BROOKFIELD, Conn. - A Connecticut math teacher is fighting to keep his job after asking an overweight student if he ate his homework. Brookfield High School teacher Robert Wollkind says he has Asperger's syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism in which social interactions can be awkward...Wollkind was placed on administrative leave in November after the comment to the student, who previously had been teased by others about his weight...Wollkind has said his Asperger's makes it difficult for him to read others' emotions. More than 1,000 Brookfield parents and students have signed a petition supporting him.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the expression, "the dog ate my homework?" Before we jump to conclusions here, are we sure the teacher just didn't confuse his euphemism, like he went to say dog but a little Freuedian (or Aspergerian apparently) slip of the tongue later and he said fat, well, because the kid was fat?
I'm not trying to pick on the kid here, I'm just wondering if we should be so quick to judge the teacher. I mean who hasn't let something slip that they shouldn't have once in a while? Made a gay joke in front of a gay, implied that a girl was a bitch in front of your female boss (yep, check that one off for CW this past week), or made fun of fat people, in the presence of fat people.
That kind of shit happens all the time in life. Correct protocol isn't to race off and fire or defriend someone on Facebook. The correct action is to give the person who said it a look of 50% questioning, 50% death stare, while the offender as quickly as possible tries to pretend the situation never happened. As far as I'm concerned that's all that needs to happen here.
