Book Thrown at Lewd L.A. Teacher

 

Berndt is in BIG TROUBLE! (LA Sheriff’s Department)

Mark Berndt, 62, was a teacher at Los Angeles’ Miramonte Elementary School for more than 30 years. And during his tenure, there was no reason to believe that he wasn’t a great teacher, either.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case.

From 2005 to 2010, Berndt sexually molested as many as 23 students between the ages of 7 and 10—one boy and 22 girls. Since his arrest, though, the Los Angeles Unified School District has spent more than $27 million settling cases with 58 of 191 students who were allegedly victimized by Berndt, so the final number of students he molested could be significantly higher.

According to the latest reports, Berndt forced students to participate in bondage and took pictures of them in bizarre situations—sometimes with cockroaches crawling across their faces and other times while they held a spoonful of semen to their mouths, as if they were preparing to take the worst cough medicine imaginable. Berndt even had students eat cookies with sugar and a mysterious, white “icing” on top.

“He would give her some cookies,” the mother of a female student explained. “My daughter told me that the teacher would say the cookies had sugar and some white stuff that was on it.”

Miramonte Elementary, the scene of Berndt’s crimes (AP)

Another angry mother pointed out that “back in the day, you burned them [perverts like Berndt] in wood.” Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge George G. Lomeli responded by saying, “I don’t have the power to do that, nor would I.”

Instead, Berndt pleaded no contest to 23 felony counts of lewd acts on 23 young students. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, but could be released after serving almost 20 years since he was arrested in 2012.

In other words, it won’t be long until Berndt gets a taste of his own medicine—only this time he probably won’t have the benefit of using a spoon. Prisoners tend to prefer a much different delivery method, especially where child molesters are concerned.

Pop-Up Post: The Bad Teacher

This history teacher is history himself, at least at Gateway High School (courtesy of Andrew Swope)

Want to see what happens when a high school teacher reaches his breaking point and lashes out at a student?

As if this kind of thing never happens.

Check out the latest video from Gateway High School in St. Louis, Missouri. It is truly disturbing and can be found HERE, along with the original news story.

Basically, 16-year-old Stephanie White told her history teacher that she preferred to attend some other class where they were showing a movie. This apparently didn’t go over well and an argument ensued, one that ended with White‘s teacher slamming a desk on the ground and shoving her into some other desks nearby.

As is normally the case, the whole altercation was caught on video by another student who was quick on the draw with his cell phone. I can only assume it has found its way onto YouTube as well, though I didn’t look for it there.

The teacher was, of course, placed on administrative leave pending an investigation. And police may charge both White and her stressed-out teacher for the incident, although no details have been released yet.

It never ceases to amaze me how some people allow their emotions to get the best of them in situations where they know others will witness their bad behavior. And though I have no idea what prompted this attack—aside from the whole “let me watch a flick in some other class” thing—it is possible that White was behaving badly, too.

The difference is that when you’re a teacher, you have to learn to deal with this sort of thing because it happens a lot. And to me, the best approach—if you’re not getting through to a disruptive or annoying student—is simply to kick them out and/or send them to the principal’s office.

Collectively, we all want to bring an end to school violence, especially given all the shootings recently. There’s even talk of arming teachers with handguns and training them to handle violent situations, including active shooters on campus. But I ask you this: What might this teacher have done if he was packing a gat?

I shudder at the thought. And I hope stories like this will convince the “powers that be” that when it comes to guns in schools, the best approach is to ban them altogether. Otherwise, things could get much, much worse.

UPDATE: It was just reported that the history teacher responsible for this unwarranted attack—33-year-old Peter J. Sheppard—has been charged with third-degree assault. Thankfully, though, no charges were filed against the student. I think she’s been through enough, to be sure.

Book Thrown at School Shooter

The “killer” shirt. Tasteless (courtesy of ABC News)

On February 27th of last year, 17-year-old T.J.Lane went to Chardon High School to be transported to Lake Academy Alternative School in nearby Willoughby, Ohio.

