Parents aren’t OK with how this teacher is punishing her students

You have probably heard the phrase, “Wash your mouth out with soap.” It refers to a time when people thought it was okay to shove soap into a child’s mouth, carrying out the metaphor for cleaning up their “dirty mouths” (bad language, usually.) There’s even that famous scene documenting the practice in A Christmas Story that has (probably) been etched inside our brains for the rest of eternity.But nowadays, the practice is considered pretty darn cruel. It’s actually a crime. Parental guardians have been arrested for the practice in recent years…Which makes it pretty crazy that, recently, a teacher in North Carolina allegedly used this discipline on a student, reports FOX Carolina.

Tiffany Stanton, a kindergarten teacher at Wiley Elementary was suspended from her job without pay on Wednesday as the school began to investigate the claim that the kindergarten instructor had used an inappropriate form of discipline on a child. Stanton then resigned.

The issue had been brought to the school’s attention by another employee who informed the principal that something inappropriate had transpired. The parents of the child did not complain to the school until the following day. According to WFMY News 2, “the teacher won’t face any criminal charges and all parties involved are satisfied with the way the school and police handled the incident.” Parents are, understandably, upset.

“I’m sad, I’m frustrated, I’m angry that it happened. I’m angry that happened at my son’s school and it just makes me wonder what else could take place,” says James, a pre-k student’s mom.

She added, “When you take your child to school, you trust they are in the best of care. You don’t want anything done to them that you don’t do.”

According to WFMY News 2, a spokesperson, Nora Carr, said the following statement about the incident:

As you may remember from a later scene in A Christmas Story, Ralphie dreams of the day that his parents feel awful for punishing him by washing his mouth out with soap, once it becomes apparent that it has poisoned him. But the thing is, soap poisoning is a very real thing. And the act is considered a form of abuse. I am no parent, but I have a feeling that there are better methods of disciplining a child…especially when s/he isn’t your own.

(Image via MGM Entertainment)