Pajamas Media

86 Comments

1. CaptDMO:

Gee, was either one spanked for their undesireable behavior?
Not to worry, you see, with “new rules”
mandating “official” kindergarten financed by ALL taxpayers, the gum’mint will move right in
to fix this, just like they handle female Statutory rapist teachers, and weed out the incompetent one’s that belong to unions in big cities.

Expect more lower school “resource” experts, with “social” science degrees, to be dispensing the lifetime stigma of mind altering “control” drugs upon 5 year old citizens. At least as long as the current Speaker of the House has the audacity to continue citing “It’s For The Children”(tm)
with a straight face.

Jun 4, 2008 - 2:03 am 2. Alice Roddy:

I read somewhere that the child to staff ratio averages 9 to 1 but that most of them are not in the classroom. If we simply moved people from whatever they are doing now to being with kids, a teacher could have someone with whom to share burdens and in front of whom they would want to behave. No one is going to have great rapport with every student but with more adults per child, you increase the odds of good relationships.

Jun 4, 2008 - 4:41 am 3. Charlie (Colorado):

No, not an aberration, except for being reported. Or at least it wouldn’t have been when I was in school, just kids didn’t have recorders handy.

Jun 4, 2008 - 5:06 am 4. Cindy Sue Causey:

Wow, cool article.. Seriously.

Pajamas Media, be very proud of this one..

Cyber hugs from North Georgia..

Jun 4, 2008 - 6:23 am 5. Rosie:

I first saw this behavior from my 24 year olds kindergarten teacher. The teachers are taught to assign the role of enforcer to a “bully” in the class that they can control. Your typical brown noser type of child. Once the teacher has established a pecking order with the children, she sets a pattern that will be very hard to break as long as all the children stay together at the same school. Of course, children with disabilities i.e. autism do not go along with her plan and therefore is very frustrating to her or him - hence the abuse. In fact, I think the kindergarten teachers are the most important person in establishing this order and that the entire school is complicit in this abuse. They love to assign roles to children and determine outcomes (success or failure) from the outset. If you want to fix our education system - you can start by retraining kindergarten teachers.

Jun 4, 2008 - 6:28 am 6. Mommynator:

There are so many problems in schools and with teachers that one could write a book.

However, here are some of my observations, working with kids in a sleep lab.

Many children who are diagnosed (misdiagnosed) with ADD/ADHD have sleep apnea. Studies have been conducted showing that once sleep apnea is treated, either by tonsillectomy and/or adenoidectomy, or CPAP if they are old enough, those odd ADD/ADHD behaviors “disappear”.

Many children that come into the sleep lab who are uncontrollable by the parents are easily made cooperative by our sleep technicians. One would have to conclude that there is a deficiency, not in the child, but in the parenting if total strangers could get this child to behave long enough to have medical things done to him/her.

And isn’t the liberal mantra that we’re supposed to be accepting of differences? So instead of humiliating this child, why could not the other children in the classroom have been taught compassion, a little wisdom, and a few methods of dealing with this child’s disruptive behavior? What a chance to humanize a bunch of 5-year-olds!

There is so much more that could be said, but one is speechless in the face of such parental and teacher stupidity.

Jun 4, 2008 - 6:32 am 7. danski:

This is communist reforming the minds of the very young. Stand up the nonconformist that will not tow the party line and throw every insult to show him how bad he is. They are getting the children ready to reeducate us older Americans.

Jun 4, 2008 - 6:37 am 8. Mark:

Don’t pick on the kids - beat the dumbass parents and administrators that put them in those classrooms!

This is public school - everyone should get a chance at an education. The classrooms can not revolve around one or two individuals who are exempt from civil behavior. It is unfair that the other children in the classroom and teachers to have to suffer bad behavior from a few. And the public should not have to pay for individual instruction for those problem children.

The reason our schools have so many problems are 1) children with too much self-esteem supported by 2) parents that unreasonably expect that all activities and curriculum be modified for their spawn and 3) administrators that grow their position not by solving problems but by creating and nuturing problems that lead to more administrative intervention.

The teachers in both of these cases are doing the job that the parents and administrators should have done!

Jun 4, 2008 - 7:48 am 9. Tom:

I think part of the blame does go towards parents who refuse to discipline their children and continue to try to “mainstream” kids who clearly have special needs.

That said, I also think these kind of episodes, especially where the teachers feel that they have done nothing wrong, illustrates the lack of moral grounding on the part of the American left.

It is no big secrect that most members of academia, whether public grammer school or Ivy League professor, harbor American left tendencies. I have long held the idea that these people are largely bankrupt morally. By embracing secularism they have embraced the school of “me and me only.” These situations illustrate that.

Jun 4, 2008 - 8:33 am 10. TalkinKamel:

Parents don’t always get the opportunity to chose where their kids are placed. If there is a special ed class, or school, for their kids, that’s great. If not, they have to take what’s available. And, here in California, they aren’t allowed to simply keep their kids out of the school system, or try home-schooling them. The schools desperately want special needs kids. They get more money from the state for them. What they don’t want is to actually try and help them overcome their disabilities—an attitude strongly encouraged by our failing medical system (the doctor’s not here today, but we’ve got a WONDERFUL nurse practitioner to help you!), and the welfare state, which is intent not on really helping the disabled, but in helping them “adjust” to their condition, so they can continue to have a large clientele.

My brother, by the way, was treated quite cruelly by some of his teachers, and he was above-average in intelligence, not disabled, not a problem kid. I’ve seen teachers absolutely dote on mean, disruptive, bullying kids. So the problem isn’t with the kids, or special ed (though it does have problems). I think the problem is that our society, as a whole has been getting meaner, and more authoritarian since the 60’s (don’t give me any of that “Summer of Love” jive), and the adults are far less able to cope with anything outside of themselves.

Adults today are encouraged to focus mainly on themselves, the lines between childhood and adulthood are constantly being blurred; as in the Middle Ages, kids are often treated like miniature adults, while adults seem to want to be teenagers all their lives. These days, kids are considered more as nuisances, than the upcoming generation.

Don’t even get me started on the subject of the awful boot camps teenagers have been sent to—and where some of them died—to “cure” them of drug abuse, listening to rock music, disrepecting their elders, etc.

Jun 4, 2008 - 8:35 am 11. Jeremy:

This is what happens when you base your whole educational system on the Prussian model. Mandatory education is as insipid as it is dangerous.

Spend a few minutes on Google. Find an article called “Confederacy of Dunces” by John Taylor Gatto. Have fun.

Jun 4, 2008 - 9:28 am 12. Mary Madigan:

This kind of ‘discipline’ was fairly standard in the nun-led Catholic schools I went to. And that was when they were being nice. At least these teachers don’t whack the kids with rulers.

Jun 4, 2008 - 9:42 am 13. Mean teachers at Joanne Jacobs:

[...] I’ve got a column up at Pajamas Media asking When did kindergarten teachers get so mean? [...]

Jun 4, 2008 - 10:13 am 14. RockyMtnHigh:

Professional educators are the reason I beg my children to home school my grandchildren.