Lake Academy is a school for “at-risk” students who shun education and often struggle with mental health, behavioral or even drug-related issues.

Instead of waiting for his ride, Lane walked into the cafeteria, approached a table of students, raised the weapons no one saw him bring in and opened fire. He shot six students before assistant football coach Frank Hall chased him out of the school. The police arrested Lane a short time later.

Three students died in the days following the attack: Russell King, Jr., Daniel Parmertor and Demetrius Hewlin.

Lane was subsequently tried, convicted and, most recently, sentenced for his crimes. Judge David Fuhry threw the book at someone he described as a remorseless, fame-seeking, murderous fake: consecutive life sentences without the possibility for parole, plus 37 more years of additional sentences.

Since he was underage at the time of the attack, no death sentence could be applied. But Lane is going away for the rest of his life. And rightfully so.

Of course, he wasn’t going quietly, as those in court on Tuesday quickly learned. After the sentencing, Lane made a statement to the victims’ families that one of his own defense attorneys later described as “very difficult… to hear.” It included plenty of vulgar language and even some obscene gestures.

You think he got what he deserved? (courtesy of ABC News)

Lane also unveiled a t-shirt with the word “killer” scrawled across it, much like the shirt he was wearing when he ambushed their loved ones.

“What he did was beyond anything I could envision seeing in a courtroom,” prosecutor Jim Flaiz said later. “I was shocked and disgusted at how the defendant conducted himself.”

It isn’t enough this kid killed so many people in cold blood and couldn’t care less about it. But to walk into a courtroom and also insult the families of the people you murdered?

He should consider himself lucky that the death penalty was off the table. And he better watch his back in the joint because you just never know who might pay another inmate to handle some business behind bars, if you know what I mean.

I probably shouldn’t have said that, but oh well. Nobody likes a sociopath. So sue me.

Child Expelled for Accident

Little Ksenya got a raw deal (courtesy of Pix-11)

Since I work in higher education, advise college students and teach classes from time to time, I have always considered myself to be an educator. We all know this profession rarely comes with a high (or even fair) salary, but it is rewarding in lots of other ways.

I still remember the first time one of my former at-risk students walked across the stage, shook our president’s hand and collected the degree they once thought they would never achieve. Catcalls and cheers from family members echoed through the auditorium and honestly, I even felt like a proud father myself. It’s a moment I will never forget and one that exemplifies the reason I chose this career: to help students.

So when I read or hear about other educators treating their students badly, it burns me up inside and makes me wish I lived closer to them so I could give them a piece of my mind in person. Since this obviously isn’t possible in most cases, I instead choose to voice my disgust in this forum.

And believe me. This story is pretty disgusting.

Ksenya Strelyayeva was a first grader at the Staten Island Catholic school, St. John Villa Academy–no different from any other child her age–until last week, when she was suddenly expelled by the nuns there. The reason?

Ksenya accidentally bumped her head in class and started bleeding.

Seriously. That’s it.

The accident happened when Ksenya bent down to throw away some papers and bumped her head on the sharp corner of a shelf. She immediately started bleeding and was rushed to the front office since there was no school nurse available. Someone there even used a Clorox wipe to clean the cut.

Yeah. I can see how this was all Ksenya’s fault.

At any rate, the dismissal letter arrived a few days after Ksenya’s mother asked for and received an accident report from the school. Since attendance at St. John Villa is by “invitation only,” the nuns had chosen to revoke the one they originally extended to Ksenya.

“They throw a six-year-old child in the street because she bumped her head,” Anastasia Strelyayeva, Ksenya’s mother, later told reporters. “They broke my heart and they broke my daughter’s heart.”

Mother Anastasia was shocked (courtesy of Pix-11)

As if this weren’t bad enough, the school also refused to comment and instead released a statement just as confusing as their decision to boot the little girl: “I deny the accusations that St. John Villa Academy is unsafe.”

