Teacher with rabbit phobia to sue 14-year-old for drawing bunny

Teacher with rabbit phobia to sue 14-year-old for drawing bunny
A teacher with a phobia over rabbits is suing a 14-year-old pupil for compensation after she drew a bunny on the blackboard.


Published: 3:02PM BST 30 Apr 2010

The teacher, from Vechta, Germany, says she was traumatised by the drawing, and claims the girl knew it would terrify her.

She had transferred to the school where a pupil from her former school had just become a pupil and told her new friends about the teacher's fear of rabbits.


"We did it for fun and out of curiosity", one of the girls told a court, adding, "We wanted to see if she would really freak out."

School officials removed her from the class and now the teacher is seeking compensation for her terror and her loss of earnings, her lawyer Manfred Bormann told the court.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/7657569/Teacher-with-rabbit-phobia-to-sue-14-year-old-for-drawing-bunny.html

Bunny, swastika, it's all the same....

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http://hubpages.com/hub/When-Bunnies-Attack-What-To-Do-When-Your-Rabbit-Bites&usg=__nWkGVidabO4AD6vcEiCLENArZpU=&h=201&w=260&sz=7&hl=en&start=8&itbs=1&tbnid=T7tgYgQO1sj8HM:&tbnh=87&tbnw=112&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dattack%2Brabbit%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1


I remember a bunny around here that had a pancake on his head, but I never see him anymore. :shrug: I forgot how to do pics here, and also can't remember if I know how to find him in my pics. :shrug:

Or, is she afraid of drawings of rabbits?
IMHO, this woman does not belong in a classroom.

I'm sorry, but even as someone who has various phobias (simple and agoraphobia), I have little sympathy with someone who thinks one, or a classful, of 14 year old kids aren't going to ACT like 14 year old kids (i.e. incredibly stupid and mean) is ridiculous.

Simple phobias are relatively easy to treat. If her life is THAT affected by her fear of rabbits, then she needs to do something about it.

Because the rabbits are us, Donnie.

Time to re-release Night of the Lepus. The 40-year search for someone who'll scream instead of giggle is at long last over.

And a great introduction to opera -- I have a friend who does opera presentations at libraries and she always shows this.

http://vodpod.com/watch/9316-whats-opera-doc



BTW, I actually own Night of the Lepus (it's a long story).

i have never heard that before.

For instance, I have a fear of open spaces. If I see an image on TV showing an open space (like on the ocean or out in the desert, etc.) I can have a bad reaction, depending on how high my anxiety already is.

Same thing with a photo.

But a drawing? Done by a 14 year old on a chalkboard? No...even though my fear of open spaces is quite severe.

Of course, that doesn't mean someone with a fear of birds or snakes or rabbits won't become panicky looking at a drawing of their feared object. But anyway, it is possible.

Even if someone drew one. Down she went. It was real.

Don

... what?

From where I sit, that's basically a child.

and children are often rather stupid and very mean.


I remember how kids were when I was that age...

I could see having a phobia of snakes or sharks, something that could kill you fairly easy. But the most a rabbit could do is nibble at your toes.

or afraid to leave the house?
or afraid of being in a crowd?
or afraid of thunder?
or afraid of germs?
or afraid of injections?

etc., etc. Phobias are by definition irrational fears.

Being afraid of spiders to me is an understandable irrational fear to have because some spiders, including ones that are very small and hard to see, can be quite deadly. Being in a crowd is another I can understand. I myself, when younger, was nearly trampled. I just can't see having a fear of rabbits. Unless there has been an up ticking of rabbit attacks in the last couple of years that I am not aware of. :D

Of course in all seriousness I understand many irrational fears can come from traumatic events suffered as a child. So perhaps this woman had a very bad encounter with a rabbit when she was younger and that may have scared her for life. Of course just typing that made me crack up and :rofl: Sorry I can't help it.

Without fear, we, as a species, would not survive.

It's when fear gets out of hand, or misplaced, that the problems start.

You can tell a phobic till you're blue in the face that their fear is "irrational", but it won't do any good. We already KNOW the fear is irrational.

We suffer guilt and shame and disgust with ourselves for being afraid of things most people aren't.

Guilt and shame and disgust then get turned around and fed right back into the irrational fear and make the whole thing even worse.

If you really want to learn about why someone would be afraid to leave the house or not want to touch a snake or any of the hundreds of other phobias there are, I would suggest picking up a book and reading about it instead of telling phobics something we already know...that the fear is "irrational".

I can't even be pissed off at people who don't understand because there is no rhyme or reason to it. What DOES piss me off is people who don't understand and don't care to educate themselves. I really hope you're not that type.

They've got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses.
And what's with all the carrots?
Why do they need such good eyesight anyway?

(From the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq0ucPNX_L8&feature=related)

"Woah, he'll do you up a treat."

Bunnyphobia is a very serious problem for those afflicted by it. And when a student deliberately draws a bunny picture on the blackboard of a teacher afflicted by this terrible condition, that should be treated even more seriously than when a kid happens to wear red, white and blue on a Mexican holiday.

Drawing bunnies on blackboards to scare teachers.... wearing American Flag T-shirts on non-US holidays.... I don't know what's gotten into kids today.

This student is nothing more than a terrorist. Just like Osama Bin Laden, except that she draws bunny pictures instead of hijacking airliners and flying them into buildings. And she doesn't have a beard.

to phobic teachers. There is a pestilence upon our land. Nothing is sacred anymore.

subtle :P

show her that doing something to cause pain in someone else isn't ok

Just as in 1984 Winston Smith's greatest fear was rats, this teacher's greatest fear is bunnies. This kid created her very own "Room 101" to torture the poor teacher, just like O'Brien exposed Winston Smith to rats to make him betray Julia. (Except that the rats would have eaten Smith's face and the bunny was just a picture. But it was probably still a terrifying and horrific experience).

Just as people with physical disabilities should not be precluded from professions like teaching, neither should bunnyphobes. Just remember... "first they came for the bunnyphobes, and I said nothing because I wasn't afraid of bunnies...." you know the rest.

The kids should be compensated for having to deal with a loony teacher.

He might be the only director I'd trust with a film on this subject.

school teacher might, in the course of study, or in the library component, or in the school's art wing, encounter images of animals on a fairly regular basis, including rabbits.

Drawing bunnies with malicious intent. Is that going to hold up in a German court?