Jun 4, 2008 - 10:35 am 15. Protagonist:

Anyone notice that the vote was “14-2″? Who was the one-or-two kids that voted for the aspy kid staying? Against the will of the teacher and the rest of their peers? At the age of 4-5? Whoever it was, someone needs to take those kid(s) to Chuck e’ Cheese or the toy store stat. They’ll probably be leading a squad of troops up the hill into gunfire one day.

Jun 4, 2008 - 10:53 am 16. Jack:

My parents thought that I was retarded because when I was in grade one and two, given the choice of going to the reading circle or playing with plasticene (there were other choices as well) I chose to play with plasticene.

Then I was sent to a private school. It turns out I wasn’t retarded. And disruptive students simply weren’t tolerated.

Jun 4, 2008 - 11:03 am 17. DJ:

This is nothing new. I have clear memories of my own life back to when I was two years old. And teachers did similar things in my classrooms when I was in K-7 in the 1960’s. I’ve seen teachers throw screaming tantrums, throwing things at students, rewarding their favorites and scapegoating the children they disliked, assigning roles and picking their class favorite to physically bully the others into passive obedience, being quite cruel to the black children new to the schools due to forced integration. Contempt, sarcasm and hostility were common. You would be astonished at how frequent these behaviors are if you had a video camera watching every classroom. On the other hand it’s probably good training for surviving High School and holding a job.

Jun 4, 2008 - 11:12 am 18. Mike Johnson:

I see a pattern to these incidents and statistics. Boys are being abused by female teachers who would never consider so abusing their female charges.

Behavior modification drugs dispensed against boys at a 10 to 1 ratio? That is an outrage and it would be declared so if it were reversed.

Jun 4, 2008 - 11:14 am 19. newton:

Yet another reason to homeschool your… kindergarten kid.

Jun 4, 2008 - 11:16 am 20. Ken Hahn:

There are two words that explain 90% of abusive teachers. They are teachers’ unions. Public employee unions protect the abusive and the incompetent. This is especially true in education where the victims are children who don’t know how to deal with corrupt authority figures. Both teachers should be fired, if not prosecuted for child abuse but neither will face any serious problems. The union will protect them and pour money in the Democratic Party’s coffers to buy government protection.

Jun 4, 2008 - 11:19 am 21. Charlie (Colorado):

This kind of ‘discipline’ was fairly standard in the nun-led Catholic schools I went to. And that was when they were being nice. At least these teachers don’t whack the kids with rulers.

I’d rather be whacked with a ruler, thanks.

Jun 4, 2008 - 11:22 am 22. JeanE:

I understand that children with learning disabilities present a real challenge to the classroom teacher, and can make it harder for other students to learn. OTOH, I’ve taught classes in our homeschool co-op for over a decade, and I would NEVER treat a child in one of my classes in such a manner, nor would any other parent in our co-op.

Our homeschool group has had a number of kids with ADHD, Asperger’s, and other learning disabilities. They are not always easy to deal with, and more than once I have asked my assistant to take a child out of class to chill out, but unless other students are being harassed or I’m concerned about safety (I teach science classes), I can tolerate a lot of wriggling, not paying attention, etc. Over time, they mature, gain self-control, learn how to recognize social cues, and how to manage themselves in class, on the playground, at birthday parties, etc. It takes a long time, a LOT of effort by the parents, and help from teachers, scoutmasters, coaches, etc. who are willing to help create an environment that sets limits and nurtures growth.

I don’t think I could manage kids in class all day everyday- that is why I am not a school teacher. Kids with some learning disabilities probably don’t need to be in class all day everyday- it’s just to hard for them to cope with a situation that really doesn’t meet their needs. But this type of behavior from teachers is just not acceptable, no matter what the extenuating circumstances.

Jun 4, 2008 - 11:24 am 23. Avonelle Lovhaug:

When my youngest son was 7 his teacher told us she was worried that the other kids thought he was weird because he liked to pretend he was a dog or cat. She also was concerned that it was disrupting the class.

We asked her if she had asked him to stop. Surprisingly, she had not. She indicated she was worried she would upset him. We encouraged her to ask him to stop, and we would reinforce this at home. Big shock - no more problem!

A few years later, his 4th grade teacher explained to me that this son’s creativity “bothered” her. Apparently, because he liked to draw pictures with ray guns and aliens, he was too “violent” for her. This same teacher allowed other kids to repeated abuse him on the playground. Oh, and she liked to assign homework that the parents had to participate in, because she felt parents didn’t spend enough time with their kids. (Gee, thanks for the great quality time idea - homework!)

I will say my son had some good experiences, too, but they were definitely the exception until high school. Thank goodness my sons are grown up now!

Jun 4, 2008 - 11:32 am 24. Locomotive Breath:

*You, Yes You, Stand Still Laddie!*

When we grew up and went to school, there were certain teachers who would hurt the children anyway they could
by pouring their derision upon anything we did
exposing any weakness however carefully hidden by the kids.

But in the town it was well known
When they got home at night their fat and psychopathic wives
Would thrash them within inches of their lives!

ooooooooooooo, oooooooo, ooooooooooo, ooooooooo, ooooooooo, ooooooooo,oooo.

We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it’s just another brick in the wall.
All in all you’re just another brick in the wall.

(A bunch of kids singing) We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teacher! Leave us kids alone!
All in all it’s just another brick in the wall.
All in all you’re just another brick in the wall.

Spoken:
“Wrong, Guess again!
Wrong, Guess again!
If you don’t eat yer meat, you can’t have any pudding.
How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat yer meat?
You! Yes, you behind the bikesheds, stand still laddie!”

[Sound of many TV's coming on, all on different channels]
“The Bulls are already out there”
Pink: “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrgh!”
“This Roman Meal bakery thought you’d like to know.”

(A bunch of kids singing) We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teacher! Leave us kids alone!
All in all it’s just another brick in the wall.
All in all you’re just another brick in the wall.

Jun 4, 2008 - 11:34 am 25. Mama73:

DJ: in these two stories its boys. But I think it happens to any kid who doesn’t “fit the mold”.

My third grade teacher used to scream in class at me all the time and tell everyone how stupid I was. I was also placed in remedial classes half the time (this despite the fact that my standardized test scores for all subjects were in the 90th percentile).

I was just bored out of my skull–but my mom was told I was not “mature” enough for more advanced work.

When we moved to another state and there was no “record” of how “dumb” I was suddenly placed in all the advanced groups…and despite my “maturity” handled the academic challenges quite well.

Jun 4, 2008 - 11:34 am 26. Bozoer Rebbe:

I’m smart, opinionated and have been pissing off authority figures as long as I can remember. I had some wonderful and professional teachers and I’m sure that I frustrated them to the point of distraction. In K-9 I got thrown out of class by virtually every teacher I had, and with many of them it was a weekly, and sometimes daily experience. I attended a Hebrew day school for K-9. The classes were small, sometimes as few as 10 kids, and almost all the kids were bright, many of them exceptionally so, so being smart didn’t get you any perks and it was hard to avoid close attention from the faculty and staff.