Pardon my French, but what in the hell is that supposed to mean?

At first, I had no idea. I thought we were talking about a girl being unfairly expelled, not school safety. And I didn’t remember hearing anything involving accusations against the school. Then it occurred to me.

The nuns kicked Ksenya out because they think she’s accident prone and could tarnish their reputation as a “safe school.” If parents found out about this, they would start yanking their kids out so fast that the place would have to shut down, right?

Give me a break.

As a parent–and I hope that I speak for most of the parents out there–I understand that accidents happen. And they happen to children a lot. Some of them we’ll be around for, others we won’t. And given all the time our kids spend in school, it’s only logical that some accidents would happen there, too.

I want to emphasize the word logical because honestly, these nuns are anything but. And correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t nuns supposed to be working for Christ or something? Kicking a little girl out of school for bumping her head doesn’t seem very Christian to me, but I’m certainly no expert.

As sad as this story is already–and as sorry as I feel for this family–their mistreatment comes with another unfortunate consequence. Now that Ksenya must attend a different school, her parents have to pay even more in tuition–something like $2000 more each year.

St. John Villa Academy was nice enough to return half of Ksenya’s annual tuition, but they have not yet returned her registration fee or uniform costs. And from I understand, both were rather large.

Is it me, or does this seem like one final insult to the poor, victimized family? I don’t know for sure, but I do know one thing.

I am staying the hell away from nuns!

Armed Teachers = Bad Idea

You better do your homework! (courtesy of Fox News)

After Adam Lanza murdered all those children and adults in Connecticut and then took his own life, people started to brainstorm ways in which we could make our schools safer. The usual ideas were bounced around: locking doors, bulletproof materials, armed guards, enhanced visitor screening, metal detectors and the like.

But some people had a different, more extreme idea: they thought we should arm our teachers. Even the National Rifle Association (NRA) seemed to support it.

Well, I’m here to tell you that teachers with guns are a bad idea. Consider the following story as just one example of why I believe this to be true.

Jacqueline Baffoni was an 8th grade teacher at the Collaborative Academy of Science, Technology and Language Arts in New York City. Students and parents knew her as someone who truly cared about her students and would do anything possible to help them. If they had a problem, Baffoni would take them to lunch to talk about it and come up with a solution. She even raised money online to help offset book costs for some of her less fortunate pupils. And given that Baffoni worked as a probationary teacher, she was no stranger to the challenges her students faced and did whatever she could to help them succeed.

In other words, she seemed like a model teacher. But all that changed late last year.

During one of her classes, several students became unruly and disrupted Baffoni’s lesson. Rather than kicking them out and sending them to the principal’s office for discipline, Baffoni instead fantasized out loud about how she “felt like stabbing some of these kids” and even told her class that she had a knife in her desk. This was true, even though she only used the knife to cut fruit from time to time.

“To hear something like that, it was kind of shocking,” eighth grader Samantha Vega said later. Classmate Lauren Reilly agreed that the incident made her “feel horrible.”

Jacqueline Baffoni prefers knives (courtesy of the New York Post)

The administration took immediate action and removed Baffoni from the school pending an investigation, which concluded last October. She of course resigned and moved out of town, but I suppose it’s possible that she’s teaching at some other school now.

Hell, if a teacher accused of sexually molesting students can find work in some other school system, then why not Baffoni?

Fortunately, this case ended well and any potential for violence was averted. But if a teacher that people know and trust can fantasize about killing her students, wouldn’t it stand to reason that other teachers might do the same? And given the laws of probability, it’s only a matter of time before one of them actually acts on this fantasy.

Now imagine that this unstable, pushed-to-the-edge teacher is armed with a handgun. Suddenly you have 10-20 students captive in a classroom like lambs to the slaughter. Who knows how many kids would die before school security could react?

Trained and armed guards in schools is one thing, but teachers packing heat is something else. I can tell you one thing for certain: I’m glad none of my teachers had guns when I was in school. If they did, then I probably wouldn’t be here today!

