During college, and for a brief time afterward, I was a preschool teacher, in a class of about 15-20 children. The class included many students who did not speak English as a first language, and a handful who had various developmental delays. It involved a curriculum and many of the classroom management skills one would need for kindergarten.

With that background in mind, I really can't understand why she would have the kid up at the front of the room like that, and "poll" the class in the manner that she did. I have been in situations where you had one child tell the other child how his/her contact made them feel ("You made me feel sad," etc.), but never where you were pitting the entire class against one child.

I can't imagine a situation where you would subject a child that young (even putting aside any other circumstances), to being called out by all of their classmates at once.

Teaching is a stressful job, no doubt, and there can be challenges in dealing with behavior. However, the method with which she dealt with the situation seems extreme.

ETA: I'm sure that all the facts haven't come out yet, so who knows if the truth lies somewhere between the child's story and the teacher's.

Kindergarten teacher here. There's nothing wrong with the other kids being involved in the discipline, even occasionally in front of the class. But it has to be done in a loving, positive way (which five-year-olds are certainly capable of). i.e. "It makes us sad that our friend Alex is not following the rules of our classroom. We can't wait for him to fix it [the behavior] so he can come back, because we like him and we miss him when he's not here." I also don't understand this vote happening after the child had already been returned by what I'm assuming was an administrator. However, like Sensuret I am skeptical about the accuracy of this story.

I think it matters as to the teacher's intent, in my mind.

I cannot envision a rational, intelligent, well-adjusted teacher ever subjecting a child with any sort of high-functioning autism to this sort of "rule-by-peer" or whatever. I can't really understand this at all.

I can see a well-intentioned but misguided teacher attempting to include the class, to try to "soften" the blow and create a relationship between actions and effects in the child's mind through his peers and (presumably) friends if the child were considered an otherwise normal five year old who acted out. In fact, I think it's actually a relatively accepted practice (the "I statement" method) - and while it looks like she implemented it poorly, I can at least understand where she's coming from.

One is more of a basic or (possibly) well-intended error, while the other is a borderline abomination.

Then again, since what she did was pretty much incorrect either way, you could certainly argue it doesn't matter in the slightest, and I wouldn't argue.

I would think you'd have to be very careful about how it was presented, and you couldn't do it with every class. Odds are you would have one student who would take their constructive criticism too far, or wouldn't understand the aim of the exercise.

Your example would work well, but I wonder how many classrooms would be able to do it successfully.

I suppose it is dependent on a strong culture. In my school, and my class in particular, there is a high number of kids with mental and behavior issues and we modeled this language a lot early on. The kids caught right on and within a couple weeks it went from "Hey, everybody shut up!" to "Class family, please make a better choice." I've never seen a child denigrate another in this process.

Especially with a kid on the autism spectrum.

I spoke with a school social worker (who also has experience with children with developmental disabilities) about it. First words out of his mouth were she should be fired.

My Mom-a teacher who is very active as an educator-was in such shock she didn't know what to say.

My feeling is the teacher is watching too much reality TV. The kid is 5. An adult would take it hard...they even have management training in the adult world that addresses the issue of discipline with large audiences.

Just to reiterate, in all my posts on this topic I have stated that I did not think that the teacher handled this situation in the best manner. The vein of my last couple posts have been towards the people that have stated, "She's a teacher and should have more patience, or just taken them out to recess."

I agree with laylo that you can do this in a constructive manner. I don't think that occurred in this situation. How effective that would have been with a kid with Autism, I don't know. I just would like to see more about this student's documented behavior and the results of his evaluation.

Kitso
KS 361

Think about this: You're five. You think everyone should be your friend. Stupid is a bad word. You cry when someone knocks over your sandcastle. You cry when your friends play tag without you.

And then a teacher (who is supposed to be an adult), allows people who you trust to tell you all the things they don't like about you (in front of everyone else, no less) and then vote you out of the class? It doesn't matter how long it was for... I honestly hope that teacher loses her job. And that all teachers who find themselves with a student like this do a little bit of research about how to handle students who act out...