So I probably deserved most of the negative attention I got. That being said, my 1st Grade Hebrew teacher and 7th grade English/Language Arts teachers were psychopaths. The 1st Grade teacher once forced me to clean up vomit. The English teacher in 7th grade, Mrs. Paris, was most likely a misandrist, threatened by boys around the age of puberty. No girls in the class got lower than a B. No boys in the class got higher than a C. There were six boys in the class and I think she gave out three Cs, two Ds, and an F. Somehow, only a few short years later, those same boys were getting As in AP English courses in high school and attending schools like Michigan and Columbia. She once refused to let me return to class unless one of my parents came to school to observe my behavior in class. My normal situation w/ my parents was that they were upset over whatever the latest discipline issue at school was, so you can imagine that my mom was not pleased with me. After observing Mrs. Paris in her classroom, my mom decided that in this case it was a crazy teacher.

I should note, BTW, that one of the forces for mainstreaming disabled kids has been the teachers’ unions, who see them as a good way to get more government funding and more teachers and teachers aides (i.e. union members) hired.

Jun 4, 2008 - 11:38 am 27. ZEITGEIST:

[...] JOANNE JACOBS: “When did kindergarten teachers get so mean?” [...]

Jun 4, 2008 - 11:44 am 28. Zane:

Ya, you can blow your top or you can go the other way. I’m reminded of the Adam Sandler movie where the Kindergarten teacher is sitting in the corner eating paste.

Jun 4, 2008 - 11:44 am 29. Jeff:

I have never seen this kind of abuse by teachers. I have never heard a teacher tell someone they were worthless or not wanted. I have heard a teacher ask the class to remind a particular student what the rules are, but never anything so cruel.

For those who say this is normal, I am sorry you had such bad experiences as students. I guess I was lucky.

Jun 4, 2008 - 11:45 am 30. Mark Buehner:

Ken is right. Those teachers are going right back to work. Its kinda ironic to argue that since kids are never disciplined they run wild. Teachers are never discplined… do the math.

Put webcams in every classroom and stream them live on the internet. You wont see this kind of craziness for long, by kids or teachers.

Jun 4, 2008 - 11:48 am 31. Rod T:

That line about budget cuts forcing the district to lay off special ed aids (EAs) doesn’t ring true. I’ve been heavily involved in charter schools for the last 5 years (i.e. doing line by line budget reviews every month) and I know that over 90% of Special Education spending is directly, if somewhat tardily reimbursed by the state and Federal governments to all public schools.
I’ve seen two scenarios where an aide wouldn’t be available (1) where the Special Ed staff won’t get off it’s butt to do an evaluation or provide required services and (2) where the parents deny that their child has needs of that magnitude. Because the EAs are tend to be poorly paid and therefore lower skilled (with a few quite outstanding exceptions); you get some bad ones that have to be weeded out. And as for the second scenario - denial isn’t just a river in Egypt. Frankly, it’s what too many experienced teachers seem to expect from parents.
Just to be clear - neither scenario excuses the teachers behavior in these cases.

And one question - is it pertinent that both cases involved boys and female teachers?

Jun 4, 2008 - 11:58 am 32. Demosophist:

I sort of feel compelled to tell this story, even though it’s not entirely on topic. I grew up in a small town where just about all of the kids in had attended a kindergarten taught by a marvelous woman named Esta. When I was in her class I got mad at her one day and kicked her so hard in her shins that it made her cry. I think part of what had happened was that I’d just gotten my hand slammed in a car door, and wasn’t in a mood to take any direction. At any rate, she never retaliated in any way… and I was rather ashamed of what I’d done. She heaped “coals of fire” on my head, by treating me with kindness and understanding. Long after Esta had retired she was often seen riding around town on he bicycle, and any of her former students could drop in at any time for a glass of lemonade and a talk. She also did volunteer work to help the indigent in the town.

One of the indigents that she had cared for went to her home one day on a pretense to play “cribbage,” and while there he raped her. Not wanting to be caught he drove her sixty miles, killed her, and threw her over a large falls.

Again, I feel as though I have to share this story in order to honor Esta in some way as an extraordinary person, who is still in hearts of a generation of her students. She taught us kindness and acceptance, lessons that I may not have learned perfectly, but that are still with me after half a century.

Oh yes, her murderer was caught almost immediately. A number of her former students had seen her in the pickup with him on that day, and had directed the police to the creature.

Jun 4, 2008 - 11:59 am 33. DirtCrashr:

By all means this shows just how much we MUST implement Universal Pre-School Education, so that the generosity and largess of these fine, exemplar teachers who have been so well brought forth by the Education Establishment won’t be squandered on such a narrow, individual, focus but in increasing numbers and methodology will be able to share their Skills with the World…

Jun 4, 2008 - 12:09 pm 34. David:

I went to a military school 35 years ago. I must say, I was punished physically on a semi-regular basis and it doesn’t really bother me, now. I’m not talking rulers on the hand or the butt, either: on one occasion, a drill instructor knocked me sprawling with an open hand to the side of my head (I hadn’t polished my shoes properly). Funny thing is, the individual who did that doesn’t generate that much animosity with me. On the other hand, there’s the English teacher who favored one of the class bullies as much as possible. The English teacher involved is one of my least favorite memories from all of school, and frankly at this point I probably wouldn’t cross the street to spit in his face if he was on fire. I later heard that there were suspicions among the other teachers that something improper was going on between him and the bully student, but I have no idea if it was true. Regardless, I can speak from personal experience: being ostracized in school by your schoolmates is one thing. Being singled out by a teach who *encourages* everyone else to ostracize you is something entirely different, a whole other level. If I were involved, the teachers would not only be fired, they’d be ostracized themselves.

Jun 4, 2008 - 12:10 pm 35. The Widening Gyre: Liberty Edition | The Anchoress:

[...] is drowned; Letting people die rather than accept aid (Condoms, they’ll accept!) Voting out a Kindergartener, Government over grief, Letting more people starve!, Hey, we’re atheists! you have to [...]

Jun 4, 2008 - 12:15 pm 36. TalkinKamel:

It’s got nothing to do with Special Ed, or the lack thereof. (As I said earlier, Special Ed has problems, but this isn’t one of them; and, no, I don’t believe the BS about budget cuts, or not being able to hire aids, or, oh goshers, we just don’t have the money, either. They’re too lazy to get off their rumps and actually do something.)

I’ve seen teachers be cruel and abusive to perfectly normal, if temporarily annoying kids. And I’ve seen supposedly normal adults get furious with kids for trivial reasons—as if the two of them were on the same level—as if the adult considered the kid his mental and physical equal, and was furious at being “dissed”. But, if you’re the center of your universe, even trivial annoyances must seem Grand Opera huge. And, of course, a kid can’t really retaliate the way an adult might. Easy target.

The problem isn’t the kids. It’s the adults. And it’s the school system.

Esta sounds like a wonderful person.

Jun 4, 2008 - 12:17 pm 37. TalkinKamel:

I wonder if this increased level of anger and hostility in the classroom has anything to do with all the cases we’ve been hearing of teacher/student sexual abuse?

Jun 4, 2008 - 12:18 pm 38. TalkinKamel:

Some parents might be denying that their kids have special needs—but a lot of others are probably in the position of not being able to find anybody, or any place, willing to give their special needs kids proper treatment—or of being bullied by teachers and principals who, as “experts”, know better than they do what’s good for their kid. And with the current rise in Autism, we’re going to be seeing a lot more special needs kids.

