(no subject)

[camwyn]

*sigh*

There are days when I really kind of wonder about the state of Florida.

Florida schoolteacher, faced with child under evaluation to determine whether or not he has Asperger's syndrome, has the rest of the class tell the boy what they think of him, then vote on whether or not the child should be allowed to stay in the classroom.


Newspaper article on the incident

Follow-up article

Very, very sane discussion of the situation on Daily Kos

I'm sorry to those of you reading this who're from Florida. I've never really felt entirely comfortable there, and lately I've run across news articles about things in the Florida education system or justice system that make me want to staple my palm to my face. I'm sure it'll pass eventually and next thing I know I'll be hearing about the egregious wrongs of the state of New Jersey, but after the 'OMG I WAS FIRED FOR WIZARDRY!!!!' teacher fiasco that turned out to be 'uh, actually, sir, you were fired for cursing in class and putting a student in charge; the fact that someone accused you of wizardry for doing a magic trick was purely secondary', I get all twitchy whenever the state's education system comes up in the news.

Comments

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

I saw that.

Speaking as a person who has never been formally diagnosed with Asperger's, but who was certainly socially impaired in kindergarten and through middle school (after which things gradually improved), I don't have any words scathing enough for that teacher. What the bloody hell does she think she was doing?

[bogboblin.livejournal.com]

Seconded as someone possibly in a similar position! Kee-rist.

[camwyn]

What gets me is that I've found a few articles with photographs of the teacher. She's apparently African-American. Allowing your students to tell another student 'you're disgusting and awful and you act funny and we don't want you in our classroom' has all the wrong echoes.

And as angry as I am with what this woman did, there's a part of me that wonders whether some of this is a case of 'the boss rages at the employee, the employee shouts at the wife, the wife smacks the child, the child kicks the dog'- rage transferred down from person to person until the only target left is the truly defenseless one. It doesn't make the situation any better if that's what happened, but... one wonders what drives a teacher to think that this kind of treatment is a good idea. If she has a career as a teacher behind her, this is a throwing-the-career-away move for her. Something surely contributed to her assholery.

(I'm not saying what she did was right, and I'm not taking her side- I'm just trying to work out the causes here. There was a time when I was going to be an epidemiologist. It leaves you wanting to dig up the root causes of all kinds of things.)

[vivien]

First off, let me premise what I am about to say with this: there is no excuse for how this teacher acted. It's not a case of misplaced aggression, imho; it's more a case of ineptitude and ridiculously bad classroom management.

As a preschool/kindergarten teacher of twelve years, I had many really difficult kiddos. When they'd be absent (and they were hardly ever absent), I would say a silent thank you for the relief of not having to deal with the biting, kicking, tantrums, and just-plain-all-over-the-placeness for one day. Kids with behavior problems are hard. Their behavior wears you down, because you have to constantly be on guard, positive when you just want to scream, and uber-proactive. Looking away for one second is all it takes for a child to lash out - and when bites break skin, HOO BOY, are you in for fun times (especially if it's your skin). I've had chairs thrown out me, gotten cursed out, been hit in the face - and the four-year-olds these days are strong.

With the pressure for academic standards higher than it's ever been, and kids coming in at lower and lower academic levels with less parental support, you now not only have to deal with your kids with behavior issues, but with the handful of kids (or 1/2 to 3/4 of a class, depending on where you are) who can't speak English (and yet are expected to test in reading, writing, and math at the same level as the English speakers), a few more kids on different IEPs for which you must accommodate, your low performers who aren't special ed, your gifted kids whose needs must be met, and all the ones in the middle who most easily slip through the cracks. Add to that one kid with serious behavior challenges, and your unskilled teachers are going to knuckle under -or do something unethical and stupid, like this or like the teachers who duct tape little kids to chairs or write mean reminders on their foreheads with sharpies (both of which have happened in the past few years).

This teacher has about as much experience as I had in the classroom. When she started, kindergarten was still mostly a social/emotional development place. Your students back then might have practiced writing their names, played letter games, learned colors and counting to 10, and did a lot of active play in learning centers (like the dramatic play center and blocks). Now kindergartners need to know how to read and write sentences, count to 100, and there is very little time (if any) for active play in which children learn how to deal with those "unnecessary" things like cooperation and sharing. Teachers are under stress, and kids are under stress, and Florida is one of the states with the highest academic expectations. The classroom has changed so much in the last twelve years, but this teacher hasn't changed with it, I'll bet.

