Teacher Suspended for Nearly a Year for Letting Students Eat Cinnamon

After nearly a year of suspension, a
high-school cooking teacher who let several students eat cinnamon
has been cleared to return to the classroom. Let’s just get this
out of the way up front: These events took place at New Dorp High
School. NEW DORP HIGH SCHOOL. Okay. At New Dorp High School, in the
New Dorp area of Staten Island, teacher Matthew Hayes has been
collecting a paycheck all year while the New York City Department
of Education investigates his cinnamon-related crimes. 

The issue stems from a culinary-arts class lesson on using
spices in cooking. As part of it, Hayes’ students were invited to
taste several spices, including cinnamon and cocoa powder. One
student asked if they could do a “cinnamon
challenge“—a popular teen meme in 2013, in which people film
themselves attempting to swallow a whole teaspoon of ground
cinnamon, with no liquid, in under 60 seconds—but Hayes said no,
according to an Education Department report
obtained by the Staten Island Advance. 

He told investigators that he was aware of the YouTube
challenge, but that the lesson was “not at that level.” He said one
student asked whether they could do the “cinnamon challenge” and he
advised the student it was a “bad idea because cinnamon absorbs
moisture, and that it had the “consistency of baby powder.”

Eventually, Hayes permitted three students to each try
swallowing a half-teaspoon of the spice. He provided the students
with water, and no one timed the “challenge” or captured it on
video. And everyone ended up just fine. “Two of the students
swallowed the spice after letting it melt in their mouth,”
according to the Advance, “while a third spit out the
cinnamon into a trash can in the room.” 

It sounds like Hayes probably helped dissuade his students from
trying the cinnamon challenge on their own. He showed them in a
safe, controlled idea environment that swallowing a bunch of
cinnamon at once is really gross—a valuable life and culinary
lesson! But for this, an anonymous snitch reported Hayes to school
authorities. He was placed on leave in November 2013, when the city
Education Department’s Office of Special Investigations began
looking into the incident. Investigators ultimately reprimanded
Hayes but cleared him to the classroom when school opens on
September 4 this year.