What a Bitch: Sub Teacher Sends kids home crying...

[insein]

http://www.ldnews.com/fastsearchresults/ci_3334327

Grinchy remark sends kids home in tears
By RORY SCHULER
Staff Writer
Lebanon Daily News



LICKDALE — Jamey Schaeffer stretched her mouth open wide, showing off a pair of twin gaps in her smile. With a mouthful of fingers, she said she has no interest in two front teeth for Christmas.
Instead, she’d like a Barbie doll from Santa Claus — and Santa Claus only.

But a substitute music teacher almost came between the 6-year-old and a Christmas Eve spent dancing cheek to cheek with sugar plums.

Theresa Farrisi stood in for Schaeffer’s regular music teacher one day last week. One of her assignments was to read Clement C. Moore’s famous poem, “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” to a first-grade class at Lickdale Elementary School.

“The poem has great literary value, but it goes against my conscience to teach something which I know to be false to children, who are impressionable,” said Farrisi, 43, of Myerstown. “It’s a story. I taught it as a story. There’s no real person called Santa Claus living at the North Pole.”

Farrisi doesn’t believe in Santa Claus, and she doesn’t think anyone else should, either. She made her feelings clear to the classroom full of 6- and 7-year-olds, some of whom went home crying.

Schaeffer got off the school bus later that day, dragging her backpack in the mud, tears in her angry little eyes.

“She yelled at me, ‘Why did you lie?’” recalled Jamey’s mother, Elizabeth. “‘Why didn’t you tell me Santa Claus died?’”

Elizabeth Schaeffer said she was appalled by Farrisi’s bluntness.

“I had to call the school,” said Schaeffer, a part-time custodial employee for the school district who is on temporary leave after complications from her last child’s birth. “I had to do something.”

Meanwhile, Farrisi, who is well versed on the history of “Santa Claus” — the traditional and literary figure — clarified her comments.

“I did not tell the students Santa Claus was dead,” she explained. “I said there was a man named Nickolas of Myrna who died in 343 A.D., upon whom the Santa Claus myth (is based).”

On Monday night, Jamey started to recite Moore’s famous poem while sitting on a couch next to a freshly cut tree, trimmed in tinsel and topped with a golden star: “’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house. No creatures stirred.”

She paused, looked up, and said that’s when the teacher interjected, just a few lines before the verse that announces the arrival of “a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.”

“The teacher stopped reading and told us no one comes down the chimney,” Jamey said, curling into a ball on the couch, bracing her chin on her knees, her voice shrinking away like melting ice cream. “She said our parents buy the presents, not Santa.”

Sharing in the belief of Santa Claus is a very special event in the Schaeffer home. Jamey’s the second youngest of five children. The three oldest have already grown up and left the family nest. Only Jamey and her 18-month-old sister, Amanda, remain.

Last year, Elizabeth Schaeffer recalled, Santa left a trail of boot prints in charred ashes from his feet-first landing in the fireplace. And this year, the family will continue their tradition of leaving him a plate of cookies, a tall glass of milk and a ripe, shaved carrot for Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer.

The Schaeffer family wasn’t the only one taken aback by Farrisi’s approach to Santa.

Tim and Beth Rittle said they found their 7-year-old daughter, Holly, in tears in the back seat of their car after they picked her up from school that day.

“All of a sudden, Holly just started crying,” Beth Rittle said. “She said she had a substitute in music class, and she told the class there’s no such thing as Santa Claus.”

Schaeffer and Rittle both called Northern Lebanon School District Superintendent Don L. Bell.

Since the issue involves personnel, Bell said Monday, there is little he can say about the incident, adding that it has not been determined if any disciplinary action is warranted against Farrisi.

Bell said he was aware that several parents have expressed concerns about the incident.

He also noted that the handling of Santa Claus isn’t covered in the school code.

“We do not have a Santa Claus policy,” he said. “It’s unfortunate, but I really can’t say anything about it.”

Farrisi said she considered approaching the school’s administration with her concerns about how to handle Santa Claus in class. Instead, she said, she decided to add a disclaimer to her lesson.

“Those same children are going to know someday that what their parents taught them is false,” she ex-plained. “There is no Santa Claus.” (Yea but the figure it out on their own bitch!)

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Schaeffer was carefully thinking about her next step. She decided to make a photocopy of editor Francis P. Church’s famous response to a little girl, who wrote to The New York Sun many decades ago, asking the same question Schaeffer’s daughter struggled with last week.