Jun 4, 2008 - 12:21 pm 39. Sam:

I’m 34 and I had two teachers in K-garden. Mrs. Green, who could turn herself into a witch (or so we believed) but was the nicest woman in the world and then there was Mrs. Gonzalez. She is the reason I still hold a deep down dislike for hispanics. I have many friends who are hispanics but still that feeling lasts as she was the meanest SOB in the world. She must have been quite unhappy with her life.

Jun 4, 2008 - 12:23 pm 40. Achillea:

“Who was the one-or-two kids that voted for the aspy kid staying? Against the will of the teacher and the rest of their peers? At the age of 4-5?”

That jumped out at me, too. Those two kids, and their parents, deserve big gold stars.

Jun 4, 2008 - 1:32 pm 41. Wacky Hermit:

Joanne wrote: “Teachers also say they’re promised training in dealing with children with disabilities or behavior problems, but they never get it.”

Well, in my town at least, this lies squarely on the shoulders of the administration. Our local autism organization (of which I am a member) went to the school board and made a presentation on autism and the educational needs of autistic kids. At the end of the presentation we offered to come into schools FOR FREE and train teachers in some autism basics. The school board’s response? “Gee, we’d love to hire more special ed teachers, but we just don’t have the money.” After the whole presentation was about little things regular teachers can do to help autistic kids.

I saw some of the comments on other blogs about the story about the Aspie kid who was voted out of the classroom. As the parent of two Aspies I was horrified at the number of people whose response was “the kid was being a dick, being voted out would teach him not to be a dick!” Telling an Aspie kid that age that his autism-motivated behavior is unacceptable is like telling a paraplegic that he’s just too lazy to get his butt up out of that wheelchair.

Jun 4, 2008 - 1:50 pm 42. GoodEnoughMom:

Mommynator, children will behave better for strangers than they do for their own parents. Established fact. Ask any parent, since you obviously have no children of your own.

These two teachers should be fired. Picking on children and encouraging children to pick on others is a bad thing. As someone else said, a ruler-whacking might be preferred.

Jun 4, 2008 - 1:54 pm 43. B. L. F.:

Great column, great comments. All are funny, sad, smart and true. I had similar bad experiences when I was a kid and that’s what made me the nonconformist-slacker-artist I am today.

Before I broke in as an artist, I was a substitute teacher. I was amazed to see all the same sh*t from when I was a kid, except I saw it from an adult point-of-view. (Ironically, I stopped resenting my old teachers and started pitying them) Elementary education was and still is the domain of deeply dissatisfied middle-aged women.

This is not an attack on women, I just didn’t see many male educators at the primary level. But these women come in, young and enthusiastic, and the toughness of the gig wears them down. They get disappointed and exhausted almost immediately. Then their lives don’t turn out as they’d hoped (like all of us). They often get divorced, their own children rebel, they get used. And twenty years later, there’s a wrecked forty-something who can’t handle one more difficult kid.

If you want to protect your kid from a burnt-out teacher, be proactive. Call the Principal (I assure you, not every teacher is a b*itch, but every Principal is a coward), talk to the teacher in a non-angry way (the mean ones don’t scare easy, but at least they’ll know you’re watching) or volunteer to come in and “help out” (they hate that and will leave your kid alone immediately). The burnt-out Teacher and her cowardly Principal will assume you’re too busy to mess with them. Make it clear you’re going to invest some time and they will fold.

Also, before getting involved take a step back. Be honest and evaluate your own kid. Really, seriously. Make sure he or she doesn’t turn into a wild dog after you drop them off at school…

Jun 4, 2008 - 2:02 pm 44. tim:

The most abusive teacher I ever encountered was a young woman in Kindergarten in 1953. I had learned to read from my older sister by following her finger as she read to me. I was punished for demonstrating that I could read. I remember being held outside the restroom by her until I defecated, and then being berated for it. I only saw her abuse boys.

Jun 4, 2008 - 2:51 pm 45. Nike:

In response to “Mark:

Don’t pick on the kids - beat the dumbass parents and administrators that put them in those classrooms!” …

What an absolutely ignorant point of view you seem to have. You even hypocritically pointed out that a public school means everyone should get a chance at an education.

It’s unfair that teachers have to suffer “bad behavior from a few”? It’s unfair that people are born with disabilities. It’s perfectly fair that people chose a career and therefore need to deal with whatever comes their way. If I worked on a dock, I would not complain that I had to deal with the stench of fish. By your logic, we should all whine and moan until the world is magically fixed because professions we choose are unfair. The public should not have to live such lives of choice! God forbid! Get over it and tell the teachers (and anyone else considering hiding behind a shield of their professional title) to live up to some real moral standards.

The reason our schools have so many problems are people like you, Mark. People who refuse to see the greater need for compassionate discipline. People who refuse to see the work many (granted, and I will grant you this little) parents go through trying to aid their children with disabilities. Do you understand how the system of IEPs are set up? Administrative intervention as you’ve put it is a joke. Do you even know how many children go under the radar?

Do you yourself consider all of these children useless, hopeless to society and therefore free to be mocked and humiliated and dehumanized? AT FIVE YEARS OLD?

Yes, parents need to be more involved in their children’s upbringing. I will say that. But PEOPLE as a whole need to stop being so ignorant. Please, excuse my heated reply Mark. But I beg of you, let’s start with you.

Jun 4, 2008 - 3:12 pm 46. Xanthippe:

Maybe we should bring back the stocks. Invite all of the parents to come ridicule and humiliate the teachers publicly (rotten tomatoes optional).

Since public humiliation and ridicule work so well as teaching devices, let’s find out how these teachers like it.

Jun 4, 2008 - 5:01 pm 47. Rubicon:

So, with all the money and attention we already
heap upon our public school teachers, these two could not figure out how to deal with unruly kids.
Oh well, guess this just proves throwing more & more money at a problem does nothing to solve it.

Jun 4, 2008 - 5:05 pm 48. Loyola:

I just thank goodness the teachers weren’t men.

Jun 4, 2008 - 5:53 pm 49. Nike:

Rubicon, please do some more research. Unruly isn’t really a fitting word for the children on the autistic spectrum. Otherwise, you’d be fine to use it, but autism is not about being defiant on purpose.

Jun 4, 2008 - 6:45 pm 50. Danaidh:

I couldn’t stand to be around these spoiled little brats, either. They need their little arses spanked hard and often.

Jun 4, 2008 - 7:28 pm 51. ChrisPer:

The article and comments irritate me with the presumption of simple blame, and simple answers. Aspergers and other behaviour problems are DIFFICULT. They take a lot of effort and additional resources in the classroom. And real teachers do get into wrong behaviour cycles with difficult kids. My mom was a teacher, and the only tantrum I ever saw was at home when she heard that kids accused her of favouring one of her own.

The answer? HTFU, get involved and do what you can with what you have. And help these teachers do a good job too, by not treating predictable fairly rare occurrences as diagnostic of some major culpability.

Jun 4, 2008 - 7:33 pm 52. 1charlie2:

David

“I must say, I was punished physically on a semi-regular basis and it doesn’t really bother me”

I’m not at all surprised. This isn’t about even-handed punishment, however unpleasant (within reason). I’ve always been a much harsher disciplinarian than my boys’ mom. But I strive for evenhandedness and clear (if somewhat high) standards. Kids don’t mind a challenge, even if they sometimes fail, as long as the challenge is fairly applied and somewhat within their reach.

