• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

World News Center

Everything you want to know about anything that's meaningful

  • News
  • Reviews
  • About
  • Contact Us
You are here: Home / Fear Kids? Become a Teacher!

Fear Kids? Become a Teacher!

January 17, 2013 by

Yes, this is exactly like my advanced algebra class.
It all makes sense now. The world has gone completely insane. Some people can’t handle reality so they make up this wildly dystopian universe and demand we live in it. Never has that been more true than with the “Sandy Hook Conspiracy Theories.” If you click here you will see just how demented those people are. I don’t want to waste a bunch of time on them since I am hoping to be funny today, but these people are beyond sad. To look the families of those dead children in the eyes and say “Sorry, your kids are just hiding, it’s all government plot to take our beloved guns” passed sick five miles back with all flags waving. I get it, there are some people who do not like our president. Anything that happens, no matter how random, is proof that he is going to impose martial law. Never mind facts or history or anything else. Hell the guy can’t get a budget through the House of Representatives, how the hell is he going to impose his will on a nation?

I’m done now.

Okay, deep breath, on to funny.

The Miami Herald is proud to report that not every nutcase in the universe lives in Florida. In fact, they were so excited by this discovery that they turned a silly article into a stunning example of epic journalism. It is even more fun than Manti Te’o’s imaginary dead girlfriend.

Quick aside, before any female made it to girlfriend status with me we had to actually meet first. Of course, I never went to Notre Dame.

All right, back on track. The Miami Herald is reporting that the Cincinnati school system is being sued by a teacher who claims she was forced to work with kids.

You just can’t make this stuff up.

A former high school teacher is accusing school district administrators of discriminating against her because of a rare phobia she says she has: a fear of young children.

Maria Waltherr-Willard, 61, had been teaching Spanish and French at Mariemont High School in Cincinnati since 1976.

Waltherr-Willard, who does not have children of her own, said that when she was transferred to the district’s middle school in 2009, the seventh- and eighth-graders triggered her phobia, causing her blood pressure to soar and forcing her to retire in the middle of the 2010-2011 school year.

In her lawsuit against the district, filed in federal court in Cincinnati, Waltherr-Willard said that her fear of young children falls under the federal American with Disabilities Act and that the district violated it by transferring her in the first place and then refusing to allow her to return to the high school.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.

Gary Winters, the school district’s attorney, said Tuesday that Waltherr-Willard was transferred because the French program at the high school was being turned into an online one and that the middle school needed a Spanish teacher.

“She wants money,” Winters said of Walter-Willard’s motivation to sue. “Let’s keep in mind that our goal here is to provide the best teachers for students and the best academic experience for students, which certainly wasn’t accomplished by her walking out on them in the middle of the year.”

Waltherr-Willard and her attorney, Brad Weber, did not return calls for comment Tuesday.

Winters also denied Walter-Willard’s claim that the district transferred her out of retaliation for her unauthorized comments to parents about the French program ending – “the beginning of a deliberate, systematic and calculated effort to squeeze her out of a job altogether,” Weber wrote in a July 2011 letter to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The lawsuit said that Waltherr-Willard has been treated for her phobia since 1991 and also suffers from general anxiety disorder, high blood pressure and a gastrointestinal illness. She was managing her conditions well until the transfer, according to the lawsuit.

Working with the younger students adversely affected Waltherr-Willard’s health, the lawsuit said.

She was “unable to control her blood pressure, which was so high at times that it posed a stroke risk,” according to the lawsuit, which includes a statement from her doctor about her high blood pressure. “The mental anguish suffered by (Waltherr-Willard) is serious and of a nature that no reasonable person could be expected to endure the same.”

The lawsuit was filed in June and is set to go to trial in February 2014. A judge last week dismissed three of the ex-teacher’s claims, but left discrimination claims standing.

The lawsuit says that Waltherr-Willard has lost out on at least $100,000 of potential income as a result of her retirement.

Winters said that doesn’t make sense, considering that Waltherr-Willard’s take from retirement is 89 percent of what her annual salary was, which was around $80,000.

Patrick McGrath, a clinical psychologist and director of the Center for Anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorders near Chicago, said that he has treated patients who have fears involving children and that anyone can be afraid of anything.

“A lot of people will look at something someone’s afraid of and say, ‘There is no rational reason to be afraid of that,'” he said. “But anxiety disorders are emotion-based. … We’ve had mothers who wouldn’t touch their children after they’re born.”

He said most phobias begin with people asking themselves, “What if?” and then imagining the worst-case scenario.

“You can make an association to something and be afraid of it,” McGrath said. “If you get a phone call that your mom was just in a horrible accident as you’re locking the door, you can make an association that bad news comes if you don’t lock the door right. It’s a basic case of conditioning.”

Let’s recap.

Allegedly she was diagnosed with this phobia in 1991. If she was taking any sort of medication, and high blood pressure and anxiety are both treated with medication – not voodoo, the school would have had to know. If for nothing else to make sure she received proper treatment in case of any accident or injury.

The suit also doesn’t specify any aspects of her medical care other than to say “we said so so it must be true.” Certainly the school seems to have been unaware of this minor, yet important, alleged fact.

But let’s assume she is, at least, telling the truth about being afraid of kids. She stayed on the job for twenty years without issue. And, let’s be honest, it isn’t like 14 year olds are that much more mature than 12 year olds. The difference in class behavior is not the same as going from an advanced college class to kindergarten.

And while the shrink at the end of the article is 100% correct, it is also 100% irrelevant. She did not suddenly break down. She is claiming that she spent 20 years fearing children. How the hell could she have even remotely been effective as a teacher if that were true?

Her French classes must have been something out of a nightmare.

“Un, du, trois … I SAID TROIS YOU DISEASED MAGGOT! … Now, who wants to conjugate verbs?”

Anyway, I’m calling horse hockey on this one and moving on.

Which, oddly enough, applies to the first two stories I mentioned here today as well.

Nyle “Let The Beat Build” from Last Pictures on Vimeo.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
contact Bill McCormick

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Primary Sidebar

Archives

  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • December 2021
  • October 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • April 2021
  • November 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • September 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010

Copyright © 2022 · Metro Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in