The crime: noticing the emperor has no clothes

Natalie Munroe's name was bounced around a year ago after she made some critical remarks about some of her students.  The public got hold of her blog and she was placed on leave.  She eventually returned to the classroom but was not rehired by the local board as of the last few weeks.  Sadly, there is an entire site devoted to students with an axe to grind against their teachers, but this woman is pilloried for stating what most of us already know:  we got some major problems in our youth.  We have issues that would make James Dean seem respectful.  I guess being a teacher means one should have low standards for behavior.  Otherwise, you end up like Natalie Munroe when you call attention to the obvious.

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/pennsylvania-teacher-natalie-munroe-bashed-students-loathsome-blog-fired-article-1.1103086

Deborah Ashton acquitted

Notice: To all teachers, get a tattoo on your covered regions and protect yourself from baseless accusations of sex.  The alleged victim did not know there was a volleyball sized tattoo on the defendant's stomach. 

http://www.globaltvbc.com/acquitted+vernon+teacher+takes+to+facebook/6442610517/story.html

Teacher mentor, Bill Rogers, gets it

Bill Rogers, a teacher and mentor in Australia, is saavy enough to see that issues with students aren't necessarily solved through "better classroom management."  I hardly had any behavior issues the first year I taught in a bilingual classroom in inner city San Jose.  The worst year I ever had was my final year of teaching in a small town in California.  My neophyte principal would call me into his office over some manufactured complaint by a student.  I would explain they were doing this...because they could.  It was a power trip that involved their peers.  Generally, my experience had been that  boys were rowdier and more apt to stray from the class focus.  But the last year gave personal meaning to the term "mean girls."  They were sneaky, manipulative and spiteful.  There are times when I meet a nice kid and recall that I actually did like them when I started teaching.

Roger says:


The particularly disturbing issue of teacher bullying is also addressed. Some students (in our schools) use calculated, intentional, purposeful behaviours to intimidate, manipulate and "control" group behaviour towards some teachers. This is bullying. It is always wrong. No teacher should have to put up with the psychological harassment of some students in some of our schools, (most bullying is psychological).
Senior staff need to be alert to, and aware of, such behaviours in their schools and support colleagues who experience such behaviour. Teachers who may be more vulnerable to the power-seeking behaviour of some students should never be subsequently blamed under labels of "poor discipline" or "poor teaching". Bullying (of any kind) is always wrong and must be confronted in an appropriately restorative way. This issue is also addressed (at some length) in the book.

Here is the full article
http://www.guardian.co.uk/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2012/mar/12/managing-teacher-stress?newsfeed=true 

The mind set of the persecuted- Shawna Lloyd believes the teacher is racist.

1. See earlier report from February 

    

   Add caption

   Shawna Martin Lloyd

   February 24 near Waco, TX

   Well these dumb ass ppl are lettin tis teacher go back to work and teach kids after it was founded that she hit my son. There excuse was she was just tryin to redirect him. They said it was not against any law wat she did..WOW.... So if you have a child that goes to Brazos Middle School in tha 7th grade watch your kids that have Linda Hewgley as a Science teacher.......

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   • 5 people like this.
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       Julie Nesrsta that is rediculas!
       

       February 24 at 6:26pm · 1
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       Shawna Martin Lloyd Yea i know its because of the color of Michael...
       

       February 24 at 6:39pm
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       Jennifer Darr Valdez That is a damn shame! I don't understand what this world is coming to.
       

       February 24 at 9:10pm · 1
2. 
   

   Shawna Martin Lloyd

   February 24 near Waco, TX via Facebook for iPhone

   At wISD admin they called me in to have a meetin they made a final decision about tha dumb ass teacher that hit michael... Details cumin soon.....

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   • 6 people like this.
   • • 
       

       Terry Rougely Wat school did he go too dats fukd up
       

       February 25 at 9:29am
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       Jay Rokk Brazos Middle skhool!

The best dentists have large arms

If I walked in on a dentist who had, say, 8 child patients at the same time, and watched him/her struggle to clean their teeth and drill cavities while attempting to keep the mouths of half of them open with various tactics, I would wonder how pragmatic it was for them to do their job.  If 2 of the patients couldn't stay seated, perhaps they might use a brawny fore arm to keep one of them seated so they could operate.  If one of them started to cry, perhaps the specialist might give them a sucker and a timeout somewhere else until they returned to a state of semi-composure.  If we added 5 more patients, the dentist might still be able to operate but now they might have 2 extras whose attention wanders off and forget to keep their mouths open. So the dentist might feel like the best thing to do is have a short group chat with all involved explaining how important dental hygiene was and trying to motivate them to comply.  Maybe they'd get a ring or lollipop or whatever afterward for being good ( I recall this in my own experience).  But as the numbers grew or as time went on, we could see that the dentist was doing less and less of what their original  mission was (dentistry) and more organizing, cajoling, motivating, physically restraining, etc.  If this specialist now had 20 patients at once, it might actually be more important, that they were strong enough to hold children in their seats, than their expertise in dentistry.  But we (the public) would now call this person a "dentist."  And we'd say "Hey...that's what a dentist is expected to do.  How can you maintain dental health if you can't get access to the patients mouths?"


