Some will watch the teacher in the video above and think that he looks soft, weak and defeated. I think he handled the situation brilliantly.
Forget about classroom management gurus and 6 step strategies for classroom control, when a student decides that he detests you enough to blow cigar smoke in your face, there’s nothing you can do about it.
The kid in this video is likely to get in a world of trouble. But if I were the principal, I wouldn’t stop there. I would happily punish the entire class for their laughter and encouragement. Shame on them!
As serious as it is when a child accuses his/her teacher of inappropriate behaviour, it is essential that the teacher gets the opportunity to respond to the allegations without being judged. Unfortunately, teachers are often subject to false allegations and excessive reactions on the part of the parents:
Simone Baker, 25, confronted her son’s teacher on Thursday about 5.30pm over claims by the boy that she had scratched his neck, KCTV5 reported.
Baker, of Kansas City, grew irate after the teacher told her to schedule a meeting with the principal the following day, according to a Kansas City Police Department report.
She headed to the principal’s office before returning to the classroom where she allegedly hit the teacher in the face five to 10 times as she held the woman’s arm down.
Baker allegedly then grabbed the teacher by her hair and rammed her head against a filing cabinet two times.
“You better not touch my kid again,” Baker allegedly told the teacher, before fleeing the classroom.
The woman was treated at hospital for bruising to her arm and some redness and swelling on her face.
District officials said the six-year-old boy’s father brought his son into Truman Elementary School on Friday and that boy had recanted his story.
The teacher could not be reached for comment but a local school district spokesman said they would be pursuing legal action against Baker.
“The administration did everything they do to keep her calm. They asked her to leave,” the spokesman said.
“We’re very concerned about this measure and we’re doing everything we possibly can to ensure the safety of our staff and the students.”
Baker was issued a municipal citation for inflicting bodily harm and is due in court on October 22.
A video like the one I have posted above can be both a blessing and a curse.
It’s a curse, obviously, because it comes at the expense of a poor, seemingly innocent substitute teacher who was clearly harassed by some of her students. It is quite upsetting that an ever increasing number of students are treating their teachers with the greatest of disdain.
But it’s a blessing too if responded to in a diligent and thorough manner. The wrong way to respond is simply to punish the students involved and leave it at that. The right way to handle such a situation is to realise that such behaviour almost always prevails in an environment that tolerates it. Extreme incidents like this one are almost never one-of-a-kind. I am willing to bet that there have been multiple incidents like this one at this very school that have gone unreported. This footage can make school administrators aware of the likelihood of a bullying culture that can be dealt with by incorporating a number of whole school measures.
Ultimately, a student doesn’t tend to pick on a substitute teacher unless the school culture and his/her classmates tacitly tolerate it. Singular punishments ignores the overriding cultural issues which may be present.
When a child is bullied it is rightly considered unlawful, yet when a teacher is bullied it’s considered free speech. The only thing stopping the vulgar website Rate My Teachers from being banned is the fact that it is an American website which is allowed to operate under the guise of free speech.
The teachers’ union wants the Education Department to shut down a website it says allows students to make defamatory and slanderous comments about their teachers.
The State School Teachers Union council resolved recently to write to the department asking it to close the Rate My Teachers website that some students use to abuse teachers personally and professionally.
“The website has allowed anonymous postings for some years, many of which would be found to be defamatory and slanderous of teachers if tested against legislation,” the resolution said.
The US-based website’s rules state posts will be removed if they contain profanity, name-calling or vulgarity, but recent comments about WA schoolteachers include “She is a whore”, “He is a douche bag” and “Sadistic bitch, she is a horrible teacher”.
Other posts say teachers are “bad” or “completely incompetent”. The website emerged in Australia six years ago, but this is the first time the union has made a formal request for help from the department.
Can you imagine if there was a website called ‘Rate My Students’?
Topical Teaching 