Posted on 05/27/2008 9:56:32 AM PDT by PercivalWalks
I’m a teacher, and I cannot imagine a scenario where what the teacher did was right. I’m sure the little boy is difficult to have in class, and I suspect that not enough is done, as he probably not only drives the teacher nuts, but clearly his classmates as well. That being said, it’s not HIS FAULT. I would QUIT before I would do something like that to any child, no matter how annoying.
Sadly, there are people teaching who should not be. I don’t know if this child was best served in that particular environment, but if most of his classmates were willing to vote him out of the class, I suspect he would be better served in a different environment, as his educational needs are probably not being met, and he’s most likely interfering with the education of the other students.
susie
I agree, that is probably the best place for him. He probably needs a much more class size and one on one than is possible in a public school.
Basically the same thing happened to my baby on a different angle. She is ADHD and once the kids found out she was targeted for bullying and every time she would attempt to tell teachers about it she was chastised based on her behavior and either dismissed, told to suck it up, or punished for “tattling”.
My psychologist wife went up and talked to the teachers and it got a little better. I went with a bad attitude and my laywer’s business card and visited the principal and it got a lot better along with an apology from one teacher to my child. We are attempting to make adjustments to home school her next year.
I’m not a teacher, nor a parent, but I can’t imagine a more horrible non-physical thing to do to a kid. This was a very cruel thing to do and as much as we’d like to “get over” all the cruddy things that are bound to happen to all of us, this could create some permanent damage. Very cruel, very thoughtless.
The ADA and the courts.
susie
We are not all liberals.
susie
Or spends too much time watching “The Weakest Link”.
Ain’t that the truth!
Having a disruptive kid in class can deprive all of them the education they are there for.
I read the first article on this. I’m going to reserve judgement until the whole story is out. Anyone who reads a fraction of the articles out there knows never to fully trust the parents’ account of the incident.
I certainly do hope there is more to this story, and yeah, angry parents are not always the best place to get the full story.
susie
The point isn’t if he should have been allowed in the class, he was there and it was the teachers job to protect him as she would any of her other students. There should have been, and probably were, other options besides humiliating him and forcing his classmates to humiliate him too. That was beyond cruel.
Since when do 5-year olds get to vote on whether a classmate can stay in class, when even parents don’t get to make that kind of decision about class enrollment?
What exactly was the purpose of this excercise, other than pure psychological abuse?
Forget firing. The system doesn’t have that kind of recourse built into it for parents. Taking her on an instructional “field trip” where she can learn about which bone is connected to which bone would be more appropriate, if you know what I mean.
“Having a disruptive kid in class can deprive all of them the education they are there for.”
Just a different way of “leveling the playing field.” Nobody said it would be level on the high side.
You’ve got to be taught
To hate and fear
You’ve got to be taught
From year to year
It’s got to be drummed in
Your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught...
(Rodgers & Hammerstein)
The thing about it is, the victims do not pick up on the social clues that others do. They have to think their way through every humiliating experience to try to figure out what they did wrong. And often they never do figure it out. An Asperger’s kid is working twice as hard as an ordinary kid in school, because he is coping with both the school curriculum demands and trying to cope intellectually with the social demands that he cannot understand.
But regardless of the difficulties the teacher faced, to put this kind of problem up to a bunch of children is unconsciencenable. This teacher should be drummed out of the profession and never allowed to teach again.
This has been going on for years, thanks to fedgov. They dictated that a disabled child should have the same teaching etc. as regular children, and that's where it started.
Carolyn
This infuriates me! My child was once thought to Aspberger’s, and now we know she is high functioning with an IQ of 74. No one should be humiliated. All the years of counselling this child Alex might have had were undone with the teacher’s one incompetent and severely damaging action.
The teacher should be fired for her actions.
Behold the so-called “tolerance” of the left. Replace teacher with “fuhrer”, replace classroom with “fatherland”, replace the 14 children with “master race” and replace the child with “Jew” or “Gypsie” or “Catholic priest” or any other “undesirable”. Now replace “voted out of the class” with “final solution”. What this teacher did is sad and disgusting. What the other 14 children are learning from it is fightening.
And hooray for those two fellow students who didn’t vote Alex out of the class.
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