Which brings me to the current state of public education in our country.  Teachers generally accept all the additional and supercilious things they are expected to do in order to JUST DO THEIR JOB OF... TEACHING.  Maintaining order and controlling a class are, and have been, par for the course for awhile now.  Increasingly, parents and the administration have shifted more of the responsibility onto the teacher.  If Johnny acts up, ...."hmmmm....what is the teacher doing wrong?"  The old paradigm said "Johnny's at fault here."  Then this slowly shifted to other factors, ie home life, medical treatments.  Still, the teacher could send that kid to the office where admin dealt with them.  But as cultural entropy has increased, admin increasingly holds the teacher's responsible for handling discipline. Yes.  There are things a teacher can do, but what happened to personal responsibility?  Why is all this dumped on the teacher? And, of course, this presumed academic magician, has to do all this while making sure the child has a big smile on their face the whole time.  That is, consequences,  and punishment are last resorts; and anything smacking of corporal punishment is anathema.  While this is laudable as an abstraction, the reality is the circus we see today where there is little order, and being able to maintain this "order" has supplanted being able to teach well.  So...now you know why the best dentists have big fore arms.


 I feel for kids that can't stay seated.  I was always a bit squirmy after 15 minutes in a seat myself, and still am.  If  a student in class can't stay seated, how many options does a teacher have?  I had a wiggle worm kid who I had do art.  Some days it worked, other days were mayhem.  This child's behavior held the entire class captive. He would throw pennies across the room, mess with girls' hair, get out of his seat at any moment.  I recall asking him to do pushups and then was scolded by the principal as it is deemed "corporal punishment," in the absurd environment we call a public school.

Given this scenario, I can understand a teacher resorting to taping a kid to their seat.  That student has already done plenty to call negative attention to themselves and the teacher has probably tried any number of things to keep them from continually distracting the class.  What frustrates me is hearing the mother bemoan this while not considering that the rest of the students (not just her child) are losing out an an education when this student's behavior distracts the class.  All over America, this educational travesty continues because no one wants to hurt anyone's feelings.  Great....we have close to half our students who can't read and write at grade level and who will graduate with few prospects for the future, but at least their feelings were never hurt by a teacher.  Kids that can't, and probably should not, be in that particular school or classroom, hold everyone else hostage.

These days, it seems that one of the marks of a great teacher is someone who can find something to occupy this youngster so the rest of the class can accomplish something.  More power to them.  I hold the white flag on this; and, frankly, resent having spent so much time and energy dealing with this phenomenon. At this juncture, I, admittedly, detest all the peripheral things that teachers are expected to do....just to be able to do their job.  Organizing, streamlining daily protocol and tasks, pushing the self esteem agenda, promoting inquiry, and motivating students, creating lesson plans where the priority is simply to keep order.  Blasphemy to say this....I know.  It's not that I did not try and do these things, but somewhere in the mess, the idea of actually teaching became smaller or was even lost.

Do I think taping a student achieves its purpose?  No.  I suspect the kids get a laugh out of it and the squirmy kid gets a bit of attention and temporarily settles down before things probably get worse. But the parent that calls for blood over something like this is missing the forest for the trees. 

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/03/09/teacher-on-leave-after-allegedly-taping-visually-impaired-year-old-to-chair/

Teacher terrorizes class

David Mason, a teacher at Freeport Middle School is on investigative leave after allegedly making a threat. Can't wait to hear what this "threat" was. 

"If you don't get an education, you will have trouble getting a decent job."

http://www.wmtw.com/mostpopular/30551979/detail.html#comment

I recall saying something like that and having it turned into.."you told Carlos he will never get a good job."  I had to meet with the concerned mother at the school.

Teacher accused of slapping back of boys head during lockdown

http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/article1216221.ece

I can see out gunned soldiers in a foxhole with the opposing army advancing and one of the guys can't shut up...someone gives him a pop on the head and ends up being court martialed.  If there is any time you are not to play around, it is when a school is in lockdown.  The kid could end up getting his classmates killed as well.

