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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.
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