You’ve got a point there. When I read the article, the image I had of the situation was more of an “every kid gets to give and recieve feedback” kind of situation, under controlled cicumstances, and only the most disruptive ones get voted off, and only temporarily, as a kind of warning, a time-out.
Reding the article more closely, it apprears that only this boy was critiqued, and that the feedback was given with the brutal kindergaren lack of tact; “you’re disgusting” instead of “when you push me and I fall down, that hurts and that makes me scared of you” .
I agree that is a brutal form of punishment which does nothing to improve the social mores in the classroom.
Why? Why is this acceptable? Isn’t what she actually DID about 1000 times more disgusting and unacceptable than what she looks like? What purpose did this sentence serve?
Just apologizing if I offended anybody. Was not my intent, and while I do think the lady deserves something more than being fired (See current thread in Cafe Society re: how much we love to see bullies get “pwned”)… I can understand how it would be inappropriate.
And for the record- i haven’t actually emailed the lady… although I do have some choice things I’d like to say.
(All my time on SDMB, my first bbq pit post… one admonishment from the mod’s! Is that some sort of record?)
I wonder if this teacher had to pass a National Teachers’ Exam or something similar. These exams tested those wanting to enter the profession to see (among other things) if they were prepared to use appropriate measures in classroom control.
Are any of these tests given any more on a state or national level? Are they required in public school systems?
The National Teachers’ Exam was required at least in Metro-Nashville Public Schools when I started teacihng in 1969. I believe it was dropped two years later.
From the way the story is phrased, I get the impression that they weren’t voting “yes/no”, they were voting on “who” - and those two just voted for someone else.
This part of the story, "After each classmate was allowed to say what they didn’t like about Barton’s 5-year-old son, Alex, his Morningside Elementary teacher Wendy Portillo said they were going to take a vote, Barton said.
By a 14 to 2 margin, the students voted Alex — who is in the process of being diagnosed with autism — out of the class."
makes it sound like a yes/no vote to me. Why have the students say what they didn’t like about one kid then vote on other kids?
I vote for this also. This little social experiment is disgusting and the teacher behind it should not be allowed to continue infecting young minds. Yeah, I said ‘infecting’ because there’s no way that’s teaching positive values.
Given the press coverage that this story has gotten, I’m willing to bet that’s happening to her right now every time she opens her email, answers the phone, or walks down the street.
The thing is, if this sort of thing worked, it would *only *work with the ones who are “weird”, and not kids with actual Asperger’s or ODD or similar disruptive disorders. They won’t respond to peer feedback - it’s practically one of the defining characteristics of their disorder.
Yes, part of conflict resolution as commonly taught is that you get to say what the other person is doing that is affecting you negatively. But you do it one on one, and both sides eventually get to be heard. When you have a disabled kid who can’t understand social cues, body language and normal social interactions, he can neither hear nor provide constructive feedback in a normal way.
I’ve been part of ill-facilitated “Interventions” that sound exactly like this, and it was brutal and damaging while everyone involved was an adult.
thing is, even if it did go down the way as_u_wish portrayed it, “voting the kid out of the class” is not an appropriate response to his behavior–or did that crucial point elude you? The class as a whole does not get to decide who stays and who goes. The administration and the parents, with teacher input and whatever social worker/counselor/therapist make that decision. Sometimes (most times) the parents aren’t given a say. Why are 5 year olds being empowered in this way?
Even if you discount the more abusive elements of this story as pure hyperbole, the teacher STILL didn’t handle this situation correctly or appropriately. Hello?
Exactly my point, WhyNot re the sad irony of this kid keeping it together during his “tribunal”.
I saw the mom and the boy on the morning news show. (CBS IIRC)
The kid didn’t seem that bad during the interview. Of course his mom was holding him the entire time.
They did not cover his specific behavior in the class.
See, and that just makes me even more mad. Yeah, this shouldn’t have happened. But when bad shit happens, you (ready for this?) ADDRESS IT ONE ON ONE WITH THE PERSON WHO HURT YOU! Apparently no one in this kid’s life got that memo. So now he’s getting a heaping helping of learning to be a victim and attention whore from his media happy mother, on top of being actively disliked by his peers because of his own behavior. This kid doesn’t stand a chance, Aspy’s or no.
Could we not write people’s entire lives off on the basis of one glimpse of one month of their childhood, please, WhyNot? Some of us who had crappy parents and weird childhoods are in the room and feel like we ended up not so bad after all, though I’m sure a lot of people here would disagree in my specific case.