Busted By Your Books

Ancient history? (Photo credit: greenasian)

CourseSmart Analytics is currently testing an e-textbook service that tracks student study habits and delivers detailed information to teachers and professors.

In other words, the days of ignoring your textbooks and slacking off with regard to your assigned readings may be history, students.

Although this service will not be readily available until 2013, three U.S. universities are currently testing the technology: Texas A&M in San Antonio, Rasmussen College and Villanova University.

Since I have worked in higher education for the majority of my career, and given that I consider myself something of a life-long learner and educator, I can’t help but get excited about this new service. One of the main problems I encounter at the small private college where I work are students who never use their textbooks and therefore rob themselves of these important resources. Now it appears their own textbooks will “rat them out” if they fail to utilize them.

Nothing like getting busted by your books for being too lazy to use them!

Mysterious tweet by murdered college student

Alexandra Kogut, another victim of crime on college campuses

On September 8, campus police responded to concern from Kogut’s mother and went to her residence hall to locate her. They found Kogut dead from severe upper-body trauma and immediately alerted authorities.

Kogut’s boyfriend, 21-year-old Clayton Whittemore from Utica College, was immediately arrested and charged with the crime. He has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and is currently awaiting trial.

As it turns out, Whittemore was planning to visit Kogut on the day she was killed and even exchanged some Tweets with her earlier in the week. Most of them talked about how excited they both were for the weekend, but Kogut’s final Tweet proved much more ominous.

She wrote “should have known” around 12:15 a.m. And the next morning, she was dead.

Kogut’s family released the following statement after a tremendous outpouring of love and support: “Alexandra Kogut was a bright, beautiful young woman who was thrilled to be beginning her college education. Her lovely and sweet demeanor was truly infectious and she will forever be missed.”

Losing someone so young and with so much promise is truly heartbreaking, but let this serve as a cautionary tale to all college students. Even people who seem trustworthy, including significant others, might not be the people they present themselves to be. Protecting oneself should always be a priority and trust should be earned.

It may be too late to save Alexandra Kogut, but hopefully others can prevent similar tragedies from happening on our college campuses. And I look forward to the day when all college students can feel safe and secure.

Hazing on the upswing

University of Tennessee at Knoxville (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When I was in college, I often heard stories about fraternities hazing their pledges. Most of it involved excessive drinking or completely ridiculous acts, like streaking or doing other embarrassing things in public. And while much of it seemed innocent to me at the time, I was aware that students were being harmed or even killed at other institutions. Fortunately, hazing was soon outlawed and students who engaged in it faced serious consequences. Sure, some of it still happened, but at least all the morbid news stories eased off a bit.

I wish the same were true today. After just a few minutes of surfing the internet, I came across two recent hazing stories that make me wonder if this is going to become a problem again.

The first story comes from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Their chapter of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity was just suspended because of an incident this past weekend that ended with one student being hospitalized. Apparently, they used hoses to give alcohol enemas to students. This produces a stronger and much more dangerous “buzz” since it allows alcohol to enter the bloodstream faster. The hospitalized student was subjected to this and ended up with a blood alcohol level more than five times higher than the legal limit for driving!

A spokesperson for the university denied this was hazing and instead qualified it as an “alcohol incident,” but I have my doubts. If it were this simple, then why suspend the fraternity? In my experience, alcohol and fraternities go hand-in-hand. Am I now supposed to believe that a single incident of alcohol abuse is enough to warrant suspension of the entire chapter? Better yet, would any fraternities exist if this were standard procedure? Aside from honors or academic fraternities, that is.

The second hazing story occurred at La Puente High School in California. And I must warn you that what happened is a little graphic, so please stop reading if you are easily offended.

