A kindergarten teacher in Georgia has stirred controversy after presenting one of her students with the "Bermuda Triangle Award," honoring the student's desk -- or "the place where things go in but never come back out," Barrow Patch reports.
Upon receiving the award, the County Line Elementary School student cried and asked to go home, according to her mother Sherry Hatcher. In response, the principal gave the student a new award for a good year in kindergarten.
"But the hurt was still there," Hatcher said. "I just wanted to get the word out that this is a shame and let other parents know that this is not right. The teachers should be teaching her to be clean and neat as I do at home."
"Neither the school nor the system condoned or approved the award, no matter what spirit it was given in," McMichael told Barrow Patch. "I truly don’t believe the teacher meant any embarrassment or harm, but it is not something we should ever see again."
Yet McMichael's consolations may not be enough. One Barrow Patch commenter using the name "Sherry Hatcher" wrote the following:
"My baby will not be a barrow county dropout ..as we have moved out of barrow county just last week and she will now be going to the schools I went to as a child Jackson county ..she is doing very well as this time has passed we have discussed that this was not her fault and she is happy thanks."
The incident at County Line Elementary is not unique. Last spring, Debbie Hayes, a teacher at Bowers Elementary School in Roane County, Tenn., was suspended for one day without pay after allegedly telling her kindergarteners to surround and "oink" at the messiest student in the class.
Hayes reportedly told the student multiple times to clean up his act before exclaiming, "Your area looks like a pig sty. Oink. Oink."
Just last month, Cassandra Garcia, an 8-year-old student in Tucson, Ariz., was upset by a "Catastrophe Award" granted by her teacher for Cassandra being the one with the "most excuses for not having homework."
The student was given the award despite having a folder full of completed assignments, the girl's mother Christina Valdez said.