If that is the case I hope for the child’s sake that she will get transferred to a class with a more qualified teacher, or even better have the current teacher replaced with a more qualified one.
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Oh dear. But at least this gives me an excuse to post my favourite scene of all time…
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That’s what you get for calling tech support.
–Mom
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What does this mean?
Given the propensity of a certain type of USian to believe in imaginary things, I’m not at all surprised the teacher believed this imaginary gun was a real threat.
But in my book, this would disqualify a teacher from having any contact with kids, henceforth. But then so would belief in an imaginary sky-friend, if I had my way.
ETA and I care not one whit what the policy was - any rational human being would have decided it did not apply.
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Well there were three more lined up in quick succession behind that one, so - yeah, it was!
Indeed, I do not favour zero-tolerance policies. But then I also own the racist consequences of allowing discretion. Of course, I prefer additional policies to try and mitigate the racist outcomes of the use of discretion, but I acknowledge those racist outcomes will exist and are a consequence of the policy I support.
I’m all in favour of pointing out why a given policy doesn’t work. But I think the adult thing to do is to point out the flaws in the policies we do support as well.
Everything is a trade-off. So let’s puts the cards on the table so we all know what we are trading off. That was the point of my post.
I disagree. It had different biases. But biases, absolutely. Everything does. All we get to do is choose what we feel is the least dmaging, and then try imperfect solutions at mitigating the biases that are inherent to what we do support.
But I am curious. Do you have policy proposals that you think would work with our current populace? I’d love to hear them (not to knock them down, but to understand what you are thinking).
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A bad school policy does not excuse the teacher’s behavior.
We, as thinking caring humans, have a duty and an obligation to not just point out bad policies and laws, but to break them on the spot. Especially those involving children or marginalized communities.
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I agree. But we need to acknowledge that that position will also be used by many others to justify breaking rules in ways we utterly disagree with. Any discretion you will allow will be used in ways you or I will disapprove of.
This is coming up as I think about the President’s latest misconduct. I can imagine cases of huge injustice where I think interference might be justified to prevent a judicial “lynching”. Can I justify interference in cases of what I see as a miscarriage of injustice without providing justification for the Trump’s actions, or does it only turn into a difference of opinions about which cases justify interference?
Tricky thing, discretion.
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Any discretion you will allow will be used in ways you or I will disapprove of.
Certainly, but that is where (eventually, and hopefully) the community at large kicks in to either change the rule/law, or decides to prosecute the individual. Any form of civil disobedience carries risk. It’s essentially the same as the paradox of tolerance. We can’t tolerate unjust rules knowing that those who would break all the rules anyway will use that as an excuse to justify their behavior.
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This seems to be the natural outcome of any ‘zero-tolerance’ policy. They usually get created in reaction to some event, are not well thought out, and most importantly, completely ignore the fact that reality is not black and white. The people creating these don’t think about the implications of the policies. In the Washington Post article on this, there’s this quote that really shows that the people creating the policies lack imagination to see how the policy will actually be used:
Another former school member who had a hand in drafting the current policy testified last week that he never imagined it would be applied to a 6-year-old with Down syndrome.
Reality is nuanced. Black and white rules will never work well because you need to consider all factors to address the situation in the best way for all involved. Unfortunately, that requires people to use their brains and do a bit of critical thinking and doesn’t make good headlines for the politicians on the school board about ‘cracking down on evildoers’ or whatever.
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Not necessarily - a lot of people in position of authority believe that the best way to teach children what behavior is wrong is to scare the shit out of them, thinking that this will “teach them” the possible consequences of their actions. Such as, cops locking up kids for petty misdemeanors, schools suspending them for minor rule transgressions, etc. These people usually love to tell anecdotes about how “my father/uncle/bud who is a friend with the local police came across some kids doing graffiti, so he had the cops handcuff them and lock them up for the night, those kids were pissin’ themselves, you should’ve seen their faces, hahahahaha” and “Back in my day cops didn’t care about ‘human rights’ they brought the kids in, gave them a slap or two, and that taught them what they need to know! those were the days”
(They also tend to be the sort of people who think being against corporal punishment is a bleeding heart liberal thing. “My father beat me when I did something wrong and I turned out all right!” - yeeeah, no.)
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Molly Ivins once replied to someone who said you can’t improve education (I think it was education) by throwing money at it, to which she replied: How do you know? It’s never been tried. [some of this might be incorrect, but it should be close]
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It means that the person who wins the argument isn’t the one who’s right, it’s the person with the worst impulse control.
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Not sure if regular teachers are even taught how to deal with special kids. You probably need someone specifically trained for that. I’ll have to ask sis. She taught 2cd grade. Back these lo, 60 or so years, I was put in special ed in the first grade. I don’t think it took them very long to figure out that I was actually pretty smart. Just took them quite awhile to find out my eyesight was abysmal and that my hearing kinda sucked also.
ETA, by the time I was in JrH, ‘mainstreaming’ had become a thing. Don’t think that one worked all that well. Nonetheless, I got a weirdly liberal (in an older sense) education in Tulsa, of all places.
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The single most important lesson that adults are expected to teach children as they grow up -after potty training- is, “use your words”.
This is the polar opposite from, “might makes right”.
When I hear people who are old enough to be adults, going off about the value of being armed in public, at the grocery store, at church, in public parks… I don’t hear adults. I hear people who never grew up, who still think kicking and biting is still preferable to using their words. Carrying a gun instead of kicking and biting, doesnt make it better. Neither does calling the cops on a disabled kid.
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Yes… kind of my point.
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