Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The Columbus Dispatch reports on day 5 of the Freshwater hearings. Part of that day was devoted to complaints from science teachers at the high school that students who had Freshwater in middle school had to be retaught basic science because Freshwater was really teaching creationism:
Mt. Vernon High School Principal Kathy Kasler testified that e-mails, teachers' comments and a teacher's surveys of her students showed that some 8th grade science students were being taught creationism, the religious belief that a deity created the universe.
More details:
Kasler received an e-mail in August from high school science teacher Bonnie Schutte reading in part:"Teaching creationism is illegal and the state Department of Education is looking for the names of schools who are allowing this to happen so that they can make an example of them."
On surveys given by Schutte students stated: "We learned different looks on evolution" and "I liked debating about creation and evolution."
"I find it extremely unfair to have to start each school year re-teaching students how science actually works," Scutte wrote. "Professionally, I'm very tired of this."
Kasler said she's known of complaints about Freshwater for about seven years, and that she asked the middle school to assign her daughter to another science teacher.
Now here's the punchline. Freshwater's attorney, the remarkably incompetent R. Kelly Hamilton, actually argued that the teacher didn't do enough to prevent Freshwater from violating the law:
Freshwater's attorney, R. Kelly Hamilton, asked Kasler how far she took her concerns about Freshwater. She said she advised other administrators, but didn't do more because Freshwater was not her employee."If she had problems with somebody, based on her years of experience, and her leadership training, she certainly could have taken further action," Hamilton concluded.
"You can't hold me responsible for doing X because you didn't do enough to prevent me from doing X." Brilliant legal strategy.
They also presented medical testimony on the danger of burning students with a Tesla coil:
Photographs of marks that Freshwater is accused of making on the arm of Zachary Dennis were analyzed by a Youngstown doctor, who called them "superficial second-degree burns."Dr. David Levy, chairman of emergency medicine at St. Elizabeth Health Center said that such burns can cause underlying damage and can be more dangerous to children, whose skin is thinner and moister than adults.
Levy also said that since electricity passes through arteries and nerves, "chaotic rhythms" of the heart could result.
Freshwater, who doesn't seem to have much of a grasp of reality, needs to come to terms with something: he's going to lose and lose badly. As he should.
Politics
Comments
It is absolutely amazing that this asshole fucktard wasn't fired long ago. Doesn't say much for the educational oversight in Mr. Vernon.
Posted by: SLC | November 9, 2008 9:53 AM
Frankly, the religion/creationism thing seem entirely irrelevant to the case. The guy burned one of his students! Surely that should be bad enough to get him thrown in jail, much less get him fired.
Posted by: Adrian W. | November 9, 2008 10:18 AM
It might be just me, but if I wanted to project the image of the squeaky clean defender of traditional values, I wouldn't want an attorney who goes by the name of "R. Kelly".
Posted by: DaveL | November 9, 2008 10:38 AM
Adrian, in all honesty, the effects of a Tesla coil are extremely limited and superficial, and I think it's worth the pedagogical value. I had a vaguely equivalent experience learning the right way to smell an unknown substance. I got to demonstrate the wrong way on a beaker of ammonia and reeled back choking and gagging. Not exactly good for me, but I volunteered and it didn't do me any lasting harm. And it sure left an impression!
I'm on the anti-Freshwater side, and I find the obsession with the "burn" embarrassing. Far worse things happen to someone's knee every gym class, and I think most students would prefer such a mark to any particular day's homework.
People spend money to buy small coils because they like the sensation produced; they're generally sold as "violet wand"s if you want to do a bit of googling.
We're not talking about Harry Potter's blood quill here.
Posted by: Stuart T. | November 9, 2008 10:46 AM
Freshwater should be fired for lying. He contradicted himself, therefore lied, is therefore unfit to teach, belief system notwithstanding.
In that vein, can't the teaching of Intelligent Design be forbidden in public schools for the simple reason that it is an inherently dishonest doctrine?
Posted by: Rod | November 9, 2008 10:55 AM
Stuart T. :
And if said knee injury were caused by the gym teacher repeatedly shoving students to the floor because they had a different favorite team? Would you still say that it is not an issue?
Being an atheist in Columbus, I have been following this story carefully since it broke. I don't care what side of the debate you are on. Willingly breaking the law, and knowingly and repeatedly causing harm to students in your charge is wrong, wrong, wrong.
