St. Lucie teacher has students vote on whether 5-year-old can stay in class

reply to post by raven bombshell


No, I didn't think you were one of the people who grew up hating childhood, you made that clear in your earlier post. Your mother stood up for you, and that counts a great deal for a child. People who never have anyone to stand up for them, or fail to develop their own confidence, are the ones who I think wind up hating childhood and the world in general. That was the point of my post.

If the kid was persistently causing problems for everyone else, then he definitely shouldn't have been in that class. That statement holds true regardless of why he's causing problems. He has special needs and he needs to be taught in an environment that caters to them. And that's not meant in a derogatory way, after all, the kids in the "gifted classes" have special needs also.

However, the decision should have been made by the professionals who run the school. The little kids shouldn't have been entrusted with the fate of another young child like that, and any teacher with half a brain would realize that.

There are proper ways to approach these situations. Those methods exist for a reason, and they should be used. Failure to adhere to the policy should result in punishment. Disregard for the rules at this magnitude should be dealt with harshly.

I can also see where Rockpuck is coming from on this. The children do deserve the chance to go to their teacher and say, "Hey. This kid is a problem, and he's making things difficult for us." If he's a disruption for the entire class, then some other arrangement most certainly needs to be made. And yeah, that's democracy. If 14 out of 16 kids think you're trouble, then it's probably you, and you should be removed.

And I agree with him that the world has gotten too politically correct. What good is free speech if you're only free to say what you're supposed to? Political Correctness is a huge barrier between the way things are, and the way things should be - because there's just too many important topics that we can't discuss because of it.

I also agree that we need to stop trying to shelter kids from every little bad thing. If you aren't ever teased in childhood, you simply won't be able to comprehend criticism in adulthood. It's just like anything else: You shelter kids from it, they never develop a tolerance for it. Eventually, the shelter fails and they come into contact with it and destroys them. This applies to everything from teasing to strep throat.

Really, the biggest thing I hate here is the idiocy the teacher displayed by letting five year old children decide how to handle a situation that should have been dealt with by professional, trained adults. Because of that, rather than learning his strengths and weaknesses and being put in an environment where he'll learn to deal with them, he just got made fun of by a crapload of kids.

This goes along with my previous post but I will put it here anyway.

I just got to thinking about maybe its possible the classmates were NOT making fun of him, and this is how the teacher came off:

Teacher: "Class, we are going to take a minute and explain to little Jimmy what he has been doing that is wrong and how it makes each one of you feel."

Kid 1: "Yesterday, Jimmy pushed me when we were at recess, it hurt when I fell."

Kid 2: "Jimmy was calling me names last week and hasn't stopped since. It really hurts my feelings to be called them names."

Kid 3: "During play time, Jimmy stole my firetruck when I was playing with it. He did not ask and just took it from me, this hurt my feelings."

And so on.

As you can see, this could have been the way things were done, but of course the child probably went home and told his parents that his classmates were making fun of him, when in reality they were just telling him what he did wrong and how it hurt their feelings, which to me would have been a GREAT way to show him how his actions are affecting his peers.

What do you all think of this? Possible?

reply to post by deadline527


I was going to suggest that maybe the teacher was not asking the children to decide if the child stays or not, but maybe she wanted to demonstrate to him that his behavior was bothering the other kids. Im not saying she is right or wrong. It is a theory as to what went through her head. Perhaps she knew he might have problems, she had tried the usual methods, and so here was her last ditch effort to try to get through to him. maybe. Obviously in most school board policy it is not the classmates' decision to remove a child from a class.

You have thought it out even further here and I think it is feasible. Being a mom, I know that I had to ask a million questions to get a clear picture of an event my child would try to relate to me (when she was the age this boy is). She would always leave out parts that might get her in trouble or maybe she just didnt understand.

The problem isn't that the teacher conducted a vote to let kids vote Alex out of class, this is bad enough, the real misconduct is having each kid stand up and say what they didn't like about Alex first. Emotionally, this is like the teacher held Alex while the rest of the kids beat him up.

This act of letting all the kids talk bad about Alex, and forcing Alex to listen is what is bad. The teacher acted as judge and prosecutor. How can you people not get what is wrong with this? This is clear evidence of the teachers abuse.