This reminds me of the cheesy email story that goes around about a teacher who had all of her students write down what they liked about each student on a piece of paper and then presented each student with the list. In the story, one of the students dies years later and at the funeral, this teacher finds out that he had that list in his wallet with him at all times. Several other students bring out their lists and say they too carry it with them. Whether the email is true or not, I don't know, but I think it brings up the basic point. We care about what others think of us and what they say about us sticks with us for a lifetime. I think it's even more true for the negative things people say about us. I'm sure we each remember the kid that picked on us, whether it was to make fun of something ridiculous, like our name, or who called us a name, or who told us, on weigh in day, to take the water balloons out of our bra so we'd weigh less (thanks Roger.. I wore huge baggy shirts for YEARS because of you).. and it stuck with us for a long time. This is so harmful to a child's sense of self and there were so many better ways it could have been handled. If the teacher was mad that the administrator brought the child back too quickly, she should have talked with that administrator privately, not had each child in the classroom tell the kid how bad he is and then vote him out of the class. If you want to teach the kids how to give feedback to each other, you could do it on an individual basis so that if the child did something that was hurtful, the other child could say "When you do A, it makes me feel B" That's very different than having the child stand up in front of the room for a public, humiliating slam fest against him.

I can't get the link to the teacher's side of the story to load, but I just have a hard time imagining that the actual incident went down exactly as reported at first.

I also know that I've been frustrated with local newspaper coverage where I am when there's some kind of incident with schools and a kid. The kid and the kid's parents can tell the media whatever they want to. The people who work for the school are almost always bound by rules of confidentially, so what's reported is almost always very one sided. Note that in this case all that was released [ETA: as near as I can tell anyway], and likely could be released, was a police report that's probably available by an open records request.

I also want to say that I think it's cute that so many people seem to think that if the administrators returned him to class that obviously his behavior had been dealt with. That idea is one of the funniest things I've read on GreekChat ever, funnier than the LOL Cats even.

Please note that I don't actually think what the teacher did was the right way to handle it. I just would reserve judgment of exactly how bad it was and what should happen to her until I knew more of the facts.

And the saga continues...this time in Oregon!

VIDEO: Teacher duct tapes boy to his chair

AHAHAHAHAHAHA. Ok, so its not really that funny, but it reminds me of my High school. My English teacher (junior year) used to tape us to the desk if he saw us asleep on the desk (you know where you have your head on teh desk and everything). So when the person woke up, they weren't able to lift themselves up! Oh man, it was always hilarious to see someone being taped the desk, we even have several pictures of it in our senior yearbook!! lol

That is hilarious!

I don't mean to call you out, but seriously your statements just irked me. If you walked into the teaching profession "assuming" that every child would be "normal", you might want to rethink the teaching profession as a whole. Whether you have a kid with an IEP or not, YOU WILL have a special needs child (of some kind) in your classroom.

Using the excuse "if I wanted to teach it I would have gotten the endorsement", its just that, an excuse. IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act) and FAPE (free and appropriate education) guarantee these children the right to an education in their lease restrictive environment

I apologize for sounding completely bitchy and pissed, but it irks me to no end with teachers who have absolutely no patience for special needs students and would rather they "not be in their classroom".

And obviously you aren't seeing the positive a special needs child can be in your classroom. I taught 3rd grade last year (07-08) and I started out the year with 5 sped kiddos (3 SLD/1 Asbergers/ADHD and 1 Bipolar). First off, I have a very strict discipline regiman (I start out incredibly tough and lighten up throughout the course of the year). My students know that I am boss. I placed a sped kiddo in each group, so that my students understood that they would have to work with kids that were a bit slower than them. I ended the school year with only 2 sped kiddos (due to 3 kids leaving the district) and my class were amazing with them. They were willing to help them (without being asked by me), they would volunteer when asked. They learned patience. There are positives from having sped students in your room, but first off you have to stop dwelling on the negatives and look at the positives that that child can bring to your class..

BTW my comments are coming from a person who has taught 2 years in a special education self-contained setting and two years regular education (with sped students in my rooms). I am not only certified in Elementary Education but also Special Education Cross-Categorical.

Feel free to disagree with my comments. Feel free to argue with me :D. Thats fine :D