If you choose to use such a device for pleasure, more power to ya. Personally, I prefer candle wax, but to each his own. An eighth grade classroom is NOT the place to experiment with kinks, and I am shocked that this man has not been brought up on endangerment charges.
Posted by: Rich Stage | November 9, 2008 11:08 AM
Having managed a union represented workforce, I can say that this can actually be a successful strategy. Unequal enforcement (or specific instances of non-enforcement) of the bargaining agreement by management has been used to win grievances. Is Freshwater's attorney being provided by his union? I would think this tactic is a commonly used tool for an attorney managing union cases.
Posted by: carlsonjok | November 9, 2008 11:10 AM
Stuart, he gave one of his students 2nd degree burns without warning.
He did so by incorrectly using a Tesla coil, not to make a point about safety, but just because.
There is a massive, massive, massive difference between a kid volunteering to be shown a (essentially) harmless mistake that you should not make and a kid being burnt with a religious symbol for no reason and without their consent.
Posted by: GDwarf | November 9, 2008 11:13 AM
Freshwater's really an ass,
who has balls made out of brass.
He thinks the kids learn
more when they burn.
We'll soon see that he's got no class.
Posted by: Rich Stage | November 9, 2008 11:25 AM
@Stuart
It doesn't take much to kill someone with electricity.
The chance of killing a kid with one is pretty miniscule, but it's still there.
That and he burned a symbol into a child's arm.
Had it been a pentagram, I imagine his supporters would be screaming for blood.
Posted by: JThompson | November 9, 2008 11:44 AM
Stuart T. wrote:
It may be a little overblown in that no, it wasn't a 3rd degree burn. But it is completely over the line to use lab equipment to burn students with religious insignia for "fun". I'm sure I don't need to tell you that, but even a small burn like this is so outrageous that it almost doesn't matter. Not only is it just plain creepy, but it's grossly irresponsible to teach students to experiment on themselves with lab equipment, especially lab equipment that could potentially be very dangerous.
The first lesson of any lab usually is "Don't fuck around with the equipment or chemicals." We can only be thankful that he didn't teach a chemistry lab, because the bastard probably would have been teaching the kids how to have fun swabbing themselves with sulfuric acid.
Posted by: Leni | November 9, 2008 12:39 PM
Ed: I hate to say this, but I think Carlsonjack has it right here. The key for me was when Freshwater admitted that he had burned hundreds of students, contradicting his many prior statements. Why would he do this, knowing that his credibility as a witness was about to plummet, not to mention that he was exposing himself to potential lawsuits from former students?
That was why I asked yesterday about the Hearing procedures in place. Had the charges against Freshwater been confined to the evens of School Year 2007-8, Freshwater is toast. But by broadening the window of review, he now has the defense that the School has condoned his actions and therefor he had no notice that he was doing anything wrong.
Like the O.J. prosecution, the School District's legal team is trying to prove too much, and it may kill their case. Almost all of the evidence from prior years is inadmissible un Court anyway, so why are they trying to introduce it now?
Freshwater should still be removed, but thanks to this hearing he now has a puncher's chance or keeping his pension, if not his job. Ed, I think you labeled the wrong side incompetent.
Posted by: kehrsam | November 9, 2008 1:39 PM
Doing physical harm (even "superficial" harm) to a student without his consent qualifies as assault, not pedagogy -- as a teacher, I'm the first to support firing anyone who practices otherwise. And for middle-schoolers, I would argue that even with consent this is unethical: students at that age are very much influenced by the teacher-student power relationship.
Posted by: Davis | November 9, 2008 1:52 PM
[quote] "If she had problems with somebody, based on her years of experience, and her leadership training, she certainly could have taken further action," Hamilton concluded.
"You can't hold me responsible for doing X because you didn't do enough to prevent me from doing X." Brilliant legal strategy. [/quote]
Ed, I interpreted the statement of the legal defense quite differently than you did. I interpreted it as "if what Freshwater was doing was really that bad, then you should/would have done something about it. That you didn't means that either 1) it wasn't that bad, or 2) you evaded your responsibilities. Now which is it?" I assume the emphasis would be on the former alternative - that it wasn't actually that bad.
Posted by: Ron Brown | November 9, 2008 2:11 PM
I teach physics and I can tell you first hand that a Tesla coil is a dangerous device. I got a shock from that thing and nearly collapsed; I had to be sent in an ambulance to the ER. My heart was OK, but my blood pressure fell so much that not much blood reached my brain.