But what these teachers did ? Well, suppose a cop had a bad day, got spit on by a perp, “lost her cool” and did a tuneup on the perp with a stick ? Would we even be having this discussion ? Suppose she whined how hard it was to be a cop ? Would we be all tea and sympathy ?

Early childhood teachers have far more authority over their charges than police do over their prisoners. Why would we expect any less than professional behavior ?

Jun 4, 2008 - 7:40 pm 53. sixfingers:

In todays world try and discipline a child.
A man was cooking dinner one night for his two children.
His eight year old son was standing beside the stove. There were hot pans on the stove. The boy, being playful, kept reaching across the stove. The man told his son, four or five, to stop. The man was afraid the boy would get burned The man picked up a wooden spoon and slapped the boy on the back of the hand. It did not hurt the boy. He was more suprised than anything. There were no markes on his hand not even a red spot.
The next day the man was arrested. If the man had let his get burned. He would have been arrested for child endangerment.
In Washington state you are dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t.
In Washington state if you are standing on a corner next to a child and a bus is coming.
The child steps out in front of the bus. What do you do?
If you just stand there and watch the child get hit by the bus, you will go to jail.
If you yell or grab the child, you go to jail.
Your only recourse is turn and walk away.
If the child gets run over the bus driver is at fault. If the child get out of the way everything is ok.

Jun 4, 2008 - 8:20 pm 54. Curtis:

You lose all control when you forgo discipline and spanking at an early age and resort to “reasoned argument” with children of that age.

Educators made this bed and now they insist that it’s not their fault and only chemicals will restrain children from acting out.

There’s nothing wrong with the children that cannot be corrected in a timely fashion but there is nothing that can be done now to get the educators from waging chemical warfare against your kids. Thanks again liberals for your support.

Jun 4, 2008 - 9:26 pm 55. Nike:

Danaidh, sure thankful you choose not to be around children — assuming you don’t have any of your own. Please keep it that way. Also, google, do you use it? It might just enlighten you and the other igno-tards reading this. Thanks in advance!

Jun 4, 2008 - 11:20 pm 56. Nike:

To everyone here whose answer is immediately to “beat the brats” I pose a question: how often were you spanked as a child? Surely we can all recall at least several occasions deserving, but was the answer always a harsh smack on the rear for every wrong-doing? I’m beginning to wonder if some of you aren’t mentally challenged yourselves, considering you can’t understand how to use a search engine for information on a disability much less a reasonable response for the obvious moral problem of teachers in today’s classrooms. Here, I’ll help you, even though I don’t expect you to comprehend fully nonetheless! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism

Jun 4, 2008 - 11:24 pm 57. Bubba:

Problem children like that little jerk should be put in reform school at their parents expense. Teachers are supposed to teach the whole class, and not waste everyones time babysitting one problem child.

Jun 5, 2008 - 12:26 am 58. Weary:

My daughter’s public elementary school in Newport Beach had child-control methods that were probably more psychologically damaging than corporal punishment. The teachers put marbles in a jar when the class was “good” and removed marbles when the class was “bad.” When the marble jar was completely full, there was a class party. (Obviously, the teacher manipulated the transfer of marbles to achieve her desired result.) Once a week, the cops from the DARE program came into the school to preach their message of “don’t follow the crowd.” When I pointed out to the principal that the teacher’s groupthink group discipline methods conflicted with the police advocacy of independent thought, she banned me from visiting the school. (I also objected to the DARE program passing out a poster that claimed that beer, wine, cigarettes & cigars were “drugs” without distinguishing between legal & illegal drugs, and without carving out an exception for the use of wine in a religious context.)

The third-grade teacher at that school gave a math test, promising the kids that they could have an extra party if they all passed the test with a certain grade (the school had parties every Friday without fail, as well as other “special” parties.) About a third of the kids, including my daughter, failed to attain the requisite score, so this teacher insisted that all of the kids who failed to achieve an adequate score come to the front of the classroom “so that your classmates can see who caused them to miss having a party.” The principal agreed with me that this was inappropriate yet typical behavior for that third-grade teacher, while insisting repeatedly that the third-grade teacher was “one of her best teachers.” After I got home, I realized that I should have demanded that she name some of her worst teachers. Hah! ALL TEACHERS are ABOVE AVERAGE.

The person who posted above about coming in to “help out” in the classroom had a good idea. The teachers who are most eager for classroom privacy are probably the ones who least deserve it.

As far as special needs kids go, I have to say that I think it has gone too far. The school districts are dumping kids with severe issues into regular classrooms and leaving the teachers to figure out how to make it work. The brighter kids in the classroom shouldn’t be held back by the slow ones. If the public schools don’t bring back ability grouping pretty soon, they will end up losing all of the higher ability kids to homeschooling and private schools. I took my own kids out of public school at the elementary level, and they were SO HAPPY to be in parochial schools. The daughter who messed up the third grade math test is now in medical school, and the extra help she got in parochial school made a big difference for her.

Jun 5, 2008 - 1:18 am 59. The brain:

I recall the nuns thought I was a moron, and even went so far as telling my poor mother that she should take me out of gradeschool and teach me a simple trade because that was all I could handle. But they never engaged in the poor behavior shown by these teachers. They always were kind to me in class and never let on that they felt I was as dumb as a box of rocks.

My parents didn’t accept that I was stupid and shopped around till they found a school which didn’t think I was headed for a life of shoe shining. Of course they never told me that my teachers thought I was dumb until after I got my engineering masters degree.

It seems that our educational specialists have lost that sense of professionalism that protected them and the kids from mistakes in judgement.

Jun 5, 2008 - 5:29 am 60. Bulgaricus:

Great commentary. Look, I was a public & private school teacher in CA. I finished out my career in public schools & wild horses could not drag me back to teaching in that state.

Granted, sometimes teachers are the problem. I’ve seen this 1st hand. However, many times their hands are tied by the school district & principal. For instance, in our district, all discipline was to be dealt w/ by a child study. This was a merry-go-round of school psych, principal, & teacher meetings that basically just studied the problem to death.

Geeze, did we hate them! Then there were contracts where we had to check off behavior or write it for a child daily. Another punishment for teachers.

Many times I had parents violate the contract as they would not sign it when their little darling did something wrong.

Also, our district was famous for passing on students that flunked to make them look good in Sacramento. I had personal experince w/ this as the parents, principal & yours truly agreed to fail a child due to grades & maturity. Unbeknowst to me, our principal “lost” his paperwork & he was passed on to 7th grade. I only found out when one of his new teachers called me & asked why he was passed!

Then, you have parents that spend no time w/ their child or could care less what their darling does in school.

Teachers have it touch & many times their hands are tied as to what they can do for discipline & classroom control. Basically, in CA it is down to talk & threats of revoking things a student could normally do.

Besides this, CA schools are a huge bastion of PC & liberalism. Lord help ya if you are a conservative teaher there!

Standards are also constantly dumbed down to make schools look successful & good.

I personally know of a friend who taught high school in CA. His principal told him to allow his students to cheat in order to pass 12th grade graduation standard testing. He finally quit over this as it was a no win situation.

