I thought the video was going to be much worse. What she was inappropriate but it wasn't as terrible as some people on the net have made out. I have no idea if or what the kid did before this, not that it justifies this, but he likely has a history of being a pain and the teacher gets little backup from admin or parents about it. Again, that doesn't justify it though.
It doesn’t say if the kid was being a little shit head or not.
However it appears to be an overreaction the way things are now but I have no idea what lead up to this. And in any case it appeared to be an overreaction no matter what the child did.
If parents and the people that run schools don’t want teachers disciplining their children then teachers should keep their hands to themselves at all times.
However other children are there to lean and a child that is not behaving is taking away the right of the other children to learn. So if a child misbehaves the teacher should not try and discipline the child but call an administrator and have the child removed from the class room. The child should be held and a parent called to pick the child up. The parent should have 2 hours (some time limit) to pick the child or child services is called to handle the child. The parent should be held responsible to make sure their child behaves and is not a disruption to the other kids.
As a former middle school teacher I can speak to the part about calling on an administrator. I'm in full agreement that something should be done about the child who is being disruptive as he/she is taking away from the education of other students. However, the solution your suggesting isn't how it goes. I wish it could be that simple. When a child is disruptive, most administrators expect the teacher to be able to control the child. Otherwise they criticize the teacher for having poor "classroom management" skills. In teacher credentialing programs they stress handling the situation in the classroom, not sending the kid out, otherwise the teacher "loses/gives up power". Most teachers I know find this philosophy idiotic because every minute you have to spend disciplining is a minute you're not teaching the subject and almost no problem student suddenly falls in line after correcting them only once. Calling an administrator or sending them to some detention room is supposed to be a last resort and if teachers do it too often they're viewed badly, even if they were given a classroom full of kids who are known to be a challenge.
Often when the child is sent to an administrator, the administrator just gives the kid a talking to and sends them back to class, even if the kid has a long history of such behavior over the years. Most administrators really seem to just want to sweep things under the rug and not cause waves with parents complaining to them or the superintendent so they often leave the teachers out to dry. This leads to a lot of frustration with teachers and encourages future poor behavior by the students who learn there will never be serious consequences for poor behavior. Teachers really aren't allowed many tools to deal with disruptive behavior and most of the ones they are told to use don't work well for all kids over the long term.
Often when administrators or teachers do call parents about a disruptive child the student's parents are apathetic or even hostile. I can't tell you how many times I've had to call a parent or have a meeting with them about a student's disruptive behavior only to be yelled at and told to stop picking on their child. Most school districts keep records of student behavior over the years and you hear it all the time from parents "The teachers are picking on my kid", even though the kid has been written up by many teachers over the years. The principals don't want to deal with it because the last thing they want is an angry parent calling the superintendent because then the superintendent often says "why can't you keep your school in line?". Give out too many detentions/suspensions or expulsions (which are nearly impossible to get in any state) and the superintendent says the same thing. It's a totally senseless situation.
So I agree that the parents should be held responsible for the student's behavior, but that's not how it goes these days. Teachers are expected to be able to do it all themselves and held responsible for doing it all despite being told exactly how they have to do it all.
Imo, what they should do is put a camera in every classroom, record everything and every time a student is disruptive the parent of every student in that class is notified. As it stands now, only the parent of the disruptive student is and that kids parents are either idiots, criminals, or in denial that "their little angel" could ever do anything wrong, so they just get angry at the teacher/principal and, as they say, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. If every students parent was notified then after a while some would get pissed and call the school asking "Why is this kid allowed to continually disrupt my child's classroom?", forcing the administrators to do more about problem students. Teachers shouldn't be expected to deal with problem students beyond a minimum level. Every school should have a discipline enforcement department that quickly takes out students who are continual problems and places them somewhere else so the kids who want to learn can learn. But this isn't going to happen because we have to "respect everyone's privacy" and some people are foolish enough to think that every student is itching to learn. These are the same clueless policymakers who, under NCLB, were calling for 100% of students to be proficient in math and science or schools, and teachers, were going to be penalized. We have similar clueless policymakers now under CC. Some people watched Stand and Deliver and Freedom Writers too many times.
Many teachers leave the profession within 5 years because they're given a lot of responsibility but little control. Administrators, who were usually poor teachers themselves with little experience, usually force teachers to teach a certain way. Then they bring in moronic overpaid consultants, who also tend to have little teaching experience, to nitpick problems and further tell the teachers how to do their job. I can't tell you how much wasted time is spent on "data teams" and an overemphasis on "collaborative learning" but if you don't do these things you get a bad review. I really enjoyed teaching and I was damn good at it. I took a lot of pride in breaking down math in ways students could understand if they'd pay a little attention. A lot of the students were sad when I left but I told them the same thing a lot of teachers who leave the field do - "I love teaching you guys, no matter your intelligence level, but I hate having to babysit the bad students." A lot of people want to become teachers to help kids learn, and a few do it for a stupid reason like they want their summers off. Ask anyone why they wanted to become a teacher though and no one ever says "I want to manage a classroom!". Now I make more money in a less stressful job.
Incidentally, for anyone who reads this, if a teacher ever calls you about your student being a discipline problem it's not the first time your child was a problem. Teachers are almost always reluctant to call parents because they try to handle the problem themselves and know that half the time they call parents they end up being the one getting chewed out. So if a teacher calls you about your kid, 90% of the time your kid is a constant problem and only tells you a version of the story that makes the teacher look bad. Deal with your kid.
...neither my wife or i present ourselves as angry retaliatory people to our children.
