If you were on Twitter this weekend then you definitely heard about “Bean Dad”.
Bean Dad, who is actually named John Roderick, went on Twitter this past weekend to boast about how he bullied his 9-year-old daughter because she didn’t know how to use a can opener.
If you haven’t read this Twitter thread yet, you have to. It will kind of infuriate you at the cockiness of this guy.
So, yesterday my daughter (9) was hungry and I was doing a jigsaw puzzle so I said over my shoulder “make some baked beans.” She said, “How?” like all kids do when they want YOU to do it, so I said, “Open a can and put it in pot.” She brought me the can and said “Open it how?”
— john roderick (@johnroderick) January 2, 2021
Of course everyone took their shots at them, including actual teachers who had some good teaching strategies for the seemingly happy bean dad.
Teacher here.
1. Kids learn best when they aren’t hungry.
2. Everyone learns differently and different approaches (eg. A guiding hand) are helpful, especially if/when someone’s struggling.
3. When a child is frustrated to the point of tears, you’ve lost your teachable moment.
— Apoxon (@apoxon) January 3, 2021
And of course everyone with a wifi connection went back and checked all of his tweets to find his controversial tweets. People called him out for racism, homophobia, and anti-semitism.
Roderick quickly deleted his Twitter account after this.
Funny enough, Jeopardy star Ken Jennings has a podcast with Bean Dad! Jennings came to Roderick’s aide.
If this reassures anyone, I personally know John to be (a) a loving and attentive dad who (b) tells heightened-for-effect stories about his own irascibility on like ten podcasts a week. This site is so dumb.
— Ken Jennings (@KenJennings) January 3, 2021
What a weird world we live in.
So if you didn’t know about Bean Dad…
Now you do! Congrats!!