Then we have about 1/4 of our students that are from illegal alien families that simply do not assimilate. (Naturally, this does not include lily white areas like Marin County, etc.)

So on one hand, you have the State pushing to get these immigrant kids higher scores & on the other hand, they don’t help a bit. All of this manditory garbage that accomplishes nothing, but gives lots of administrator’s jobs.

Discipline is such a pain in public schools. I’ve actually had 7 year olds threaten to sue me for disciplining them by making them stand next to a wall!

But even when I taught, we got flack about taking away recess from poorly behaved kids because they needed excercise. You just can’t do anything anymore in public schools & a lot of them are huge babysitting clubs.

Public schools in CA are a god awful mess. We have 2 kids, one a 10 yr. old & a 16 yr. old. Gehenna would freeze over before we let them to to ANY public school in CA.

Been there & done that.

Homeschooling all the way…

Jun 5, 2008 - 5:33 am 61. aloysiusmiller:

One thing’s for sure: The teachers will never be able to tell their side of the story. Our schools are overrun with the brats of neglectful self-absorbed whiners who refuse to acknowledge their failure as parents. The teacher is always to blame. Any surprise that we soon get the teachers we deserve?

Shame on you Ms. Jacobs for taking up this story. Is this in any way biographical?

Jun 5, 2008 - 5:57 am 62. cowgirl:

The 956,768th reason we homeschool our son.

Jun 5, 2008 - 6:29 am 63. mignon:

I don’t know all the answers, but if the average parent had any idea how much instructional time is lost to their non-special needs children, while teachers deal with special needs children, you would be horrified. These children truly are special needs, and those needs supercede the needs of all the other children who, I guess will be fine if they aren’t educated while the teachers deal with “special needs”. The bottom line is that the academic standard is lowered. This is criminal. Most teachers didn’t sign up to be a psychologist or shrink; they are not qualified. Many parents can’t deal with their own “special needs” children. I get furious when we are compared to other countries; they don’t include all the “special needs” children in their programs and don’t include their testing scores in their statistics which are compared with our statistics including the lowest IQ’s in our sysstem.
I don’t know all the answers, but pretending that these kids can just be thrust into a regular classroom and become “normal” is insane. Have you ever actually wondered why many young teachers only stay in the business for 5 years or less? It’s this kind of crap; who needs it? And who is the loser??????? Not the special needs because with PC in place his “needs” will always be met. It’s the regular or the gifted kids, or the kids whose parents have actually spent the time to parent their children with love and discipline. We need new politicians and judges from the ground up; we’re in a state of insanity….period.

Jun 5, 2008 - 6:37 am 64. RAH:

The teacher seemed needlessly cruel. But if a child is out of control, how can a teacher deal with that and still be with the rest of the class? I can see that she thought a public shaming may help. The problem with autustic children is that they do not recognize social cues. These are the cues when a child get ridiculed for improper behavior by their peers in a social setting. The type that a child picks his nose and all the other kids go EEW! and point out the behavior. The trangressor feels they want to sink into the floor and never does the improper behavior again.
The autistic/ aspberger child does not understand the cue and is puzzled or reacts incorrectly. Behavior modification is the method that experts use for these children. The teacher was doing exactly that but went overboard. She is not allowed to pysically restrain the child and can’t take the child to the office by herself and leave the class unattended.

Plus this child is only 5 and in kindergarden and maybe his first year among a larger groups of kids. The teacher was very cruel, but women use emotional cruelty to punish rather than physical methods that a male may use. The teacher should be reviewed carefully to see if her paitence and temperment is unsuitable for young children. This child is now emotionally damaged and may need even more careful attention to get him mainstramed or functional.

Many of these children should not be mainstramed depending on their individual needs and problems.
A freind of mine had a boy with aspbergers and he had a problem getting friends and my son was aware of this and allowed for the childs disability when he played with him. But my son never became a close friend. My son was never mean or cruel to the boy because he knew the boy did not understand.This child was extremely smart but socially clueless. Males generally do not do verbal emotional cruelty, they use physical cues such a punch and then ignore the behavior. Girls will use verbal cruelty to each other and a disabled child is very vunerable to this cruelty. I often think that female teachers are at a disadvantage dealing with male childrens and they try to impose feminine methods of persuasion that do not work. We need more males in k-6 education.

Plus there are teachers that are not suitable for young children and go ballistic at the disrespect. The normal children are often wild and uncontrolled because parents never imposed discipline at the early age.

As to a child that behaves for a stranger and not a parent that is normal. The child knows with his parent that he is safe even if he misbehaves. With a stranger the child does not trust he is safe and will behave because he may be at risk if not.

Jun 5, 2008 - 8:15 am 65. TalkinKamel:

Well, they may be spending too much time on special needs kids in the OC, but my own experience has been that, so far from spending too much time, or effort, on special needs kids, all the school districts I’ve ever dealt with don’t want to spend any time on them at all—even when they supposedly have special ed classes set up, where teaching special needs kids wouldn’t impact on the regular students at all, and where they supposedly have aids to help the kids.

So far from being over-eager to help special needs kids, my experience has been that they don’t want to be bothered—although they will simultaneously insist that you MUST send your kid to their school, whatever his or her problems. After all, they lose tax dollars if you don’t. Don’t expect them to actually do anything to help them, however, and you’ll have to fight tooth-and-nail to get them into special classes where they can actually be helped.

If special needs kids are being dumped into regular classrooms, I suspect it’s because the school districts just don’t feel like going to the special effort to set up special classes for them, and/or because they’ve spent all the money earmarked for those programs redecorating the principal’s office, or setting up counseling programs to warn kids of the evils of smoking cigarettes, or helping those troubled youths who are actually beating up classmates, and bringing drugs to school.

I can certainly believe this of Newport Beach, which had an abominable school system when I was going there—and I wasn’t a special ed student.

I can’t help but think that this same “we just can’t be bothered” attitude extends to normal students students as well—hence the inglorious state of education at the moment.

As I keep saying, the problem is the adults, not the kids, special needs or otherwise.

Jun 5, 2008 - 8:21 am 66. TalkinKamel:

so, no, the needs of special needs kids are not “always met.” I suspect that 99% of the time they don’t get met.

And I suspect the same goes for a lot of regular students, too. Don’t blame disordered classrooms, or abusive teachers, on the kids. The problem lies with the adults.

Jun 5, 2008 - 8:23 am 67. TalkinKamel:

And RAH, I thoroughly disagree with you. Any adult who resorts to cruelty, emotional or otherwise, to deal with a kid has no business being around children at all, special needs, normal or genuis level.

She’s proved she has no business being in a classroom. She doesn’t need a review. She’s proved she’s 1. Incompetent, and 2. Has just as many emotional/mental problems (if not more) than any special needs kid who might be in her class. This kind of abusive treatment can wound and scar a kid for the rest of their lives. My brother, who wasn’t special needs, or a problem, got a lot of this garbage in school, and he never got over it.

Boot her out on her rear end.

Jun 5, 2008 - 8:28 am 68. XTeacher:

The teacher did not deal with the student in a compassionate, professional way. No argument there. Note that this incident of student-shaming occurred in MAY. The teacher had been dealing with this behavior all year, and was at the end of her rope. The child had been behaving like this all year, and by October , if not earlier, it should have been obvious that something had to be done. The school district is at fault for not having i) a plan for the teacher to deal with that problematic child and/or ii) for not having an aide to help the teacher with the special-needs child.