Teachers harassed by students

Some unfortunate teachers can be the target of "mob" behavior by several cooperating students. When one student is requested to modify a behavior, others defend their own at the expense of the teacher's need to move on. A lack of effective consequences from home or school administration that might stop negative behavior can generate a downward-spiraling cycle that may lead to a teacher's physical and mental health being damaged as severely as if the teacher were a student being harassed or bullied by peers. 



http://www.berkshireeagle.com/ci_19975363?source=most_viewed


The last year I taught was a myriad of tag team disruption.  1- student 1 disrupts  2- teacher responds
3- student 2 disrupts in "sticking up" for student 1  or 1- student disrupts 2- teacher responds 3- student continues disruption 4- teacher responds with negative consequence 5- student disrupts in reaction to teacher request  6- student's parent calls to complain teacher was harassing or ogling student.  I still recall a former principal, yolanda falkenberg, who was "ok" with students physically getting up and leaving a new teacher's classroom because "their needs weren't being met."  The hypocrisy and cowardice of such behavior is appalling to me.  Of course once they sense that the teacher has no real control, everything falls apart and then the administration blames it on the teacher.

Student hoax of sexual relations with teacher discovered

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/bethlehem/mc-bethlehem-schools-fake-sex-teacher-20120218,0,6912097.story

This one included doctored photos on a cell phone. Was it retaliation? wishful thinking? both?

Miramonte elementary teacher pleads "not guilty." Student recants accusation.

We'll have to wait to see what shakes out of this.  There are still ongoing charges.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/02/girl-who-accused-miramonte-teacher-of-abuse-recants-her-story.html

Martin Springer stands to lose everything.

slave games

First an unthinking math teacher wrote a math homework sheet that involved problems with how many times a slave was beaten per day.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/01/teacher-who-assigned-math-homework-with-slavery-questions-resigns/
 He resigned.  Was it insensitive? Yes.  Should it end his career?  That's debatable.  But in all likelihood, it did.

Now there are reports that teacher's participated in a playground game involving escaped slaves (played by black kids).  The jury is out but, according to the school's investigation, this was something perpetrated by the students themselves.

slave games

Do false accusations stem from lack of empathy?

I liked most of the students I had.  There are always some that test you, and some I will admit to not liking.  But I believe part of the reason I could/can not find much sympathy for them is because I often felt unsupported in my role as teacher and authority figure.  Had the administration or parents backed up my fairly reasonable request that I be allowed to teach the classes without major disruptions, I don't believe I would have found some of them so unsavory.  But what added insult to injury was a sort of smarmy, self entitlement that emanated from them if they were given consequences for poor behavior, and were now "returning fire."....THEY KNEW....knew what?  They knew they held the real power/control cards.  Perhaps mom or dad had heard complaints about me and now were "backing them."  They knew that a phone call to the principal from a parent could wreck my week, maybe my career. I often thought that if they knew the hell they put me through, they wouldn't be behaving this way.

We are talking about middle school kids who don't need to worry about not getting into Harvard because they ended up with a C in history in 8th grade.  One example comes to mind that really irks me.  This student had some skills but as the end of the year approached she became increasingly sociable in class rather than focusing on school work.  Her mother kept her out of school for a full week before the mayfair so she could?...groom her horse.  Then when she returned I was left with the responsibility to get her caught up.  When she didn't show up during lunch to make up a test, she told me she figured it was up to me to go out and find her at lunch to have her take it. After all this, she  and her mother had the nerve to accuse me of
..... ??
http://teacherhunt.blogspot.com/2011/11/student-inventor-projects.html

http://teacherhunt.blogspot.com/2011/11/blog-post.html

Please see the videos I shot that day. There are 2 of them. Note the red haired girl's behavior.  Then return

Anyway, the complaint occurred after I called her to discuss another "concern" of the mothers. This was payback after snowflake didn't get what she wanted. How do I know the reason was because her grade wasn't what she wanted?  Because that was the first thing her mother harangued me about when I got her on the phone. First the complaint was that we spent too much time studying the states (US history) but quickly moved to the grade issue.

 "My daughter is an A student."

Ahhh...OK. so it's about the grade.  Then she pulled out the big guns and said "and what's this I hear about you filming her in class.  Why didn't you stop when she asked you to? .....Why don't I get the police and come down there. "  She also called me a creep.

That was the end of the conversation.  But...indeed, she filed a complaint  accusing me of trying to film her daughter's chest...something of that nature.

The point I am trying to make is that this behavior seems almost psychopathic to me. This girl and her mother would have preferred that I be behind bars or something of that nature...over the fact that this snowflake wasn't getting an A in a middle school history class.  The nature of the conversation made that obvious.  Otherwise, it would have been a straight "why did you film my daughter, etc."

A recently published book called The Sociopath Next Door estimates that they may account for 4 percent of the population, and I could believe it after some of the behavior I have seen.  I suspect if they had asked this woman if I should be put to death, she might have consented...well, maybe just have had me sent to a penal colony.

