Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Still so far to go...

Having taught special education for 21 years, I am a huge advocate of teachers.  Public school teachers work with limited resources, with little control over their working conditions, to accomplish amazing things, and most of them do it out of a sincere dedication to improving the futures of their students.  I don't think anything good comes out of demonizing teachers.

But, a story I just saw on the Today Show has deeply disturbed me.  A fourteen year old girl named Cheyenne, a student with special needs at Miami Trace Middle School in Ohio, became reluctant to go to school and reported several disturbing things about her teacher and classroom aide to her parents.  The parents tried to go through the usual channels of teacher, principal, and superintendent to find out what was going on, but when these actions were ineffectual, they had Cheyenne bring a tape recorder to school in her backpack.  While this action would usually upset me, the tapes proved conclusively that Cheyenne was being verbally harassed in her classroom by her teacher and aide about her work, her weight, her difficulty making friends, etc. .  The comments were not made in anger by a frustrated teacher (who, hopefully, later recognized the mistake and apologized), but calmly, consistently, and repeatedly.  The aide was asked to resign and the teacher suspended without pay.  The family is suing for damages.

Teachers, when you're that burned out, it's time to go.  Find something, anything, else to do to earn a paycheck.  Kids are hard, kids are frustrating, but they don't need the burden of your unhappiness.  They have enough problems of their own.  Do everyone a favor, and resign.

That's not demonizing; that's just the truth.