Teacher Fired After Joking About Stabbing Her Students

An NYC teacher has learned the hard way that joking about inflicting bodily harm on her students is no laughing matter.

via NY Daily News

A New York City teacher got so frustrated with the rowdy students at the back of her classroom that she fantasized out loud about stabbing them.
Investigators heard that Jacqueline Baffoni, 32, kept a knife for slicing fruit in her desk drawer. When her eighth-grade children wouldn’t stop talking, Ms Baffoni said: ‘I feel like stabbing some of these kids – I have a knife here.’

The teacher had been warned just a day earlier that her probation period might not be extended at the Collaborative Academy of Science Technology and Language Arts on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and she was fired in June 2012.

A second student told the SCI that the teacher reacted to students’ bad behavior by saying: ‘I have a knife in this room, and I wish I could stab them!’

Ms Baffoni sent an email to the Post defending herself from what she describes as ‘false allegations’ and ‘slanderous rumors.’

She claims she was highly dedicated to her students and that: ‘I would never wish to cause harm to any of my children.’

It’s widely known that teachers have one of the most challenging jobs ever, but joking or not, does that excuse this teacher’s behavior? Let’s discuss.

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