The Way It Was

The Way It Was

In the year 2000....I arrived on schedule to pick up my young child from the school, however I usually allowed extra minutes before the final bell.  So it was 3:05 in the hot afternoon.  I walked over to the drinking fountain.  I noticed off to my left a strange and unusual sight before my eyes:  8 small children, both boys and girls, 2 white females, 1 black female, 1 asian male, 2 hispanic males, 2 while males; all around the first or second grade level...all sitting or some standing out in the full hot sun on the hot tar asphalt playground at the tether and basketball area, I repeat, in the full hot afternoon sun.  

They were squirming around like slow cooked worms in a fry pan.  There was no teacher supervising them.  I could see they were painfully and extremely uncomfortable on the hot asphalt and in that full hot sun.  One little white boy kept smacking the little black girl hard on the head.  One little hispanic boy kept laughing and forcring her to keep in the way of the little white boy that was hitting her.  One little white girl, dressed in a thin fabric blouse and pants, found it impossible to find a spot that was not burning hot.  She was crying miserably and in obv ious pain.  I could not believe what I  was seeing.  This was supposed to be a public school and these were the school children.  And this was their treatment?  I wondered what was going on.

Now off to my right was a class outside in session gathered around tether ball poles.  There were maybe 15-20 of these students between 6 and 7 years old.  There was a teacher with them.  Apparently he was the teacher, and he was punishing the separated 8 children by putting them on the hot asphalt in the hot sun.  The children the teacher was working with were in half sunlight and half shade.  They were all standing upright.

I got my drink of cool water, walked left towards the 8 children in the sun.  I looked off to the right toward the Bruite and the main buildings.  Standing beneath the shade of the halls were four teachers starring out at the 8 children suffering in the hot sun.  I thought that was strange, that they were "teachers" watching or allowing children to suffer these conditions.
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I bent over placing my hand flat onto the surface of the sizzling hot asphalt.  Instantly my skin burnt and I recoiled in pain.  I could have incurred 2nd or 1st degree burns from the asphalt, had I let my hand sizzle longer.  The sun, hot on my head can cause brain damage from excessive temperature or heat radiation.  That much heat can dehydrate a body within minutes, especially a small sized body that weights only 40 or 50 pounds.  Dehydration also can cause irritability and various forms of aggression.  Therefore the punishment these teachers were giving the school children was making their behavior worse, not better.

I just had a drink of water.  I was fine.  I could walk out of the hot sun, without recourse.  I did not have to place my bare skin or my fragile non-heat resistant clothing on the hot tar.

I tested the surface of the hot tar again, I asked the little black girl if it was too hot, she looked up her eyes pleading mercy and said, "yes, mamam, it is..."  then the bell rang.  I waited for my school child.  I went to his teacher and asked her professional opinion.  She said she agreed with me and sent me to seek the school principal and make a more formal assertion.  I did this.  The principal said she would take care of it.  I do not know if she ever did.

My school age child told me they had done this to him and others as well.

Personally, I believe that the P.E. teacher who put all these children on the hot tarmac needs to be sanctioned for his methods of punishment due to a lack of consideration for the health and well being of the childre.  In addition to sitting the 8 children on the hot tarmac, after it was over he did not even allow them to get a drink of water, and instead he continued to compound his already cruel and abusive punishment by reprimanding the children for wiggling, getting up to run around and escape the hot asphalt, and hitting on each other.  I consider the P.E teachers methods to be cruel and unusual punishment based on the fact of my observation of making them sit on the sizzling hot tarmac in the heat of the sun for over 25 minutes.  This is excessive for a 6 or 7 year old child.

Perhaps the school was thinking of making the punishment so bad that it forces the children to want to do good to avoid the pains of the punishment again.  However when a teacher mades a judgement and the well being or health of the child is placed in serious jeopardy, then that teacher himself needs severe discipline sanctions and a reprimand....parents are taught to trust the system...but when the system fails, we need to speak up and see changes made that give providence to our children so that they are encouraged to learn.

This was in the year 2000...in the State of Nevada...where the sun is very hot.