Sadly enough, this was one of just a few times I would witness what seemed like overtly, vindictive accusations over the most petty of occurrences. These  students and their parents appeared to use accusations within the context of a humane and ethical institution.(which is what a school should be).  The subtext is that it was about control and power. So I was not completely shocked by the recent finding on college students and empathy.  The chickens have come home to roost as they say.

http://education-portal.com/articles/Generation_Me_Study_Finds_College_Students_Lack_Empathy.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/fashion/27StudiedEmpathy.html

Public Reprimands for Teachers

http://open.salon.com/blog/jeanette_d/2012/01/27/shaming_teachers

Jeanette DeMain reacts to news that the Tennessee board of ed will make reprimands of teachers public knowledge.  I still recall getting a reprimand because I was asked to dance to the Village People's "YMCA" at a pep rally, and later sent an email to the principal with links to its respective wikipedia page where there are nuanced homosexual lyrics (didn't bother me, personally, but I was being called on the carpet for allegedly using sexual innuendo in my speech and thought it was hypocrisy).  She slapped me with a reprimand for sexual harassment of her?? Why because there were embedded links in the text that went to more sexual imagery within wikipedia.  But I digress.  The point is that now any incompetent, or vindictive principal could throw something like that at a teacher and effectively ruin their career.  It's already difficult to teach without having your name dragged through the mud and this would make it next to impossible.

UFT site on disciplinary charges and false accusation

http://www.uft.org/know-your-rights/disciplinary-charges-and-false-accusations

Susan Burke acquitted of choking students...even though there were multiple witnesses

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/susan-lee-burke-ex-montgomery-teacher-acquitted-of-several-charges-of-choking-punching-first-graders/2011/10/21/gIQAJLqj4L_story.html

The tendency to believe that a group of  kids would not all be lying is dangerous.  I saw them get real saavy once they knew they could run to the office to complain.

Paper and district do not reveal name of accused teacher....hopefully a trend that continues

accused teacher returns to work

The internet and papers are full of the names of accused teachers before any real investigation has occurred.  How are these people supposed to go back into a classroom and teach given the nature of the job and society?  It is almost impossible to disprove abuse did not occur so there is always a question in peoples' minds which is easily exploited considering how gossip moves and the low status teachers are now afforded.

Also distressing is that every story out there adds to the hysteria which creates an environment where perception is skewed and teachers are suspect.

Abused teacher in NY city

http://teacherabuse.com/

When you see how common it is for teachers to be railroaded like this, you have to wonder how many have simply vanished into the word work without saying anything.

Students who slander/ accuse actually get consequences

This is news to  me.  It is the first time I have heard of a case where unfounded gossip lands a student in hot water.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_education_edblog/2011/06/teacher-gives-student-a-phone-students-who-gossip-about-it-disciplined.html

Read the comments. 

I should have known something was wrong...

I should have known something was wrong with the district I worked in the very first year I was there.  I taught Spanish to about 10 kids and one had a mother who had taught or had a teaching credential.  I guess that made her an expert on all things educational.  The paradigm I was used to was old fashioned, I suppose.  It didn't infantalize teenagers.  If you asked for something and got it, you certainly didn't complain about it.  But that's what I witnessed one day.  The girl asked if she could eat something because she hadn't had breakfast.  So I allowed her to eat a granola bar.  "Ooooh.  I could get you in trouble.  You're not supposed to let us eat in here.  It says so in the class rules."
              Manipulative little monster.  At the end of the year I arranged for us to try using a scuba tank in a pool for the fun of it.  The little monster was on crutches at the time so she wouldn't be going any way. Nevertheless, mommy called into complain about the activity.  This wasn't the last time I would watch some mean spirited jerk ruin it for everyone else.
             Years later, a particularly hyperactive, disruptive little boy told me "You can't handle me," over the phone. 
              What gave him the idea I was supposed to "handle" (tolerate?) his poor behavior?  So that's why I got an education?  If I had bothered to become a dentist but found it hard to get squirmy kids to open their mouths, would it be more important to get them to open up then what I did afterwards?  If the answer is "yes," then count me out.  Yet somehow, managing large groups of empowered, entitled kids is what teaching is about these days.  I'm not saying I won't or wouldn't try.  But as the system breaks down you realize what you signed up for and what you are doing are very different. 

I suppose I'm a bit of a libertarian on this one.  I wish kids that did not want to be there had a stall they could clean out instead of wrecking my classroom.  If you are a Mother Theresa who equates meaningless self sacrifice with teaching, so be it.  I think anytime you attempt to move forward on some enterprise without the consent of people who are stuck in it, you are not going to get much out of it.  Furthermore, you could say "hey that's your job to motivate."  Fine.  I will do it up to a point but I thought my primary mission was to teach, not be a salesman. If they choose to text message their friends instead of learning about history, who am I to tell them otherwise. The fact of the matter is that I have very little power over their decisions.  THEY are the ones who decide how they will behave.  Maybe we can get Michelle Rhee in there since she puts students first.