A Milan schoolteacher lost her job after slashing a seven-year-old student's tongue with a pair of scissors to punish him for talking too much, the Education Ministry announced on Tuesday. "Faced with such grievous actions there is only one possible response: zero tolerance," Education Minister Giuseppe Fioroni said in a statement.
Holding a pair of scissors in her hand, the 22-year-old teacher apparently told a boy to "Stick out your tongue so I can cut it. That way you'll stop talking!" before proceeding to slash his tongue so badly that he needed five stitches, the Il Corriere della Sera newspaper reported.
According to the Ansa news agency, the teacher admitted to threatening the boy with scissors, but insisted that she unintentionally cut him after he unexpectedly jerked his head.
| While the scissors just happened to be poised at his tongue. |
"The chief education officer in the [Milan] region has, in agreement with the minister, decided to begin dismissal procedures against the teacher with immediate effect," the Education Ministry said in a statement, adding that the woman had already been suspended. "The hundreds of thousands of serious teachers in the Italian education system do not deserve to be discredited by a few irresponsible" educators, Fioroni said. |