Alex may not have even been any more disruptive in class than the rest of the kids. Without any evidence that Alex was such a disruptive influence, except the actions of a mob lead by an abusive teacher, who knows the real story, yet everyone is ready to convict 5 year old Alex as the guilty party, and make excuses for the Teacher who was in charge. Why do you ignore the influence the Teacher had over her class of five year olds?

reply to post by poet1b


Poet-
Dont you realize that there has to be someone to try to see it from the teachers side? It is very clear from the childs side that this was a terrible thing- that is very obvious. The media report is one-sided, however. The reason why we come in and seem to take the teachers side is because there is always more to a story than what is reported. If the teacher really is an evil troll and gets great joy out of abusing children then we are wrong. I can only speak for myself, but I dont think any of us here condones a teacher abusing her students and singling out one student to systematically destroy his self-worth.

reply to post by raven bombshell


I do think you have a very valid point in that the story may very well be biased against the teacher in order to sell the article. It certainly is possible with the quality of todays media. Maybe in order to protect itself and even the child, the school is not releasing the information that the boys behavior was far worse than is being revealed. Maybe the teacher isn't such a troll after all, just a teacher at wits end who took things too far. The truth may simply be that the teacher is just bad at her job, and that is about the best I could say for her. I agree that this could be the possibility, but the sad thing is that my experience as a child and an adult is that the school and the city or county is most likely doing everything it can to cover up the teachers actions. Local governments in my opinion tend to be the worst when it comes to abusing peoples rights and delivering lopsided justice.

reply to post by poet1b


Well, at least it is out for people to see and read, if it is as bad as you suspect. Pressure from the community may get her fired- it just hasnt been reported yet. There is another thread about a coach that got fired because his "assistant" was supposedly trying to convert Muslims to Christianity. From what was reported, community pressure got that guy fired, and it may happen in this case as well.

If you have kids, Ill bet you dont give those teachers an inch!

I haven't had any problems with any of the teachers so far. I don't like some of the things they are doing, but I prefer to let people do what they feel is right, until they cross the line, and then I start interjecting myself. In general, I'm an easy going guy, well liked by most people, but I am not the kind of person you want to stir up trouble with.

Unless this article is really distorting the picture, then maybe this teacher should be given a break, but if the story is reasonably accurate, she should find another line of work. Teachers shouldn't be picking and choosing which students they are going to nurture. Like everyone else, they should have to put up with the pains and hassles as well as the rewards for their jobs.

As far as the coach who was let go because his assistant was supposedly trying to convert Muslim students to Christianity, I'll bet it was a very small, albeit very vocal, group within the community that made this happen. If I was that coach, I would be talking with some lawyers. Unless there was some coercion, some sign that Christianity was part of belonging to the team or something beyond a guy expressing his Christian beliefs, then it sounds like a violation of first amendment rights.

Wow, that's pretty harsh and cruel of the teacher to do. I can understand removing a child from a classroom if the child's some sort of a distraction or something. But to put it to a vote with the kids in the class AND have each child come up and say what they didn't like about the child just doesn't seem right.

That's humiliation, plain and simple.

i see on todays worldnetdaily.com that another teacher has been caught on tape this time by the parents of another 5 year old boy being verbally abused by the teacher.
she has been fired after 13 years of "teaching"-----i wonder how many kids she managed to inspire to "hate the world" with what she did to them?

I can somewhat understand why she would do something like this. Im not saying it was the right thing to do..but teachers have to go through a lot these days. Its not like it used to be.

Teachers deal with behavioral problems daily. My mothers a teacher and tells me what she goes through and it angers me. I mean these kids are going to school disrespecting teachers classmates etc Of course teachers can inform the parents but thats as far as it goes. Most parents dont do a thing about it.

I know I'm going to get flamed for this one, and just so you know, I'm just leaving comment and probably won't check back.

I was one of those kids. I was that kid that got in trouble... had 'disciplinary problems'. I really don't think the teacher was as out of line as everyone is making her out to be. She demonstrated democracy to the kids (not in the strictest sense). I notice how the articles completely avoided discussing these 'disciplinary issues'! WTF?!?

So, instead of a teacher getting upset and sending the kid to the counselor's office day after day after day, she demonstrates how our government is SUPPOSED to work, and initiates a voting process. I would guess that she did this after a good portion the kids complained about this child. I'm willing to bet that the PARENTS of the other classmates had some stories to tell, as well.

Why are you crucifying the teacher for this? I'm not 100% condoning her actions, but has anyone thought that maybe the kid's mother was dropping him off at school as free daycare like so many other parents consider it?

