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rug

(82,333 posts)
Sun Oct 14, 2012, 10:02 AM Oct 2012

Bronx middle school teacher disciplined for ordering her students to pray to Jesus

Michelle Schindelheim told investigators she stopped class and told pupils "they were going to talk to God"

By Rachel Monahan And Ben Chapman / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Saturday, October 13, 2012, 9:01 PM

A God-fearing city teacher earned a slap on the wrist for ordering her students to kneel and pray to Jesus, education officials said.

Michelle Schindelheim, of Bronx Middle School 301, drew the attention of investigators in March 2011, after students complained that she was forcing them to pray to God instead of teaching them to read.

Students told investigators that just before Christmas 2010 the English as a Second Language instructor stopped class and told students “they were going to talk to God.”

Then Schindelheim, who is 47 and earns $80,000, ordered students to “sit in a circle and sing and pray to God,” making the kids recite The Lord’s Prayer in their native Spanish.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bronx/bronx-teacher-scolded-forcing-kids-praise-lord-article-1.1182839

This is the Bronx, not Tuscaloosa.

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Bronx middle school teacher disciplined for ordering her students to pray to Jesus (Original Post) rug Oct 2012 OP
That teacher should be summarily dismissed. MineralMan Oct 2012 #1
Fully agree. nt humblebum Oct 2012 #2
I wonder if that would have happened had the teacher instead extolled the virtues of atheism. cleanhippie Oct 2012 #3
How about Satan or Allah?? Angry Dragon Oct 2012 #5
There's no place for that in the public schools either. MineralMan Oct 2012 #6
If she profferred the same mitigation it should have the same result. rug Oct 2012 #7
+47,462 Angry Dragon Oct 2012 #4

cleanhippie

(19,705 posts)
3. I wonder if that would have happened had the teacher instead extolled the virtues of atheism.
Sun Oct 14, 2012, 03:11 PM
Oct 2012

Fired on the spot would be my guess.

MineralMan

(146,317 posts)
6. There's no place for that in the public schools either.
Sun Oct 14, 2012, 03:34 PM
Oct 2012

In fact, the whole topic of religious belief should rarely come up, except in a historical sense. I'd be just as vehement if a teacher ridiculed any religion or religion in general in the classroom. It's just not a suitable subject for public school. Teach the First Amendment and leave it at that.

 

rug

(82,333 posts)
7. If she profferred the same mitigation it should have the same result.
Sun Oct 14, 2012, 06:47 PM
Oct 2012
Schindelheim said she “did not know what came into her head that day” and that she was under “a lot of personal stress” at the time.

She said she normally wouldn’t teach that way and “she knew that such a curriculum was not acceptable in a public school.”

Shortly after the incident, she took a medical leave.
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