My favorite middle school teacher was just charged with sexual abuse of a student, and a search of his home in Rockville "turned up a pipe that appeared to be a bomb, explosives, handcuffs, chloroform, mace, pepper spray, torn pictures of children in the garbage and a handgun." Joe Ballmann has been suspended from his position at Robert Frost Middle School, where he began teaching in 1996 after leaving Westland Middle School.
In seventh grade English class at Westland, Mr. Ballmann would play Devo's "Whip It" and crack a whip while we edited each others' essays. When the song was over, you passed the paper you just edited to the classmate behind you, and the process started over. The idea was to "whip" our writing into shape. Once, after we read a short story about two boys who used a pole to jump from the roof of one building to another, Mr. Ballmann arranged two tall file cabinets about three feet apart and placed a pole across the tops of each. Every student climbed up one file cabinet and used the pole to clamber over to the other cabinet, to experience the boys' sense of fear and adrenaline rush. He also used to tell us stories from when he was a cab driver in New York City.
A parent was quoted by NBC saying: "My daughter had him and absolutely adored him. She thought he was the greatest. All the kids loved him as a teacher. I'm as shocked as everybody else."
This is so very sad.
Friday, May 4, 2007
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3 comments:
i had him too.... it is sad... ppl were crying at skool when i was on the band trip... sum1 called from skool...
Hi Catherine,
Sorry to hear that. It must be a really confusing time for students at Frost. It's been ten years since I had Mr. Ballmann and I'm feeling pretty weirded out, so I can't even imagine how his current students feel.
Take care, and good luck with final exams and whatever else you have to take care of before summer!
Ginger
Mr. Ballmann was always a fantastic teacher to every person in my family. With two of my older siblings having Mr. Ballmann as a teacher, I had heard fantastic stories of his teachings and when seventh grade started I was thrilled to see Mr. Ballmann's name on my schedule for English. Throughout the year, I had the most wonderful learning experience that I have ever experienced in all of my years of schooling.
When the news came out, honestly, I was not too surprised, but still a little disappointed. Funny enough, my mother who worked at Frost for a little bit at the front desk went to Mr. Domergue (the principal at the time) and sat him down at the time (about 8 or so years ago) and told him something along the lines of 'this is going to happen, if not now, then later, but it is going to happen'. Almost uncanny on how she's right. Still, I hold Mr. Ballmann in the highest regards among teachers.
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