John Freshwater Update
Posted on May 12th, 2008 by blue collar scientistI’ve previously posted about John Freshwater, the teacher at a Mt. Vernon, Ohio school who is accused of mutilating students by burning religious imagery into their flesh. Yesterday, Blake Stacey left a comment to that post pointing out a new story in the Columbus Dispatch, which has more details about the allegations.
The tool a student says his science teacher used to burn a cross on his arm comes with a warning: Never touch or come in contact with the high voltage output of this device.
When the boy’s parents complained, administrators at Mount Vernon Middle School told John Freshwater, the school’s eighth-grade science teacher, to lock up or remove the BD-10A High Frequency Generator from the classroom. About the same size and shape as a power screwdriver, its tip puts out up to 50,000 volts of electricity.
Science teachers use the generator to ionize gases in a test tube so that students can identify them by their glowing colors.
When I made my original posting, I was struggling to think of what kind of “electric shock machine” (that’s the phrase used in the story I quoted at the time) could have been at issue here. I must have gotten hung up on the idea that the machine was made for the purpose of administering electrical shocks - I had electroshock therapy devices and all kinds of other, stranger things going through my head. But the Dispatch story identifies exactly what was used - and it is something I’ve used myself.
It is basically a Tesla coil, packaged up in a nice, convenient flashlight-like enclosure. They are used industrially to test for pinhole leaks and to test welds, but if you have a very rarified gas inside a glass container, you can use it to ionize the gas and cause it to give off pretty colors. The principle is exactly the same as the neon sign advertising Alaskan Amber at your local pub1, and this application of the device is often used to demonstrate ionization states and excitation emission in a physics class. If you’ve used this kind of device for instructional purposes, you will certainly have noticed the smell of ozone surrounding its use.
I have used this device instructionally, and in a moment of carelessness, I once burned myself with one. My forearm made contact with the electrode of the device for about half or three-quarters of a second - this necessarily being an estimate. This experience wasn’t too painful at the time, on the order of getting a good strong static shock after shuffling your feet on the carpets. But it did leave one hell of a welt that got more and more painful over the course of the next three or four days. My recollection is that the small wound stayed painful for a week or so. Eventually the welt that was raised went down, scabbed over, and after about two weeks, the scab fell off. I had a red mark that persisted for about two or three months. It was by no means a pleasant experience. But it wasn’t all that severe; I’m a grown-up and I can take the consequences of my own brief clumsiness.
The issue here is whether middle school children should be forced to endure the same experience by an adult who has been given power over them. And the answer is obviously no.
The maker of the device is quoted in the article as saying:
“We have instructions to warn people that it’s not a toy,” said Cuzelis, who owns Electro-Technic Products in Chicago. “If this device is directed for seconds (on the skin), that’s a clear misuse of the product.”
He also points out that he’s not heard of severe injuries caused by the device, which I can readily understand, because when I got in touch with the business end of this thing, I dang near threw it across the classroom from my reflexive reaction to the pain. They’ve never been sued over its use, and I’d say that’s a result of the device being straightforward to use, sensibly designed, and clearly labeled with a warning not to use it on skin or flesh.
The Dispatch article says that the investigation the school is undertaking will be finished by the end of this month. The school has apparently already acknowledged that Freshwater was in possession of the device he is accused of using to burn students; the principal wrote a letter warning Freshwater not to shock students with the device in January, following a December 10, 2007 complaint from a parent. Freshwater has hired a lawyer and refuses to talk about the allegations.
I’m looking forward to learning the results of this investigation at the close of May.
- If you can’t get Alaskan Amber at your local pub, don’t despair. Really. [↩]
Tags: child abuse, John Freshwater, Mt. Vernon, Mt. Vernon Ohio, teacher
May 12th, 2008 at 6:03 am
I would like to have been in that classroom to see that happen. The worst laboratory disaster I witnessed — I was, in part, responsible — involved fruit flies. . . .
May 12th, 2008 at 6:10 am
I should add that John Pieret found the story first and fortuitously mentioned it in a post which also happened to link to my site.
May 12th, 2008 at 10:29 am
As long as the issue remains the actions of the teacher, not the device. When we remove all of the potentially dangerous devices from the school science lab it would be a rather meaningless lab.
May 13th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
LOL @ footnote 1.
June 23rd, 2008 at 4:21 pm
You missed a few points.
First, the device is harmless. The single kid’s parents who complained did so months later, saying their kid had pain the first night. But none of the other parents had a problem. Multiple kids volunteered for fun, after Freshwater demonstrated on himself. There were no welts but a marking that went away in a few weeks, not months. Finally, Freshwater did the demo every year (both himself and kid volunteers) for a long time and nobody objected. The school had to have known about it for years as well. Lack of objection indicates consent.
What’s going on is that the school board needed to find something to beef up its excuses to fire him. The reason it wanted to fire him was his being a pain in the neck because he kept mentioning creationism in the classroom - although they had no complaints in his dossier, indicating if they told him to stop, it was only verbally.
I have no religious belief but think the religious should be tolerated. The board should have negotiated with this guy (over creationsim), a 21-year teacher, rather than firing him.
Here’s a document from the outside HR firm hired by the school board. I think it biased, but it’s a start.
http://www.newarkadvocate.com/assets/pdf/BF111077620.PDF
http://www.dispatch.com/wwwexportcontent/sites/dispatch/local_news/stories/2008/06/19/Freshwater.pdf
The Tesla complaint is entirely bogus. Science teachers used to do that often decades ago. BFD.
The guy’s being railroaded because he’s a religious nutter. The board should have the honesty to say so and keep exaggerated “branding” accusations out of it.
June 23rd, 2008 at 4:26 pm
From the HR report links above, about the device:
Nothing here about throwing it across the room. Oh, and nothing like the hysteria of other sites saying the device could cause death.
June 24th, 2008 at 2:01 am
One more detail: Now we know the reason only the one kid in years had any physical problem because of the marking.
The parents admitted the reason he had some pain that one night is that right after the marking he went and put (sports?) equipment on right over the marking, irritating it.
Oppose the teacher’s religiosity if you will, but leave the Tesla coil out of it.
The school politics is one thing - whether or not he was insubordinate in mentioning religion, what mention if any of religion is permissible - but I instinctively dislike trumped-up charges like the Tesla coil bit. Harmless. Let’s not encourage the already-strong public suspicion of scientific stuff they don’t know.
And the repetition of high-frequency, high-voltage by the general press is annoying, as if those are inherently dangerous. Current is a better criterion for danger.
Stop using the coil that way? Okay. The kids can learn science without the marking, and there’s nothing wrong with accommodating parental fear. Sure, be cautious, stop the marking demo. But that’s it. Don’t crucify the teacher for the demo, a bogus problem. Curcify him for the resl reason - he taught creationism. But let’s stay honest.