last Updated: 4/7/2005 9:15:11 AM

A Knox County teacher is back on the job after making a pre-school student relieve herself in a bucket in front of other students.

It happened in early March to a little girl at the Sam E. Hill Family Community Center.

Sheila Knight was put on leave while the school system looked into the allegations.

DCS also investigated and found no evidence of abuse.

Knight later admitted to the accusations, called it "a severe lapse in judgment," and got a strong written reprimand. School officials say that was the strongest punishment allowed at the time.

Knight, who has worked for Knox County Schools for almost 20 years, is back on the job.

The student is in another classroom.



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Knox teacher back on administrative leave after humiliating pre-schooler
Mark Schnyder, Reporter
Last Updated: 4/7/2005 7:16:06 PM




A Knox County school teacher is back on administrative leave Thursday after humiliating a student in class several weeks ago.

Sheila Knight teaches pre-schoolers at the Sam Hill Family Community Center.

She admits to making a four-year old girl "go to the bathroom" in a bucket in front of other students.

The teacher also says she knows she made a mistake. On Thursday, Sheila Knight did not return phone calls from 10 News. Neither did the principal.

According to a Knoxville psychologist, the incident could have a potential psychological impact on the child.

"This clearly crosses the line," says psychologist Renee Repka, who adds that what the teacher did was cruel, but shouldn't be harmful to the pre-schooler's long term mental health.

"For a child to have a trauma like that one time is not going to mark the child for the rest of her life," says Repka.

The four-year old girl has a different teacher now. Repka says that's good, and that she hopes the child's teacher, Sheila Knight, apologized to her, as well as the other kids who saw their classmate go to the bathroom in a bucket.

"At the same time we're teaching kids about good and bad touches, they're making them go to the bathroom in front of their peers," says Repka. "It's really inappropriate behavior."

According to Knox County Schools, Sheila Knight previously had a clean record during her 20-year career here until now.

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    Mother of Pearl!!!  Did this woman actually say that this WOULDN'T be harmful to the child's mental development?!?!  I still remember and regret my first day of pre-school, when I was sent to time out for drawing on a table.  And this lady actually believes that having to pee in a bucket in front of her WHOLE CLASS won't have an effect on her?!?!

[Quasimodo]

Growing up in NYC, I witnessed mothers (single and wed) routinely forcing their pre-school sons to urinate in public, even on well-traveled shopping avenues. Toddlers are nearly disrobed on street corners. (They're just boys!) The practice continues to this day. :oops: Meanwhile, their daughters, no mattter how young, are taught to hold it till they find a bathroom. (We gotta teach them to respect themselves.) :evil:

The result: the boys grow up without expectations of privacy, a retarded sense of self-respect, and an unquenchable curiosity about the opposite sex, coupled both with mystique and resentment; the girls, however, grow up with a bullet-proof sense of self-respect, an expectation of privacy, and, armed with foreknowledge of the male anatomy, an exaggerated sense of their own maturity and self-worth (pussy power!).

And, of course, they've also learned to "hold it."
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What really surprised me about this teacher is that her victim was a girl!

Having to urinate in front of classmates you see everyday is beyond humiliation (esp. if she was wearing pants). I'm relieved [pun intended] that they at least put her in a different class after the incident.

But reading between the lines, I can see the double standard in action. Somehow, I think that had this been a male teacher it would have made national headlines, and at the very least he would have been discharged (and maybe charged). It would not have been dismissed as merely a lapse in judgment.

[Alpha Male]

I'm a little puzzled why the DCS didn't label this as abuse? Seems like it fits their definition to me.

I appreciate the article. I collect articles like this in case I end up having to defend our decision to homeschool. Lately we've had several of our mothers approached by the schools trying to get them to reconsider.

[LSBeene]

Not to be alarmist, or extreme ...

But if a male teacher had done this to a female student (or even a lowly male one), there would, IMO, be calls about sexualization and such.

This shows that a female trait is not necessarily towards violence, but shows how they use humiliation as a tool.

Steven