Jun 5, 2008 - 9:26 am 69. Margo/Mom:

CaptDMO says: Gee, was either one spanked for their undesireable behavior?

No, I’m pretty sure most union contracts don’t allow teachers to be spanked.

Mignon–perhaps you would be shocked at how little education is actually available for the non-standard kids, how many more are suspended or expelled (in spite of some legal protection) how many more end up in the juvenile justice system. When you compare the US to other countries, you actually find that we are far behind in such efforts as inclusion and successful outcomes for students with disabilities, as well as being an outlier (not in a good direction) when it comes to incarceration of the population.

Jun 5, 2008 - 9:37 am 70. Bungalow Babe:

So many things are true simultaneously:

That there is NO excuse for an adult to deliberately humiliate a child. It’s bad enough when it happens in private. When it happens in a school setting that teacher should be publicly humiliated for the damage they have done.

The other truth thing is that kids are sometimes obnoxious and out of control. Sometimes, they are also “bad seeds.” Now that my kids are older, I often am harshly judgmental of such children when I encounter them in a public setting. I think that they are horrible and that their parents are probably f*&k-ups as well. But that’s for me to think in private…or share with my friends after the fact. (”Ugh, I saw the most horrific child today!”)

While I am sympathetic to teachers who are faced with out-of-control kids, I do think that people who go into this profession need to be first and foremost child advocates. They need to squelch their frustration and be creative to work on solutions to distract difficult children. They need to figure out if something else is underlying the disruptive behavior. They actually need to be better than a parent would be in similar circumstances.

My oldest son, now a successful writer living abroad, was sent into therapy in KINDGERGARTEN after he kicked a teacher in the chest. The teacher had just torn up his work of art, the one he refused to stop drawing when it was music time. Understandably, he went ballistic.

I supported him then and I support him now.

And that bitch of a teacher was fired at the end of the year.

Jun 5, 2008 - 9:37 am 71. bandit:

Mig - if you want to see insane you should look in the mirror. If you think special needs kids needs are always ‘met’ I suggest you make a visit to the county jail or a state run mental hospital. I’ll agree with you on one point though - the amount of time spent outside curriculum on helping kids with special needs is about 1000 times as much as is spent dealing with children and teachers who abuse kids with disabilities. I’ve always kind of wondered where teachers and administrators who allow the abuse of children with disabilities end up in Hell though.

Jun 5, 2008 - 10:11 am 72. plutosdad:

My kindergarten teacher was the same way, pure evil. My parents never believed me because she put on her sweet act during parent / teacher days. My 7th grade teacher also was just a horrible person, but by then I was old enough to convince them.

The thing is, I’m almost 40, and these 2 people are some of the ones that stand out if you asked who were the worst people/most hurtful I’ve ever known. Teachers can really help and build up a student into a healthy adult, but that power means they can also really screw kids up.

Jun 5, 2008 - 10:44 am 73. GoodEnoughMom:

Oh, Bungalow Babe, please tell me that your support for your artistic kindergartner meant that you told the principal that the teacher was wrong, and at the same time, you told your little guy that kicking the teacher is wrong.

Jun 5, 2008 - 10:47 am 74. RAH:

TalkinKamel:
I have no objection to this teacher getting fired. But I do think that we are evaluating from hearing only the child’s advocate side the mother. This child may have been difficult and should not have been in the class.
I really wonder why the teacher did this at the end of the year. Was she trying to force the child from the school? I would never allow my child to be treated this way without retribution. I did remove my child from public schools and put him in private and I dropped him off and picked him up every day and spoke with his teachers every day. I was very involved and would visit unexpectly during the day and watch the class. I also was a cub scout leader and worked with all the kids. But this was a very small school 12-15 in a class. We knew all the kids, parents and teachers and administrators. We socialized with the school director and parents.

This enviroment allowed the teachers to work with each child and specialized the education . Some kids were 2 grades ahead in one subject and regular class in another. Paid 7-10 K a year but it was worth it.

Jun 5, 2008 - 11:54 am 75. MOM+6:

I would like to address the persons who fell the parents mainstream there children because we want to force them on someone. The schools are the primary culprit in this dilemma. I have three autistic children and had to go HEAD-TO-HEAD with the school district in my area to keep one of my children from being mainstreamed. i knew first off she needed a smaller size where there would be a larger adult to child ratio, second I knew her out bursts would and could disrupt other children. I also knew this would put an unfair burden on my daughter, the other children, and the untrained teacher. Which most of the teachers now adays are indeed untrained. I eventually had to remove my child and home-school her because the district REFUSED TO COMPLY WITH THE REQUEST OF NOT MAINSTREAMING HER. As far as the comment about forcing our children on the school system first off by LAW ALL CHILDREN HAVE A RIGHT TO BE EDUCATED, I along with lots of other parents of special needs children pay TAXES which fund your BROKEN EDUCATION SYSTEM, so your child and all children can be educated. Do some research in our schools RIGHT NOW and RIGHT HERE IN THE USA we have children special ed and reg. ed being beaten by teachers, molested, raped, restrained to the point of causing death, denied BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS. And we as a nation have turned a blind eye and refuse to get involved until it hits us in the face. The latest government research that is due to be released this month reads that this generation will be the first to NOT DO BETTER THAN ITS PARENTS.

Jun 5, 2008 - 12:11 pm 76. TalkinKamel:

RAH, all children, normal or otherwise, are sometimes difficult. And if she was trying to force the kid out of the school—well, she has no right to do that. If he didn’t belong in her class, she should have tried to get him into one more suited for his needs, not bully and humiliate him.

Sounds to me like she has problems. She doesn’t belong around kids.

Jun 5, 2008 - 2:09 pm 77. TalkinKamel:

Mom +6, yes, you’re right. (If you like, go back and read my earlier posts on this subject.)

In order to get any sort of help for your autistic kid, and keep them from being mainstreamed, you usually have to fight your local school’s administration like a tiger to get them to listen to you. Otherwise, your child will be mainstreamed—against your will—or shuffled off to some institution-style school, where they’ll just keep him locked up for a few hours, and won’t interact with him, or teach him a thing.

It would be nice if, say, some private enterprise would create special schools for special kids, but, whenever the subject is brought up, somebody will coo, “Oh, but the public schools are taking care of that.” (Yeah. Right.) In California, home schooling is slowly, but very surely, being cut off as an escape for anybody who wants to get their kid out of the school system, whether said kid is special needs or not.

And, as you point out, parents of special ed kids pay taxes too. And abuse of all kids in the school system appears to be becoming worse and worse.

It’s not the kids who are the problem. It’s the adults.

By the way, I like Xanthippe’s suggestion; all those in favor of beating and humiliating kids to make them mind will, of course, agree that putting adults into the stocks when they’re “difficult”, pelting them with mud and rotten tomatoes, humiliating them and beating them when they act up or make a mistake would be a fine and salutory way indeed to run society.