I'm in my early 30s and in good health.
Freshwater is REALLY lucky that he didn't cause one of his students to faint or be sent to ER.
BTW, isn't deliberately burning school children an instance of child abuse? Freshwater should be facing criminal charges.
Posted by: Dave C | November 9, 2008 3:01 PM
kehrsam wrote
Except that there has been testimony from multiple people -- administrators and department chair -- that Freshwater has been warned repeatedly since 2002-2003 when his request to install the Intelligent Design Network's "Objective Origins Policy" was firmly rejected by the Board of Education.Once again, there were four general grounds cited for the Board's termination resolution: (1) insubordination in 2007-2008 with respect to not removing all the religious displays in his classroom and adding new religious materials after he'd been told to remove such material; (2) teaching creationist materials after he'd been told not to do so; (3) inappropriate behavior in his role as faculty monitor of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes; and (4) the Tesla coil incident, particularly in view of the corroborated testimony that religious symbols were being marked on kids' arms with it.
There's also testimony from both students and an adult that Freshwater's sworn testimony that he didn't use a particular creationist video in his science class is false, that he did use that video.
I agree that there was a fair amount of dithering and equivocation from previous administrations, but there's also testimony that he did get some warnings during that period and so can't plead complete ignorance.
Posted by: RBH | November 9, 2008 5:09 PM
That sounds like grounds for filing additional charges against the principal, etc., not for dismissing the case.
Posted by: Azkyroth | November 9, 2008 5:49 PM
Tesla coils are dangerous, period, and should be handled with great care. Perhaps during normal operation, deadly current is not usually available at the business end of some coils. But if that toroid sparks to anything carrying mains current, or to the high voltage side of the power supply, or bypasses the usually mains-current-rated insulation lightly coating the windings which forms the secondary, or to the primary windings which are often connected to a charged capacitor, etc., the arc will form a short to a source of current sufficient to kill. It is fairly unlikely that this will happen at the same time as an arc strikes a person, forming a short between the person and deadly current; but it has happened, causing death or injury to tesla coil demonstrators and tinkerers.
Tesla coils can also cause deep tissue burns as well as external burns. Sometimes without external evidence, as the current entering the body in a dispersed fashion may find a focused preferential path at the interface of meat and bone or at tissue boundaries.
All of this should be in the device's manual. All of this is readily available even if you don't have the manual. (not that such a device should be operated in a school without safety documentation directly available to the operator) Googling "tesla coil safety" seems to do the job nicely. Even without RTFM, one would assume that a science teacher should have some basic awareness of the dangers of electrical discharge through a child's body.
I really do hope that the court is confusing tesla coils with VanDegraff generators. (that would be one hell of a VDG, to burn someone!) Applying a tesla coil to anyone other than yourself is beyond reckless.
Posted by: John | November 9, 2008 6:39 PM
And yet, with their simple minds the fundies are boiling this whole story down to a single issue: they tried to take his bible away. They are trying to ignore everything else. I guess they can't hold on to more than one idea at a time.
Way back when I was in high school in Chicago the only people we knew that were even seen with a bible were protestants. Our school was almost 50% catholic. A teacher with a bible on his desk would clearly be seen as a threat.
Things have changed greatly since then but the bible is still a powerful symbol. For the fundie students in Freshwater's classes clearly said he is one of us.
Posted by: wrpd | November 9, 2008 6:58 PM
They can't hold any ideas that don't agree with their prejudices at any time. They are prejudiced in favor of Freshwater, therefore come hell or high water (fresh or otherwise) they will insist that this is all about the accusation that they will not be forced to acknowledge is legitimate. Or, at least, the one that others are least likely to consider legitimate, depending on which are idiots and which are dishonest little fucks.
Posted by: Azkyroth | November 9, 2008 7:26 PM
Kehrsam,
You misunderstand the nature of this administrative session. I don't know specifically how it works in Ohio law, but in the states where I have worked as an educator, the school district has to show that they made efforts to correct your behavior. They aren't detailing his previous incidents in order to add them to the grounds for removal, they are using them, and the documentation of efforts to correct his behavior as evidence that they did everything they were required to do in order to then be on stable ground to fire him.
