I think we saw the same video. The kid seemed to be laughing about it, the clip is very short, so, are the kids screaming in real fear or typical teenage silliness? Do you know the context?
I’m reserving judgement on the event. Nevertheless, if you think I’m defending a teacher being violent or abusive then I could turn that around on you and say you’re opposed to teachers who do anything out of the ordinary. Which would be as unfair as you claiming I am in favor of some kind of teacher-on-pupil violence.
It’s funny, that whole “they seemed to be laughing it off in the video we saw” is used to defend against sexual assault allegations too.
Laughing because you’re too shocked to know what to do is a very real reaction.
Given bail was set at $100,000, does that sound to you like something the police do if they think nobody was really victimized in a meaningful way and the teacher doesn’t present any meaningful danger?
It’s irrelevant whether or not the kid was “okay” with the abuse. At the high school I worked we had teachers arrested for indecent conduct with students who were “okay” with that conduct.
They’re kids, and the responsibility of teachers is to educate them, care about them, and keep them safe from harm. Those teachers at my school certainly didn’t keeps their victims from being harmed, as they were doing the harm, and this teacher is certainly not protecting this student from harm AS SHE IS CUTTING PARTS OFF OF THE STUDENT.
You’re not supposed to TOUCH the kids, much less cut parts of them. Fuck “reserving judgment” for this abusive idiot.
I had a teacher come to my rescue in junior high when he grabbed and dragged off another kid who was being violent and very nearly seriously hurt me. Maybe he did the wrong thing by touching that kid, but I can’t ever see it that way.
Only one question is required here: did she cut the child’s hair off? Congratulations, you’re free from that burden of reserving judgment and you don’t need to learn anything further: she’s not permitted to touch a child in any inappropriate way and that includes removing part of their body, even a part that grows back. And I’ll help you out here: this also includes clipping nails and pulling loose baby teeth.
As for “stuff which I know would not fly today because parents would overreact, but at the same time were not in the least harmful” – you’re doing it again. How the hell do you know if something was in the least but harmful? People, especially as children, can be harmed in so many invisible ways and saying so is not an overreaction. I have a five-year-old son and if a teacher cut his hair they’d be charged with assault, I’d make certain of it. (And it wouldn’t be a racially motivated situation with my son, just plain old inappropriate contact with a minor and assault).
i had a high school teacher throw a chair across the room once, but that was because (1) he was trying to get our attention and (2) he was seriously angry at what assholes we were being while he was trying to get class started. it worked – he DEFINITELY had our attention after that.
You guys are pig-piling on me, but I’ve already recanted my very tepid non-defense of this teacher.
My initial snap reaction was that it reminded me of teachers I still have fond memories of, who did weird stuff to engage the class.
Sure, she shouldn’t have touched the kid. I got dragged into an argument defending my old teachers, except you guys think I’m defending this particular teacher, and the only opinion I had on her was “I can’t tell what’s going on here.”
This is exactly what I was thinking about, we had the same thing happen, and going all the way back to my first comment here, if someone had filmed it and put it on social media that teacher would be out of work. Unjustly, in my opinion.
it’s true, my algebra teacher in this day would probably have lost his job for such a stunt, and i agree that would be wrong. but i am confident that same teacher would never EVER touch or treat one of his students the way the teacher in the OP video has done. it’s definitely right to fire her over her actions.
Well of course she was arrested. Rather than standing respectfully at attention while the national anthem was being played, she instead used it as a backdrop for some kind of social protest. I doubt that any school will hire her now.
Cool! I can sympathize with not wanting violence and mental illness insinuated to be linked. To paraphrase the 90s PSAs that I loved because they didn’t bully me like my teachers: Winners don’t disparage the mentall ill!
But to be completely up front, it stirs up a lot of negative feelings that someone could be more concerned about the language used to criticize an abusive teacher than the abuse itself.
I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but I sincerely apoligize if I gave the impression I think all violent people are mentally ill.
I simply wanted to convey that having had some negative life experiences, I’m at a point where the reason for violence doesn’t elicit any mercy or sympathy in the moment.
In the long run: get them treatment etc. In the short term… I’m glad to be an adult with the right to make myself safe however is needed, and to have a set of local laws and courts that respect that right.
I suffered abuse as a child from teachers. Once I once commented in therapy that if I had access to an iPhone back then I wouldn’t be worried about some issues I was having at work, and the therapist agreed.
Sadly based on my readings of places like Reddit that skew younger + convos with peers, I think that the abuse has mostly just scaled itself back.
Stuff like the above is rare, but the “what are you going to do, sue me?” mentality prevails. The ACLU et al. will get involved if the behavior is egregious, but a lot of toxic behavior goes unchecked because it’s not egregious enough for a lawyer to take the case on contingency (to agree to be paid out of the winnings), especially if it doesn’t touch on speech, gender expression, or religion and is just generic assholery.
Sadly, someone is lawful evil enough to be mindful of what they can get away with, not what is not allowed, there’s a lot of room in our school systems for shitty behavior.
The silver lining is that Columbine still has everyone scared enough that outright physical stuff like the above is super rare
Hair-related racism appears to be very common at US schools in areas with significant Native American populations. I see stories about it fairly regularly; kids banned from sports teams for having long hair etc.
Apparently I am an outlier here, in that I never had a teacher abuse me, whereas I definitely got bullied by other kids and had teachers intervene on my behalf.
We all have our own history to carry around with us.
And I don’t disagree with that, despite what everyone here seems to think.
