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From teaching to pandering in one easy lesson

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Anita Lemay

When teachers can't knock candy out of an unruly student's hands, there's something's wrong with education.

Now when I was teaching if a kid was quietly eating candy in the back of the room but the other 18 kids were engaged in the lesson plan, heck, I'd let them munch away, as long as he wasn't smacking his lips, that is.

Oh, yeah, I'm being sexist, as in saying "he" but the fact is 90 percent of the problem kids are male. That's a fact.

But if this kid thinks he's going to act out, bust a move and be a dork while eating in my class, not happening.

Now I never ever struck, hit, slapped or even gave a hint of a physical threat or gesture while I was a teacher.

But do I sympathize with a Manchester woman who taught at Southside Middle School and allegedly knocked a piece of candy out of the hand of an unruly 14-year-old student?

You bet your dunce cap I do.

Anita Lemay was arrested Wednesday by Manchester police, charged with simple assault and faces the loss of her job, who knows, maybe her pension.

Anita Lemay ... hero or villain?

Why? Because some clown acted out, showing off for the class, while eating candy.

When I was teaching English and Social Studies in Vermont and Virginia back in the '80s they didn't allow any eating, not even chewing gum, and there were no cellphones.

Then when I began subbing at various local schools in the past 10 years that all changed. I saw high schoolers eating full meals in my class and when I complained to administrators they said it was allowed.

Can you believe it?

I'd be trying to teach and students would be passing french fries to each other.

So Lemay was wrong, but you know what, I get it. I feel her. I may get a Free Lemay button. Why? Because teachers matter.

Remember former Milton Elementary School Principal Chuck Mills? He lost his job, basically, because he was arrested for assault for dope slapping a student who was acting out in lunch line in May of 2013. Mills was giving the "quiet" symbol and the kid didn't see him, so he dope slapped him, which is defined as a soft upward-motion slap to the back of the head.

Chuck Mills

In a police affidavit, it noted the kid didn't even know his head hit the wall, but a fellow student saw it did and that was that.

Mills lost his job and the arrest probably ruined his career. He had to write an apology letter to the boy and do 50 hours of community work. He was so emotional after his hearing he couldn't even talk to this reporter.

Now Lemay is faced with a similar fate. Her job and career are on the line.

Whenever I reminisce about school with my Catholic friends, it's never long till you hear about the nuns and the rulers. But they joke about it now and agree they deserved every whack and are thankful that the nuns were strong disciplinarians. Most students want bad kids disciplined and want a class with order where they can learn.

Right now most cities and towns pay about 70 percent of their taxes to pay for public schools.

And this is what we get? Kids eating in class, acting out, making it hard to teach and teachers just trying to get through the day without losing it on a brat and losing their job?

I spoke to a longtime educator last summer while doing an unrelated story. I asked her how education had changed in the 55 years she had been a teacher.

She stood quietly for a moment then softly cried.

"When I go by the old elementary school where I taught and see all those cars, it makes me sick," she said.

Apparently the amount of staff had tripled for the same number of students. She remembered when there was one adult per classroom. Now there's almost always one paraprofessional in a classroom, sometimes two or three.

She thought it was a waste of money, that she had taught a full classroom by herself and they should, too.

Ah, the wisdom of age.

And Free Anita Lemay.


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