Jun 5, 2008 - 2:21 pm 78. trk:

What about the parents? Why all the blame on teachers and how *terrible they are? What do you do with the child who keeps falling further and further behind because their behavior keeps them from learning. Parents miss scheduled conference after scheduled conference. When you do finally meet with them they say we do everything right at home - kid doesn’t ever watch t.v., never plays video games, always reads, goes to bed early… But the kid says he has a t.v. and x-box in his room that he plays every day. Parents lie and deny that there is a problem and the behavior gets worse and worse and worse, yet nothing is done. And, because of the media that’s gone completely wild teachers, administrators and school districts are left with their hands tied. All one can do is separate the child in the classroom. You can’t even take away recess anymore. With the fear of lawsuits and media bashing I’m surprised anyone wants to be a teacher anymore.
Societies going to be paying for the mistakes that this generation of parents is making.

Jun 5, 2008 - 7:31 pm 79. Bungalow Babe:

Good Enough Mom: Fear not. We have raised all our kids to be mensches.

Also, please realize I was mortified to hear that my eccentric and artistic — but utterly non-aggressive — little kid went bonkers and KICKED a teacher. When the story unfolded, however, my horror shifted to rage. Naturally, I had to teach my son the lesson that no matter was egregious act is done to us, we cannot resort to violence…unless it is in self-defense.

There is more to the story I wrote, of course. This was a private school in Westchester and after this incident, I was told that my son could only stay if I put him on Ritalin. Because he was not REMOTELY hyperactive, I saw this as insane. In response, I took my kid to the top child psychiatrist in the county who, after evaluating my son, told me that there was not a blessed thing wrong with him and that perhaps, I ought to change schools as kids like Adam thrived in a more flexible environment.

Guess what? I did just that a few years later and my son went on to a competitive private high school in NYC and Columbia U. He NEVER had an outburst like that again.

And yes, we did sent him to therapy in kindgergarten. After a while, I also started. When I look back, I see that the prime purpose of the therapy for BOTH of us was to vent our frustration at a school environment that was often toxic to a sensitive, sweet and artistic little boy.

Jun 6, 2008 - 3:43 am 80. SamanthaWest:

The teacher probably has no life except to watch TV. She learned her so called teching skills from watching too many episodes of Survivor.

Parent involvement in their children’s schools go a long way to keep their children from being bullied by teachers.

Jun 6, 2008 - 6:28 am 81. Ryan Booth:

There is plenty of blame to go all around. As a teacher in a inner-city middle school full of “at-risk” children, I can testify that many parents will have nothing to do with disciplining their children. Many of them will frankly tell me that they can’t do anything with their children at home either. One of the main reasons for this is that their is essentially no parenting in these homes. Less than 20% of my students live with both their parents (the national figure for African-American children is 28%), and the single moms that are trying to raise their children often work evenings, so a lot of these kids essentially raise themselves. Discipline problems are incredible for all the teachers at my school.

On the other hand, there are many poor teachers. In fact, these poor students are stuck with the worst teachers their entire lives. Because the teachers’ unions want all teachers to be paid the same, teachers naturally want to teach at the suburban schools where kids behave better and are willing to learn and where parents care. So schools like mine get the leftovers and rejects (and a few who genuinely want to help poor kids). There were four math teaching vacancies at the beginning of the school year at the “worst” middle school in our district, so those students were “taught” by subs for weeks until teachers were found who would work there.

A long-term teacher at my school was dismissed for throwing things at students (a year after he was sued by another student for assault). He was put on paid administrative leave for four months while this incident was investigated, and he immediately got another job in an adjacent school district.

Jun 6, 2008 - 9:35 am 82. Ryan Booth:

Concerning special education

I teach an inclusion class that works fairly well — students with special needs get extra help from a special ed teacher who is with me every other day, and she makes sure that their testing needs are met.

But special ed in general is often abused. A couple of children at my school have “opposition disorder”, which basically means that they are unruly and disobedient. So when one of them curses at me, it’s just part of her “disability”. She is in a class with only 3 other students, and she has a paraprofessional who is required to escort her around campus to help control her behavior and stop her from instigating fights. When you also calculate the time spent by the school’s special ed coordinator, the extra time from our principal and dean of students, the school district altogether spends about 6-7 times as much to try to educate her as it would a regular student (about $30,000 extra by my rough guess) — and of course, she absolutely refuses to do any schoolwork or learn anything.

I want to help those with real disabilities, but we have to find ways to stop the abuse of the system.

Jun 6, 2008 - 9:47 am 83. TalkinKamel:

Just a comment here, but can we clarify terms a bit here? We seem to be talking about a number of different issues here: special ed students, normal students, bad parents, bad teachers, and we all seem to be looking for something different to blam: “It’s the parents fault!” “It’s the teachers fault!” “It’s special ed students!” “It’s bad school programs!” “Just smack the little monsters around a bit, and they’ll behave!”

Given that special ed in public schools has problems (tell me about it!) that doesn’t, in my opinion, justify a teacher singling out a particular child for contempt and mockery by the other students and having them vote him out of the class. I don’t care how disruptive, or troublesome the kid might have been, or how stressed out the teacher was. It’s inexcusable.

Parents aren’t perfect. Teachers aren’t perfect either, and the current break-down in our educational system isn’t due only to the presence of special ed students in it. Our schools aren’t doing much better at teaching the bright or average kids either, and bullying, and incidents of teacher/student abuse, is getting worse and worse.

We need to quit looking for a handy scapegoat on which to blame everything.

Jun 6, 2008 - 12:50 pm 84. mike:

Back in 3rd grade i had a teacher who would lose it and throw erasers at the students.I was so scared of her i hid my homework in my desk rather than turn it in at her desk.She was nuts.

Jun 7, 2008 - 11:10 pm 85. brownmear:

It sounds like some of both. There are a lot of little snowflakes out there that would never be bad. There are some teachers that cannot handle small kids.

But I see a lot more children now that do not know what no means.

Two quick examples. A friend of mine, said his son wanted to buy the latest video game for $10. Turns out a neighbor had a copy of a video for sale for $10, retailed for $69.95. The neighbors mom, when informed, said my son would not do that. End of story.

At a boy scout meeting, a cub scout hit a girl for no reason. His mother said, now you know better than that. Ten minutes later when he did it again, his mother said, now _____, don’t do that again or I will get mad!

Another special needs student!

He is actually a special needs student, because of dysfunctional parents that cannot teach their children about boundaries.

Jun 10, 2008 - 5:31 pm 86. zoom zoom:

I have subbed for kindergarten students, and it can be very difficult to handle a ADD student or autistic student. There was one ADD kid in kindergarten who would not listen to me or the teacher. He ended up punching and kicking me at the end.

I don’t think the autistic student should have been mainstreamed, but there are very few special education teachers out there so adequate resources are sometimes not available. One disruptive student can destroy everyone’s learning.

Younger kids are also more likely to be misdiagnosed for autism. I have seen fairly talkative children being diagnosed for autism probably by a parent’s insistence. Autism can also vary greatly to high or low functioning ability which increases the difficulty of detection.

Growing up I have had mean teachers, nice teachers, etc. Teachers are human and parents and society expect them to be perfect. I have had teachers blow up on me but most times they were very supportive. Teachers make mistakes. Parents make mistakes. We all make mistakes. I think the teacher had a impossible task. Low functioning autistic children generally can not listen or live in their own world.

Jun 28, 2008 - 9:37 am

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