April 12, 2005

• Ugh. How sadistic. I see a bright future at Abu Ghraib.
• So where did you post this first, Debaser? Here or Metafilter?
• Judging by the timestamp, here, then Mefi three minutes later.
• It was a rhetorical question. And a snarky one at that. I apologize... What exactly is the policy on exactly cross-posted posts, anyway?
• From the FAQ: "It's fine to post something that's been on Metafilter, especially if you think us monkeys will have some unique things to say on the subject. Not everyone reads Metafilter so the general consensus is that reposting something from Mefi is fine. But not too often."
• Sorry... I was just trying to reach as wide of an audience as possible. This story has a bit of a personal tinge for me.
• I'll bite: Why so Debaser? What about it is personal? I've read it... it is horrible, of course, but... well, it probably happens all the time (against blacks, mexicans, hell, maybe even -white- kids). I'm not saying it is right, of course. What gets your goat about this particular instance?
• No apologies necessary. (I don't read MeFi) And I have the same question as KTK.
• Yes, it does happen to white kids. When I was in after school day care I was slapped in the face with a ruler as part of a "group punishment" to punish a few other kids.
• And I'm glad Debaser posted it here as well as MeFi since I'm not a MeFi member and wouldn't be able to comment on it otherwise.
• This gets to me too, as a parent. If something like this happened to ANY kid in my childs' school, I would be completely outraged. This kind of shit is horrific and the teacher should face criminal charges.
• I rarely look at Metafilter either, so no issue here. killThisKid: I gather from your name that you're a teacher ;). And this crap does not happen "all the time." Please do not be so offhanded.
• OK.. here's the problem I have with this type of post.. Yes, there are bad teachers, lots of them (but, a pretty small percentage of the overall number of teachers in this world), and yes they sometimes behave in a manner which deserves that they be removed from the profession. I make no apologies for those individuals, even those who make a mistake out of fear or frustration, they should have more control than that if they wish to teach for a living. But..I do have a problem with a post that seems to link to multiple instances of reports of this kind of behavior that doesn't seem to be leading to some sort of discussion of a particular aspect of this behavior (a "more inside" with a reason for the post would be helpful perhaps, if, in fact there WAS a reason for the post). It seems that this kind of post just intends to make teachers look bad. I guess we all have a right to pick a profession, group, or type of person and point to instance after instance where they misbehaved (how about a link to 5 or ten reports showing that black people commit crimes, or white people, or native american people, or european people, or whatever people), I bet I could put that post together in minutes with a quick search on google news. But...what's the point... My wife is a teacher, she works about 80 hours a week (for which she gets paid for 40) with special needs kids in a poor neighborhood..she loves her kids, treats them with kindness and compassion... as do about 99.9 percent of the teachers I know... so...do we need to focus on the assholes of the teaching profession? like... what's the point...
• A friend of mine volunteers at the school and was suprised to read about this in the paper this morning, as it's the first she's heard... Like I said... a tinge... but I hope their picketing goes well and if the charges are as described in the article, I hope Mrs. Miller is summarily fired and barred from the education field forever.
• damn, that's just horrible. These kids are in the fourth grade. Some of them will act up from time to time. It gets tiresome, but there are other ways to cope. HuronBob, I'm really glad to hear that your wife is so devoted to her students. I don't think this story reflects on her at all. Personally, I don't generalize after reading things like this. I do feel that this incident deserves publicity, mostly to make us all aware that vicious racism exists in places where we wouldn't have anticipated it.
• patita...of course something like this deserves our attention...it was the multiple links with no reason given as to how they were related (other than the fact that they were all teachers gone bad!)... If there was ONE incident cited, we could discuss it, but this seemed like teacher bashing in general to me.
• gotcha, HuronBob. and agreed!
• As far as cross-posting goes, count me as another monkey who doesn't spend much time at all looking at MeFi; "post away!" is my two cents.
• Dogs have more rights than children in the US.
• And Rights have more children than dogs.
• Publivly humiliating individual children and punishing the many for the shortcomings of the few are unfortunately both time-honoured techniques of poor teachers for intimidatiung youngsters.
