Posted on 05/29/2008 6:02:52 AM PDT by yankeedame
Parents Sent 5-Year-Old to School With Tape Recorder
By JONANN BRADY
May 27, 2008
Ignorant. Pathetic. Self-absorbed.
Those are some of the harsh names an Indiana kindergarten teacher called one of her students, and the boy's parents captured it all on tape.
Five-year-old Gabriel Ross complained over the school year that his teacher, Kristen Woodward, was being mean to him, said his mother Tabitha McMahan and stepfather J.R. Edwards. Gabriel told them other kids didn't like him because he was "bad and stupid."
When he began acting out at home, they decided to take action and try to find out what was going on in the classroom. So in mid-April, McMahan and Edwards sent Gabriel to school with a tape recorder in the pocket of his cargo pants.
What they heard over four hours of tape shocked them. Woodward can be heard telling Gabriel that he had "tortured and tormented" her and other teachers all year.
"I've been more than nice to you all year long and you've been ignorant, selfish, self-absorbed, the whole thing! I'm done!" Woodward says to Gabriel on the tape.
She continues: "Something needs to be done because you are pathetic! If me saying these words to you hurt, I hope it does because you're hurting everyone else around you."
Gabriel can be heard crying on the tape.
"You think it's bad when you see it on paper, but when you are hearing the way she says it to him. I can't even talk about it," McMahan told ABC affiliate WHAS, breaking into tears.
Edwards said that the worst part of the tape was when Woodward singled Gabriel out in front of the whole class.
"So you guys think, is that somebody you want to be with?" Woodward asks the class.
In unison, the other students reply, "Noooo." "See, your friend doesn't want to be with you. I don't know what else to tell you. So you're not going to have friends because of your actions."
Teacher Suspended
After 13 years of teaching, Woodward has been suspended indefinitely, according to the Indiana State Teachers Association.
The teachers' association is defending Woodward, saying that she "lost her cool" that day and hasn't had a chance to tell her side of the story.
Carol Mooney, a spokeswoman with the Indiana State Teachers Association, told the New Albany News and Tribune newspaper that Woodward is well liked by co-workers, parents and students and that she had trouble with Gabriel all year.
"What do you say to a kid who's rolling around, punching, biting, kicking? What can a teacher do?" Mooney said to the newspaper.
Woodward did not respond to phone messages from ABC News.
The New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corp. issued a statement saying, "Privacy issues and policy prohibit school officials from discussing ongoing investigations of employee misconduct."
Parents Worry About Long-Term Effect
Gabriel's stepfather, J.R. Edwards, told ABCNEWS.com that all the children in the class are given weekly progress reports and have frequent meetings with the teacher. He said Gabriel's reports had both "smiley faces" for good behavior and "frown faces," which indicates the student needs help in a certain area.
Gabriel's reports said he was sometimes "disruptive" and didn't keep his hands to himself.
Two weeks into the school year, Edwards said Woodward talked about setting up a "behavioral plan" for Gabriel, but when he approached Woodward to discuss the plan, she allegedly said, "I don't have time for this."
Edwards also said that Gabriel's behavior at home didn't make them think he was acting up at school.
"He's not perfect, but he's not out of control," Edwards said.
After hearing the tape, Edwards and McMahan pulled Gabriel out of school and are trying to figure out which school to send him to next year.
They are also exploring the possibility of pursuing a civil or criminal action against Woodward and the school district.
But Edwards said they are most concerned about the psychological impact the entire situation has had on Gabriel.
"I hope this doesn't affect him long-term, in his feelings about school or teachers," Edwards said. "We're going to seek some kind of help for him."
Boy you’re right about all that. Do they still use paddles in Alabama public schools? Let me tell you the credible threat of a paddling goes a loooong way.
>>The parents said the boy complained about the teacher hassling him. that is why they put the recorder in his pocket. I think they did the right thing. <<
And it’s called entrapment.
Better they would have looked in the windows and watched the class.
When I was younger, my niece and nephew were under my care. I was told that the nephew was disrupting. I watched in the windows with the school’s knowledge. Know what I saw? The teacher was on her best behavior, of course, but my nephew was a monster.
You learn a lot by watching.
“And so the answer is to verbally abuse the child for hours on end?”
Of course that’s not the answer. I’m not excusing her behavior, I agree she should be canned. But there is usually another side to the story....or do you just discount that because it wasn’t in the headline?
On a whim, I started my perpetual motion machines, aka grandsons, ages 5 and 7, playing golf. Now I pick them up after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays and off to the links we go.
Bucket of balls, practice putting, 18 holes.
Back to the house for dinner.
Drive them home to my daughter's and they are usually asleep by 8:30.
My daughter calls me her hero.
Parents are sending their monsters to school and then blaming the zoo when the zoo keeper can't control them.
The very fact that this is in the national news and not handled behind closed doors as decent, respectfull, intelligent adults would do, says volumes about the parents. In turn that says volumes about the child.
But hey, this is Amerika. The teacher should have spent 80% of her time trying to control this brat. The other well behaved kids don't need her attention, do they? Never mind the negative influence he has on the rest of the class, the kid should be supported on his path toward a criminal future or dependence on society.
Which is why men are so important in children’s lives!
Good job Grandpa!!!!
Hm?...How do compulsory attendance government schools resemble prisons? Let me count the ways!
*Prisoners and children are compelled by law to be confined.
* Prisoners and children are marched about in single or double file.
*If either the child or prisoner resists their imprisonment, both lose privileges and are sometimes given more severe imprisonment. The prisoner would get solitary confinement. The child is sent to “reform school” ( kiddie-prison) and there, he too, can be put in solitary confinement.
*Children, like prisoners, are marched about to the sounds of bells.
