Posted on 12/03/2007 2:44:21 PM PST by wintertime
In recent years, a slew of books have offered parents ample insight into the minds of young bullies.
But what if it's the teacher who screams, threatens, or uses biting sarcasm to humiliate a child in front of the class?
Teacher bullying gets little attention, say Stuart Twemlow, MD, a psychiatrist who directs the Peaceful Schools and Communities Project at the Menninger Clinic in Houston. But his new study, published in The International Journal of Social Psychiatry, hints that the problem may be more common than people believe.
In his anonymous survey of 116 teachers at seven elementary schools, more than 70% said they believed that bullying was isolated. But 45% admitted to having bullied a student. "I was surprised at how many teachers were willing to be honest," Twemlow says.
He defines teacher bullying as "using power to punish, manipulate, or disparage a student beyond what would be a reasonable disciplinary procedure." Twemlow, a former high school teacher, insists that he's not trying to denigrate a praiseworthy -- and often beleaguered -- profession. "This is not being done to victimize or criticize teachers. There are a few bad apples, but the vast majority of teachers go beyond the call of duty. They're very committed and altruistic."
Nevertheless, bullying is a risk, he says. When Twemlow quizzed subjects about bullying, "Some teachers reported being angry at being asked the question," he writes. "But more reflective teachers realized that bullying is a hazard of teaching."
(Excerpt) Read more at webmd.com ...
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Yes, we could. Easily!
If we had a completely private system of universal education, paid for by the parents ( with combinations of vouchers and tax credit scholarships for the poor) it would be the parents who would be deciding what is best for their child.
We would see the same amazing variety of services in education as we do in food, clothing, housing, recreation, entertainment, and any other free market activity.
As I was investigation private schools for my children in the early 80s I found an amazing variety of private schools. They ranged from Montessori, Waldorf, Challenger, and new age to strict evangelical and even a secular military school. How’s that for variety even in a system that is distorted by having 500 pound gorilla of price-fixed monopoly government schools sitting in the living room.
When I was in 6th grade, more than 45 years ago, I had a teacher who selected a student every year to pick on and ridicule - and turn the entire class against. I had the misfortune to be that lad. A transfer from the class was not practical, but ultimately my parents had to involve the board of education (4/5 of whom were family friends who took what my parents had to say seriously) to essentially have the guy forbidden to speak to me or about me (other than to give me assignments and tests and correct them), and everything he had written in my record was expunged. Within a year the teacher, who was tenured and could not be fired, was teaching the severely retarded for the rest of his career under very close supervision.
There is no forgiveness for an adult who abuses a position of authority to molest children, whether physically or through singling kids out for attack.
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metmom,
Please read post #98.
What a hellish year it must have been for the law abiding children in that class!
This kid was a convicted drug abuser and criminal. “Chest bumping” is what criminals in prisons need and get. The other children were not criminals but are being imprisoned with this scum as if they too were criminals.
It is a First Amendment violation of the child’s ( and indirectly his parent’s) right to free assembly to imprison normal children with a convicted criminal. This is what compulsory government schools are. They threaten law abiding children and parents with police, court, and foster care action if they do not send their children for daily “chest bumping” sessions in the government indoctrination camps.
In fact, we DO have a First Amendment Right NOT to assemble and associate with **non-criminals** of our choosing as well! That human right gets dumped at the compulsory government school door!
We have laws that control the freedom of assembly of convicted criminals. The rest have a right not to be forced by government to “assemble” with him.
I conclude that the government is guilty of a human rights abuse! Since normal, law abiding children are involved that makes it child abuse. Again! What a hellish year it must have been for the law abiding children in that class!
One more thing:
A parent does have the right to **RANSOM** his kid from the government school indoctrination camps. That **ransom** is called paying extra in private tuition and homeschooling expenses. Gee! Lucky citizen! He gets to pay ransom in addition to the taxes already paid for human rights abusing government indoctrination camps.
If a taxpayer resists paying for the government child abuse camps, he too faces armed police action. Armed sheriffs will sell his home and business at auction. If he resists he will be sent to prison. If he is sufficiently resistant the police will kill him. Aren’t government schools great! ( sigh!)
(Real bullets in those guns on the hip!)
What really gets me, is that far too many government school defenders think they should be given a Mother Teresa award for propping up this corrupt system.
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What a hellish experience for these retarded children!
Isn’t government schooling great! We should definitely start handing out the Mother Teresa awards to all those who prop up and enable this abuse. ( end sarc)
Uhm in the article, the survey size was 116 teachers. Now, I’m not a stats person, but considering there are hundreds of thousands of teachers in the U.S. alone, I’m thinking 116 teachers from one area is not a valid base from which to draw any conclusions.