In most states, I can be a crappy teacher. I wont be immediately fired, instead the administrators above me will make efforts to improve my teaching skills. They have to document those efforts, show that we met, that I was made aware of the fact that I needed to improve, and then, when I didn't improve, they could fire me (or not renew my contract). Basically that is what the school district is doing, they aren't holding criminal proceedings to provide more evidence of wrong doing, they aren't attempting to show more evidence of what he did wrong to further prove he should be fired. They are providing evidence of their efforts to correct Freewater's documented failings to prove that they did everything required by law in order to go ahead and fire him.
The attorney might be knowledgeable in union law, but he apparently doesn't know educational law very well. He is actually helping them prove the case that they made every effort to retrain and remediate him and that it failed.
Posted by: dogmeatib | November 9, 2008 7:59 PM
Legally speaking, Freshwater battered the student when he burnt his arm, no matter how medically serious the burn was. That is an intentional tort and it is generally irrelevant that Freshwater got away with burning other students and it is a separate legal question whether the school's management was negligent in allowing Freshwater to behave so ludicrously for so long. Unlike a union contract case in which management's conduct may be construed as a modification of a previous agreement, an intentional tort will be found when the tortfeasor (Freshwater) intended to act (he didn't accidentally touch the coil to the student) and that act caused a legally recognized harm. And the violation of one's bodily integrity is recognized by the vast majority of jurisdictions as a harm. It does not matter how physically damaging the touching is - although if there's no real injury, the court could find a merely declaratory judgment in favor of the plaintiff or throw the case out. In the Freshwater case, however, the injury probably goes beyond 2nd degree burns to emotional distress (a separate tort in some jurisdictions, but always valid as a parasite on other tort claims).
The real question is what sort of remedy the court will find to be appropriate (which is proportional to the severity of the injury) and whether Freshwater violated any further statutes or Constitutional provisions. Personally, I think a public school teacher burning crosses into kids' arms pretty much violates Establishment Clause jurisprudence, and the school's management, if it's found to have overlooked Freshwater's abusive kookery, should face severe consequences.
Posted by: Fallucination | November 9, 2008 8:05 PM
Stuart T wrote :-
"the effects of a Tesla coil are extremely limited and superficial"
Sure - all the RFI, EMI and plasma's - so good for growing children.
I once took my daughter to the Tesla museum and a guy offered to demonstrate a Tesla coil for us - NO THANKS.
If you thought a cell phone was bad.
Posted by: Chris P | November 9, 2008 9:11 PM
You'd be laughed out of the room.
Posted by: Azkyroth | November 9, 2008 10:54 PM
It's not the place of a colleague to discipline another colleague. The other teacher did right by informing his superiors that they needed to speak to him.
Posted by: Monado | November 10, 2008 12:25 AM
"Teaching creationism is illegal and the state Department of Education is looking for the names of schools who are allowing this to happen so that they can make an example of them."
Of course it's illegal. It's freakin idiotic!
Where are we, back in the cave man times or something? What a dumb religiom that guy has.
Posted by: 386sx | November 10, 2008 2:08 AM
kersham:
So Freshwater's basic argument is, "I didn't realize that burning a child was wrong until someone pointed it out to me, I'm the stupidest person ever to walk the face of the earth, please give me my teaching job back."
Is the state of Ohio so packed with idiots that such madness actually has a chance to fly? Though I guess I shouldn't talk, being in Georgia.
Posted by: phantomreader42 | November 10, 2008 4:36 PM
Freshwater is toast, there's no doubt
And we all should be glad that he's out
Of the classroom, and soon
We will all see the loon
With no job, no appeal, and a pout.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | November 10, 2008 10:01 PM
I fail to see why this teacher's lesson plans are at issue here (ridiculous as they are). I thought he'd been sacked because he burnt a child.
Would it make a difference if the abusive teacher were a Hindu? Or a Buddhist? Or a Pagan? Of course not! So, why is his Christian belief an issue? An abuser is an abuser, whatever his colour, creed or religious superstition.
Whatever this idiot's religious beliefs are is totally irrelevant, he abused a child in his care. End of bloody story.
Posted by: Alchemist | November 12, 2008 3:58 AM
BTW, can anyone tell me why this man wasn't criminally prosecuted? I'm pretty sure if I were to purposely burn a child, I'd be seeing the inside of a police cell sometime in the very near future.
Posted by: Alchemist | November 12, 2008 4:07 AM