“I mailed (Farrisi) a copy of ‘Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,’” she said, giggling with satisfaction. “I wish I could be there when she opens it.”


As for Jamey, in an attempt to reaffirm her spot on Santa’s nice list, she drew up a new letter in bright red magic marker, a message destined for the Santa she refuses to abandon.


“Dear Santa ... How is the North Pole?” she said, reading her letter loudly and proudly. “How is Mrs. Claus? You are Great. From Jamey.”

This kind of shit pisses me off. This is the same kind of person that doesnt want religious views enforced upon her but has no qualms about ruining a 6 year old's views of Santa because "She doesnt think people should believe in Santa." Fuck You lady. Who the hell are you to ruin christmas for children? This woman has no business being a teacher.

 

[Annie]

http://www.ldnews.com/fastsearchresults/ci_3334327



This kind of shit pisses me off. This is the same kind of person that doesnt want religious views enforced upon her but has no qualms about ruining a 6 year old's views of Santa because "She doesnt think people should believe in Santa." Fuck You lady. Who the hell are you to ruin christmas for children? This woman has no business being a teacher.

Agreed. Nor a substitute teacher.

 

[Mr. P]

Never met a music teacher yet that had their head screwed on straight.

 

[Annie]

Never met a music teacher yet that had their head screwed on straight.

But this was a sub, no telling what kind of 'teacher' they were. I subbed for 2 years, 2x in lower grades, before telling district, "No more..." My hearing was the main cause, but those little kids need high energy, high moral people.

 

[Nienna]

I totally agree with you end statement, Insein. A person in the capacity of a teacher has no business what is or is not appropriate to tell other people's kids. What a self-righteous grinch!

In our state, one only needs a Bachelor's Degree, in any field, plus a certification to be a substitute teacher. I plan to apply for this position when my baby starts school. But you can be sure I won't blow Santa's cover to any little kids! And, even though I firmly believe that Jesus is God, I would never try to undermine a parent's authority, be he Buddhist, Wiccan, whatever.

 

[krisy]

I read this earlier. I could not believe that someone could be so mean. Who is she to decide what those kids believe or not? If it were my kid,I would be speaking to her personally. What an arrogant grinch!!!

 

[Hobbit]

She's "going to go to a very special layer of Hell reserved for child molesters and people who talk at the theater." (paraphrased from "Firefly")

Personally, though, I think the best damage control would be to show the kids the original "Miracle on 34th Street." You know, the good one...that's in black and white.

 

[krisy]

She's "going to go to a very special layer of Hell reserved for child molesters and people who talk at the theater." (paraphrased from "Firefly")

Personally, though, I think the best damage control would be to show the kids the original "Miracle on 34th Street." You know, the good one...that's in black and white.

That is one of the best Christmas shows. We will probably watch it tomorrow. It's on one of the cable movie channels we get free.

As far as that teacher....

I know,not very Christmasy,but she burns me up!!!

 

[Gem]

This is simply outrageous. No teacher, substitute or full-time, has the right to question how a parent raises their child when it comes to issues like this. For this woman to interject her personal feelings (i.e. not wanting to lie to children who are "impressionable") demonstrates that she is unable to refrain from keeping her own personal feelings out of matters where they are not needed, asked for, or supposed to be.

If she had a problem with the lesson plan she should have taken it to the Principal and stated her objections to it. The Principal could have come in and read it while she sat her bitchy, self-righteous ass in the teacher's lounge.

Instead, she decided to push her beliefs on child raising on a bunch of unsuspecting children. She should be put on the "DO NOT CALL" list of substitutes.

If these parents are smart, they will not frame this issue as, "She told my kid there was no Santa Claus and made him cry," but will rather approach it from the standpoint that this woman was playing Judge and Jury over their parenting...deciding that she didn't like what parenting choices they made and undermining them while the children were unsuspecting and susceptibly vunerable to her opinions...such indoctrination is offensive and should have no place in a public school.

This woman should receive a disciplinary letter in her file and should never be hired by that school or ANY school ever again. She can not follow directions, she does not apparently posess the critical thinking skills to not violate her beliefs while respecting others, and she feels that her beliefs supercede the beliefs of the parents of the students she is working with...it is completely unacceptable to have a person like this working in a public school with young people.

This woman can't be compared to the Grinch...he at least had a heart...it was just two sizes too small!!!!!!! This woman has no heart whatsoever.

 

[no1tovote4]

Why would a substitute in a music class feel the need to teach 6 year olds the facts behind the Santa myth? She must have been a history major with the heart of a machine.