Ah yes, the old lies, d@mn lies and statistics.
Funny how one can skew anything to suit a purpose, even bash professions.
This was in 1973-74, and that is exactly what my mom said. “If you deserved it, good. Now you won’t talk out of turn again.”
I guess we need more bullying teachers.
hundreds of thousands of teachers in the U.S.
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It’s three million. (Not my profession, but I know that stat.)
No kidding. I did 12 yrs in Catholic schools, with the parish grade school having the most sadistic nuns. They threw erasers across the room, told you you were going to hell for wasting paper, routinely slapped and spanked students, and used verbal abuse.
I had one piano teacher who would rap my hands with a baton when I played a wrong note. It's a wonder I play anymore at all. In prep school, Sister Superior grabbed one girl, threw her into the bathroom and washed the makeup from her face. At the beginning of the school year, we all had to kneel and make sure our skirts touched the floor. If it didn't, you got a whack w/the yardstick.
I appreciate my Catholic school education; at the prep school level it was outstanding. However, I think a lot of the nuns had real issues, whether it was with children, black children, being a nun, or whatever. Many of them should have used their vocation in other ways.
That’s why I was trying to call BS on the story. At times, it’s needed. Other’s not. Painting with a brush that wide, all bullying bad concept, doesn’t allow detail to be seen in the art that is teaching.
For the good kids, it was hellish to be in a class with this guy. When I found out about this kids criminal record, I asked the principal what could be done. He said basically keep sending him to the office, get his suspended, and soon enough he’ll either drop on his own or we’ll go back to court to get him kicked out of school. Sad but that was basically all that could be done.
The good kids do suffer due to the forced assembly with convicted criminals. Less freedom to do cool stuff (rules for the stupid) and less class time teaching and more time disciplining those who should not even be in the class. Overfall, THEIR education suffered.
This was about par for what I have seen. And this was at one of the better schools I taught.
Not a teacher. I’m VP of a company, and I’m getting this from high school and college professors. We hire a lot of people out of school, and I’m fairly convinced its the teachers getting bullied.
I’m working with these products of quality parentage, and its amazing to see what happens to them when they hit the actual world of adults, and mommy and daddy aren’t around to defend their petulance.
Probably with a mill stone around her neck.
I had a bully teacher in the fifth grade. This was around 1971 or so. and ‘corporal punishment’ (paddling) was still the accepted form of punishment. This guy grew furious that he couldn’t get any reaction at all from me after laying the wood to me for various, in hindsight, minor crap.
It really enraged the guy.
Flash forward to 1979. I’m home on leave, and instead of being just over five feet tall, and 100 or so pounds, I’m 6’2’ and 200.
He was standing in the driveway of a friends house I stopped by. It took him a minute to recognize me.
The look of FEAR that went onto his face, and stayed there til he ‘had to go’ a few minutes later was priceless.
(I just smiled and said ‘Damn Tom, you are much smaller than I remember from school....’)
Whatever happened to parents taking the TEACHER'S side when their little one repeatedly acts out in class - stealing learning time from the whole class in the process
I thought about this yesterday when my daughter (4th grade) came home from school with a tale about her lost Social Studies Workbook. Both the text book and the workbook have been missing for a couple days, her teacher finally made an inquiry to the class asking if anyone had accidently picked up her book and workbook. Lo and behold another kid had the text book in his desk. Workbook is still missing and although it may indeed be lost (my kid’s fault) - it still needs to be replaced, so I told my daughter she needs to ask the teacher yet again what to do as she has assignments due. If we need to pay for it we will. Yesterday the teacher told her to stop asking (after inquiring a whooping two times in a week) because everytime she heard her voice it gave her a headache.
What if I said to my boss when she asked about a project “Stop asking because your voice is giving me a headache.”
I think the incidents of bullying by educators that people are reporting here is their memories of suffering emotional abuse by teachers, not physical discipline; humiliation, ridicule and the sort. I wonder if the current lack of discipline in the schools is driving the cruelty exhibited by some teachers. In the past, teachers could rely on strict discipline existing in the school and enforced by the administration. Now, a teacher is often on his or her own to create and maintain order in the classroom. I think these conditions tend to weed out the kind teachers and selects for the meanies.
It seems that hiring principals care more about a prospects "classroom management" skills than knowledge or love of children.
The end result is a staff that is better suited to be middle school cafeteria aides or meter maids than purveyors of knowledge.
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