• Touché Huron Bob.... Since I had planned on double posting this, (and considering how badly my first MeFi post was shot down) I purposely did the whole multiple posts in the same thing because I'm a insecure wad. My paramount point in this was to highlight Mrs. Miller, and by no means am I trying to intimate that there aren't dedicated, hardworking teachers who must manage a near broken system to educate the people we are bequeathing this earth to. (My friend is volunteering in this school to get an education background to eventually become a teacher... and I think she'll make a damn good one at that)
• Debaser... a kind response to my rather heated comment... thanks.. you've earned my respect! :) (and, I have called off the posse of enraged 5 year olds! I had told them that you were messin' with my wife (Ms. Donna to them) and they were headed your way!)
• Excellent... I didn't want to have to look up the post in which one determines how many 5 year olds one could fight off before dying :)... And I didn't think your comments were heated, just informed and rational... reminded me how different these similar communities can be sometimes! I've pretty much been AWOL from MoFi recently, but it's stuff like this that keeps me coming back.
• Teachers, and I use that term lightly, like this should absolutely be banned from teaching! That kind of behavior is 100% unacceptable. Especially because of the light it puts on the majority of the good teachers out there. When a teacher hits their breaking point, it's time to walk away and take a break. Or get the fuck out for good. Children should never, never be humiliated like that. Anyone who disciplines in that way is not fit to be teacher. I understand the problems of dealing with kids in the classroom very well. BUT, what has to be remembered is that, as a teacher, you are dealing with a child who has been influenced on how to behave from their family, and as we all know, that can often be disrespectful and disruptive behavior. And, unfortunately, much time is spent teaching behavior rather than teaching curriculum. As these kids get older, the kinds of disruptive behaviors escalate and the potential for danger rises. I completely get the frustration that teachers go through, but awareness needs to prevail, control of oneself needs to prevail, positive guidance needs to prevail. Positive lessons can be learned from what is initially seen as disruptive behavior. A good teacher needs to be creative in their approach to turning a bad situation around. It takes a shitload of work, you won't get paid for it, you won't get a pat on the back, you'll rarely get thanked, but you will change lives. And you'll be remembered for that. /steps off podium...
• Yes, some are complaining that this kind of story is unrepresentative of teachers as a group - but what struck me about these links, though, is the story of the chap who forced a kid to stand for the National Anthem, and the comment below the story that while the teacher's mode of achieving this was unacceptable, he was perfectly within his rights to require the kid to stand for the Anthem. I was shocked by this.
• altolinquistic... interesting, I hadn't read that comment the first time.. The whole "pledge in the schools" issue has been around for a while, with a resurgence since 9/11.. If anyone is interested.....a very good article on it can be found here
• Punishing a group for the infractions of one is hardly a new technique, as anybody who's ever been to boot camp (or watched a movie about same) could tell you. It brings pressure to bear on each individual by threatening to make them a pariah within the group. I'm not sure how well it would work on fourth graders, though. (Also note that we have no real idea what the kids in the story were doing; the article refers to two kids has being involved in an "incident"; were the other children yelling, screaming, egging them on? That sure sounds like fourth graders to me.) In the story of the teacher who had a female student thrown from a window (by two male students), I find it a little odd that discipline is so lax that she feels free to shout invective at him for his (entirely inappropriate and insulting) behavior, but the boys are so "frightened" of the consequences of disobeying that they assault a fellow student. I think perhaps tossing her out the window had, perhaps, occurred to them independently before. (As usual, we have no real details of what she was doing before the incident, either.) Finally, the teacher in the chair-pulling incident is a shrieking hysteric, obviously terrified of his students. Humans, like any other animal, can detect and will respond to a display of fear, and this kind of shouty blowhard has been receiving natural comeuppance from chortling schoolboys since Biblical times. He craves respect, but has no idea how to earn it. (The boys, feckless losers though they appear to be, are at least behaving as nature intended.) I know nothing of the Morrocan story because I couldn't be bothered to Bugmenot the Australian paper's site. (In this, I am displaying my standard laziness, which is also as nature intended.)