Several young soccer players ranging in age from 14-15 were the victims of hazing and sexual assault by as many as ten of their teammates. Basically, the gang cornered each of them in a back room, held them down and inserted poles into their rectums. Although this is horrifying enough, I was even more appalled to learn that their coach was aware this abuse and did nothing to stop it. And his office was almost next door to the room where the abuse took place! It’s also worth mentioning that when the coach saw his players luring one of their victims into the room, he winked at the kid. Is there any doubt he knew what was about to happen?

While I find both of these stories disturbing for different reasons, it is obvious that hazing still occurs far more than it should. I can understand why the fraternity incident happened because as I mentioned, I know how some of these organizations operate. And the fraternity guys I knew were always looking for ways to enhance or intensify their “buzz.” They used beer bongs, did keg stands and consumed more Jello shooters than I care to count. I don’t agree with their methods, but I’m also not shocked by them, either.

Soccer Field (Photo credit: Peter Ankerstål)

However, the incident at La Puente High School has to be one of the most offensive and frightening things I have heard in some time. Now that I’m a father, I find myself inserting my son into stories like these, at least as precautionary tales. He just started kindergarten and I must admit that relinquishing control of him to teachers and school administrators was not easy to do. I trust they will take care of him and make sure he remains safe, but there is always some level of doubt since no one will care for him like I do. The soccer coach in this story should have protected his players and intervened as soon as he learned of this abuse. Instead, he let it happen and even seemed to relish the fact it occurred. I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if one of the victim’s parents beat the ever-loving shit out of this guy because personally, I would do it in an instant. Hell, I would probably kick some of the players’ asses, too. And you better believe that a lawsuit against the school, the coach and everyone else involved would be filed immediately. Someone would pay the price.

Hazing may be illegal, but since when has that stopped anyone? Smoking marijuana is illegal and more people are doing it than ever before, so laws aren’t enough to protect us. We must protect each other so incidents like the ones mentioned here will no longer plague our society. Part of our responsibility is to educate everyone, including our children, about the potential dangers in the world, including hazing. The other part is to take action when things like this do occur so others won’t fall victim to them in the future.

So to all you coaches, teachers or other school officials out there who let hazing and even sexual assault happen to your students,  I have one piece of advice for you: watch your back. Because if you allow something like this to happen to my son, I will be visiting you very soon.

Do Your Thing

As part of our extended orientation program for freshmen, the college brought in a speaker to talk to them about success in both higher education and life. It wasn’t until I entered the dark auditorium—a few minutes after the show started—that I realized the speaker was actually a comedian. A funny and sometimes vulgar comedian, but he was definitely the right person to connect with young students. Most of the ones I know seem to enjoy profanity and adult humor, perhaps a little too much.

The comedian, David-something, spent quite a bit of time doing material that didn’t seem to mention college success—or even college at all—and he drew some suspicion from our Dean of Students. Fortunately, he quickly moved past his “warm up” and jumped right into the tips and advice. David even made things interactive by asking questions of the young and sometimes unruly audience, but this was soon interrupted by an insulting student remark.

It was during a stint on “work” and David had just asked a young woman about her worst job ever. Before she could respond, some jackass chimed in with “she was a whore” or something to that effect. The auditorium immediately went silent—David included—and a swarm of student orientation leaders descended on the section of seats where the comment originated. Moments later, the offending student was escorted out by the dean and orientation leaders stationed themselves up and down the aisles. Finally, the show could resume.

David started things up again, but the mood in the place was much more restrained for a while. Students finally loosened up and I could tell David was hitting his stride. All of his “advice” was good—consider the future, get involved, go to class—and he punctuated it with hilarious personal experiences. My favorite involved his first-year advisor, who scared the crap out of him by yelling questions at him the first day they met in his office—“Whose education is this? Whose future is this? Whose life is this?”  Incidentally, the expected response to each question was “mine” or even “mine, damn it.”

His advisor sounded like quite a character. In fact, I believe his name was Dr. Yoder. David made a few jokes about him being Yoda, but the “Star Wars” reference went over most students’ heads, much to my chagrin (I love Star Wars). At any rate, Dr. Yoder must have made an impression on David, who used the same exchange of questions with our students several times, even at the end of his presentation.