* Like prisoners, the state controls with whom the child will associate. ( First Amendment Rights to free association be damned!)
*Like prisoners the government orders children to shut up, controls their ability to publish, and freely express their religion. ( First Amendment issues here. )
* Meal times, free periods, and exercise periods are controlled by the government for both the child and the prisoner.
* Have you noticed how schools resemble prisons. Do the exercise yards of prisons and schools have a similar appearance?
* There are lockdowns, strip searches, riot control measures.
* School cliques strongly resemble prison protection gangs.
* School buses and prison work buses are identical except for color.
* Children at school bus stops resemble prison road gang workers.
In one important way prisoners have it better than children. Prisoners are not subjected to non-stop indoctrination in the government religion of atheistic Secular Humanism.
>>What we have here is a kid saing there’s a pattern of abuse, and then he takes a tape recorded to class and we’re supposed to think the teacher was having a bad day and it’s just a coincidence hse had it on the day the kid had the tape recorder?<<
I don’t think that at all. I think the woman snapped and should be institutionalized.
But I also think the kid caused that snap.
I have three kids in the schools here in Martinsville In, 3rd, 7th, and 10th grades. My kids have all gone to weekday - A non-denominational bible study held at a church across the street once a week, they all said "grace" (called something else to be PC, but that is what it is) before lunch also.
I am not that familiar with the high school teachers this year my oldest had, but we know ALL the teachers for the younger two. If something like this happened in those schools you wouldn't have to worry about the parents getting in the teachers face, stand in line because the other teachers would be all over them like white on rice.
Small towns like ours with long time teachers in a very conservative place like this know that people won't put up with this stuff, that includes the other teachers they work with. I guess we are lucky because we have had a very low turnaround in the staff at their schools. They are still teaching like they were taught years ago to teach, and the other parents are very involved and vocal on how they want the kids educated.
My son got paddled this year by the principle, I know I hurt his feelings when I laughed hearing about it. I explained that when you do something you know will get you in trouble then expect to be punished. Funny thing, it only happened once so far, I think it actually sunk in.
I’m not excusing her actions, she clearly shouldn’t have reacted that way, but I’d be interested to know what precipitated it. From the article it appears this kid’s been a problem all year.<<
When was the first time she stood the boy up in front of the class and let him have it like this? That's the time line.
Mainstreaming.
The very fact that the teacher handled this by attacking and ridiculing a five year old child in front of his peers instead of taking care of the issue “behind closed doors” with the principal and parents “as decent, respectful, intelligent adults would do” says VOLUMES about her psychotic nature.
Again, I have NOTHING but contempt for this monster in teacher’s clothing.
As our nation institutes pre-K expect too see **more** of this!
Some children are often simply **not** ready to be institutionalized. It is **exactly** comparable to punishing an infant for not walking or being toilet trained when is not yet old enough. Both the parents and the government teachers and principals are **equally** abusive in not recognizing this.
>>My son got paddled this year by the principle, I know I hurt his feelings when I laughed hearing about it. I explained that when you do something you know will get you in trouble then expect to be punished. Funny thing, it only happened once so far, I think it actually sunk in. <<
If this kid was in your school, this would have never happened.
“.... stepfather J.R. Edwards. Significant?.”
Maybe.
It’s possible the stepfather is the closest thing to normal in the kids life.
One thing is certain, this teacher is “Ignorant. Pathetic. Self-absorbed.”
“I posted a story yesterday about a kid in Florida getting voted out of his kindergarten class and I thought this was a followup to it. This is here in Indiana, this woman needs to be humiliated just like she did that little boy. What the hell is going on in our schools lately?????”
I am certainly not defending the teachers in either of these cases but expect to hear about more such incidents. The teachers’ actions in these incidents were terrible and they should be removed from the classroom.
As long as students with severe behavior problems are placed in the regular ed classrooms there will be more incidents like those presently in the news in Indiana and Florida. It is a shame that the students with special needs are not helped with these placements and the learning of all the other students is continually disrupted due to the behaviors of the disruptive students. Needless to say there will be more teachers “losing their cool” because they are not able to deal with these disruptive students.
“But I also think the kid caused that snap.”
The only facts in evidence are that the cow that called itself a teacher was a child abuser. Institutionalization is too good for the cow.
We know that the kid got some “smiley faces” and some “frowny faces,” but we don't really know at all the extent of his alleged misbehavior. Without further evidence, I'm inclined to say that he was a normal, kinetic 5 year-old boy.
I'm inclined to agree with those who assert that an ordinary school environment may be unsuitable for many young boys.
sitetest
Blame is an essentially useless word.
Responsibility and accountability are more productive words.
When trying to analyze a catastrophic failure, it is helpful to review all the evidence and find all the steps on the path which pointed in the direction of a failed mission.
The teacher was wrong. How many times do freepers in this thread have to reiterate that?
There is a problem with the breakdown of society and the public education system which allows children to behave in appalling ways without consequence - at school and possibly at home. That’s the other theme here.
Either we accept as a universal truth that actions have consequences - intended as well as unintended - or we don’t. And THIS concept has nothing whatsoever to do with “blame.”
Contact the parents? They would immediately blame the teacher. The teacher blames the parents and round and round they go. I believe there is enough blame to go around. The question not being answered is what to do about the five year old who kicks, bites and screams. This is not behavior he will likely grow out of but will become worse as he gets older. His parents have to recognize there is a problem and attend to it or, someday, we will be reading more about this family.
Because, infuriatingly, the Powers that Be (you know, the elites who know better than us dumba$$ little people) don't think it IS a failure -- it just needs to constantly be tweaked and adjuted until their plans are realized...
Or something like that. Keep the faith.
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