However, good teachers under stress work with the interventionists in their building, and with the parents, to come up with strategies. Good teachers might curse inwardly when they see Child X walk through the morning, but they never, never publicly humiliate a child. Good teachers might do a little dance once Child X leaves their classroom for the next grade, but never where the child will see. Unfortunately, because of the low pay, high stress, and lack of respect, we see fewer and fewer good teachers sticking with the teaching profession. The mediocre and the bad ones are kept in the classrooms, because it's hard to fire teachers once they have tenure, and depending on where their district is, it's hard to replace them.

Phew. Okay! I'll stop babbling now. But there's a little on some root causes from one in the know.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this enlightening post.

Quick question

[argonautilus.livejournal.com]

Can I ask what is driving this dramatic change? I didn't learn to read until first grade and how you describe kindergarden 12 years ago is how I remember it. As someone who is thinking about having kids in the near future, I'm astonished and not a little dismayed at the change.

Re: Quick question

[camwyn]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess No Child Left Behind, with its emphasis on meeting the numbers at the cost of sanity, is probably a big part of it.

Re: Quick question

[vivien]

We have No Child Left Behind, legislation enacted by Bush in 2000, to thank for the increased pressure. Now, I am all for high standards and excellence in academics. I think there are parts of No Child Left Behind that are necessary and helpful. But for the most part it is an unfunded mandate that focuses all efforts around series of high stakes testing to measure student progress.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Your theory sounds likely. As an African-American female public kindergarten teacher in the state of Florida, the teacher is probably paid dirt, and I expect she gets treated like dirt regularly. That said, being treated like dirt is no excuse to pass the behavior along.

[bogboblin.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it's a case of allowing the students to do that- the way kids think, she may as well have told them to tell him they hate him.

[camwyn]

True. On the other hand, at five years old, they might not have needed provocation from the teacher.

[bogboblin.livejournal.com]

Many wouldn't- but with them setting a precedent, many more woulda joined in whatever they actually thought.

[camwyn]

... and now I wonder how many of the kids will remember their kindergarten class when they get to high school and first learn about the Milgram experiments.

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

There's a reason why fark.com has a florida tag.

[erisiansaint]

I was educated in FL. It took years to escape the state and now I live in one I /like/. That being said, I can say, with absolute certainty, that Florida, as a state, is TOTALLY SCREWED UP. It also has a horrible education system.

[snapples-apples.livejournal.com]

I was born in Florida and count myself extremely fortunate that almost all of my schooling happened elsewhere. We moved back for a couple years when I was in middle school, more than enough to give me every standard I might ever need to define a truly terrible school.

[nesmith.livejournal.com]

If a teacher had done that to me round about when I was 13, 14, 15, I probably would have succeeded in killing myself.

[camwyn]

As much as I want to know what provoked this woman to act the way she did- so that it can be addressed and corrected before anyone else gets hurt- I still wouldn't trust anyone who could decide that this course of action was a good one with the education of a dog. Much less a vulnerable human. Of any age.

I'm sorry for whatever hell you've got in your past.

[nesmith.livejournal.com]

It was a very Sartre existence. Hell is other people, indeed. But I survived and am stronger for the crap I had to put up with. If anything it made me more compassionate, because I know how it feels to be hated and outcast.

I'd be interested too, but it really makes you question if she has ANY sense of forethought, propriety, or even sense at all. I mean, it's such an unreasonable, dumb thing to do that I wonder how she even thought it was a good idea.

[terrie01.livejournal.com]

Is there an epidemic? Something similar happened in Indiana.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=4945581&page=1

[the_croupier]

I'll second feonixrift. The Fark tag says it all.

[tundra-no-caps.livejournal.com]

I'd say "Unbelievable", except I can believe.

Fucking humans.

[snapples-apples.livejournal.com]

I can add from personal experience that 15 years ago, the private middle schools in Tampa had a wait list to get in that started when the kid in question was four, to try to get them out of the public middle school. And for damn good reason. Underfunded, moldy and full of nightmare students, it was a pretty damn hopeless place.

Though things seem to be improving? None of the teachers when I was there had enough soul left to even come up with something as twisted as this.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

More information, with the original primary sources, is available here (http://www.slate.com/id/2192480/entry/0/).