Of course, David also told us what his advisor said moments later, once they both sat down to chat. He asked David about his dream career, his passion, and David told him it was to make people laugh. That’s when Dr. Yoder dropped three little words on him that changed his life: do your thing.

I know it sounds like some catch phrase or song lyric from the 1970s—“It’s your thang! Do what you wanna do!”—but this is great and powerful advice.

DO YOUR THING

David talked about the decisions he made that inevitably led to him standing on the stage before us. He used college to sharpen his skills, choosing to major in theater and English, and to get some experience, acting in plays and doing stand-up during open mike nights. He followed his dreams and now does something that he loves for a living.

To illustrate this last point, David shared a story about famed inventor Thomas Edison. In his later life, Edison was to be honored with a lifetime achievement award for his work. He attended the ceremony and when the appropriate time came, refused to accept the award. “I never did a day’s work in my life,” he said. “It was all fun.”

Personally, I thought this was some of the best advice college students—especially college freshmen—could receive: do your thing, follow your passion and work won’t even seem like work. It can be fun and also successful, even financially successful. A little earlier in his bit, David mentioned how Bill Gates’ one regret was never finishing college. And this is a guy who makes millions of dollars each minute!

I hope our students learned something valuable from David and take his advice to heart. I know he made me think about whether or not I truly followed my passion. Don’t get me wrong. I love what I do, but am I really doing my thing? Better yet, are any of us?

It makes you wonder…

Prescription drug abuse down among young people

 

Adderall (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Fewer young adults abusing prescription drugs – The Chart – CNN.com Blogs.

A recent report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration shows that prescription drug abuse among young people aged 18-25 has dropped roughly 14% in the last year. In other words, 300,000 fewer young people are either abusing their own medications or popping pills that don’t belong to them.

As someone who works at a small private college and witnesses this kind of abuse regularly, I couldn’t be happier to hear about this downturn. And my hope is that 2012 will see an even sharper drop.

Prescription drug abuse has been a growing problem on many college and university campuses for as long as I can remember. At my school, most of this abuse centers upon medications used to treat Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), namely Ritalin and Adderall.

I was diagnosed with Adult ADD several years ago and have since taken a number of different medications, finally settling on Vyvanse, which seems to be working. Of course, I know exactly what these drugs can do, especially to people for whom they were not prescribed. Obvious side effects include appetite suppression, dry mouth and insomnia, all of which can be troublesome in their own way. However, things like increased heart rate, depression and anorexia are even more serious, and in some cases can be fatal.

Anorexia Nervosa (Photo credit: by Janine)

A college student who just stole Adderall from their roommate or bought some pills from a friend likely wouldn’t consider these potential risks. To them, it’s all about the buzz and the “concentration boost” the medication provides. And more often than not, these “abusers” use the drug as a substitute for motivation. It helps them focus enough to actually listen in class or to finish assignments they should have completed without the medication.

Students lucky enough not to experience serious side effects after taking ADD medications that don’t belong to them face another challenge: coping with college-level work when there is no drug to be had. In these instances, abusers now have to rely on their inherent skills and motivation to get them through. And if deficiencies in these areas first led them to the ADD drugs, then they may find themselves at even more of a disadvantage. Now they either have to adapt or find a new connection. Sadly, I fear most of them will opt for the latter.

Obviously, the abuse of ADD medication isn’t the only prescription drug issue among college students. They have also been known to abuse painkillers, which can be even more dangerous since some students combine them with alcohol. The news is filled with stories of young people, and even celebrities, who mixed pills and booze with deadly results. How many more have to die before people realize just how dangerous this can be?

Yes, prescription drug abuse among young people is declining, but we still have a long way to go. At this point, the best preventative measures seem to be information and persistence. We have to educate our youth about the dangers of prescription drug abuse and continue to drive our point home at every turn. Only then can we ensure our young people focus on what is most important: their future.