Ask yourself this: What would you do if you had a classroom full of kids, and there was one in particular that was disrupting the teaching process constantly? Would you send that child to the corner, EVERY DAY? OR, would you send him to the counselor's office every day?

WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE?

I understand that there has to be some kind of sympathy, because these kids don't seem able to control their actions alot of the times, but you also have to take into consideration every other kid in the classroom... why should their education have to suffer because of one person? ESPECIALLY when there are schools that employ teachers that specialize in dealing and educating autistic kids?

I just think that this matter should be looked at alot more objectively before jumping to conclusions. The article failed to expand on some key issues here. How long was the child being disruptive? How BAD was the child's actions? Was the child impeding the education of others? I guess we could safely assume that the teacher had no prior infractions, otherwise it would've been noted in the article, which was pretty one-sided.

Like I said, I was one of those disruptive kids, although not autistic. I was ADHD. I actually have an insight into what the other side of the story is. Please take the WHOLE picture into consideration before damning this teacher off of a quite apparently biased article!

EDIT: Just to add... anyone familiar with the Matthew Shepard case? Do you REALLY know what was going on? Let's just say, that kid was F'ED UP! His parents even quit talking to him until the incident, then they jumped in with their influence and turned it into this big media sensation about hate crimes... what happenned to Matthew was NOT hate crime... he was trying to get meth from Kenny and (?) and when they wouldn't sell, Matthew threatened them... threatened to narc on them, made a great big hooplah out of it in the middle of a bar... so they took him out and whooped him. It had absolutely NOTHING to do with him being gay. Ya ever look behind all the media and find out that Matthew was a convicted child molestor and meth abuser? Media sure was suppressive about THAT info, weren't they? Don't take ANY article at face value.

[edit on 2-6-2008 by Earthscum]

Originally posted by yahn goodey
reply to post by xxpigxx

 

anti-social kids-----how did they get that way if their parents loved them and took the time to teach them right from wrong and took the time to protect them from the"society" jungle ?

The "society" jungle is exactly what these kids need to experience. Its when these parents shelter them and keep them in a bubble that these kids end up with the over diagnosed "aspergers syndrome", unable to make friends or hold relationships because they never learned how at a young age. Everyone gets teased in elementary school, its life, deal with it.

As for you in your earlier post saying how you hate sports due to the fact that you were never picked for sports in school at a young age? Well that happened to me too, and guess what, I practiced and made myself better at said sports. Within a year or two I was the one being picked first - all it takes is a little effort, which most children are not willing to put out these days. And to hate sports due to the actions of a few bad apples? You really should give them a shot, you might like it.

As for this article, I still stand by my previous posts. I think that this teacher allowing the children to tell the problem child how they felt in response to his actions was one of the better ideas a teacher can do. To actually let the child see how his actions are affecting others, and to hear it from them, is genius. If he was so concerned about feelings, maybe he should have been a little nicer to the children he was apparently bullying. I have no sympathy for these problem children who then cry foul when the tables are turned, he was constantly causing trouble in the classroom, making every other child in that room feel sad, abused, and emotionally distraught - as well as disrupting their learning experiences.

Kudos to the teacher - one less problem child in a classroom, and maybe he will learn from his actions and from hearing first hand how he was making his classmates feel by constantly causing trouble.

[edit on 2-6-2008 by deadline527]

I never got picked for sports either. I never got good at sports, and I really didnt care about them. It made the other kids angry because I didnt care enough about the game to try and help them win. Why would I when they were still going to pick on me anyway? I was weird, and I had my own issues, and i got picked on for may years. Then, I got really tall, so the other kids backed off. After that, my skin cleared up, and I got my boobies. Things have a way of working themselves out.

It hasn't been all that long since my daughter was in Kindergarten. There isn't a whole lot of organization in Kindergarten, the kids are all pretty much doing their own thing most of the time. It is kind of like herding cats. Nobady has accused this kid of being a bully, as so many want to claim. Looking at what is known about this situation, there is no justification for the action this teacher took. There is a better chance that the school is not releasing the disiplinary problems with the child because they do not support what the teacher has done. If you want to pretend the school isn't looking out for their best interests, you are being naive.

I am really surprised that in a situation like this, so many are willing to blame the kid for an action that was wrong, and not the adult that was supposed to be in charge, who committed the act. Lets blame the victim and coddle the perp, yeah, that makes sense.

I am surprised the parents did not react with physical violence towards the teacher i congratulate them on their self control