A Teacher under Scrutiny
A teacher has again come under media scrutiny because of her abuse of a child.
Police arrest childcare teacher suspected of child abuse
The video has gone viral and the public could see how the teacher man-handled the child, eventually causing the child to suffer a fracture. The story from the school to the parents was that the child had suffered a fall. The parents demanded to see the CCTV and were horrified to see the images (the mother was clearly hysterical at the suffering her child went through).
I am a teacher and also believe that no child should be subject to what the child was subjected to. It is clearly a breach of the duty of care we have as educators, not to harm our charges.
I was a school manager and believe that management should not lie to their parents regarding what had actually happened. It is clearly a breach of the duty of care we have as managers, to assure our customers that their child is safe in our hands.
Now that I have put all my beliefs ahead, I wish that the general public would be more reserved in their judgements before investigations are complete. I only see tons of condemnation for the teacher.
A teacher comes under a lot of pressure, especially if there are difficult children in the class. Some children can seriously disrupt the class, making it difficult to teach the rest of the class. Teachers with a modicum of responsibility cannot allow the disruptive child to destroy the learning of the rest of the class, but yet her hands are tied in so many ways. Her professional duty as a care-giver cannot allow her to discipline a young child using the way that most young children know best - a light tap with the cane, enough to feel pain, insufficient to do permanent damage. As a teacher, I do not subscribe to that too (no teacher should). Caning is for the parents to administer, not the teacher, and that really means we can only use a time-out. And even then it does not work for some children.
And when the teacher comes under all that pressure, it is the responsibility of the management to see that source of pressure relieved. A rotation of teachers, or even a simple invitation to the parents to withdraw the difficult child, can do wonders to besieged teachers. But when management refuse to think in humanitarian ways (humanitarian for the teacher and the child, though admittably not so much for the parents), the pressure boils until something snaps.
And so we witness a teacher gone ballistic, her normally good judgement clouded by frustration and a pressure that has built to levels beyond what many humans can sustain (a select few can sustain greater pressure - we call them "saints" or "star teachers"). A teacher gone ballistic found herself doing something that would be on her conscience forever, and which would destroy her career forever, and which would make the public hate her forever.
Was the teacher in the video one who has been habitually abusing the children? If the investigation shows that this is so, I join in the condemnation of one who has sullied our profession. If the teacher in the video was not one who has been habitually abusing the children, but one who has been firm and loving all the while? Then perhaps we should begin to aim our arrows at a management that treats its teachers as nothing more than sheepdogs for their cattle.
Police arrest childcare teacher suspected of child abuse
The video has gone viral and the public could see how the teacher man-handled the child, eventually causing the child to suffer a fracture. The story from the school to the parents was that the child had suffered a fall. The parents demanded to see the CCTV and were horrified to see the images (the mother was clearly hysterical at the suffering her child went through).
I am a teacher and also believe that no child should be subject to what the child was subjected to. It is clearly a breach of the duty of care we have as educators, not to harm our charges.
I was a school manager and believe that management should not lie to their parents regarding what had actually happened. It is clearly a breach of the duty of care we have as managers, to assure our customers that their child is safe in our hands.
Now that I have put all my beliefs ahead, I wish that the general public would be more reserved in their judgements before investigations are complete. I only see tons of condemnation for the teacher.
A teacher comes under a lot of pressure, especially if there are difficult children in the class. Some children can seriously disrupt the class, making it difficult to teach the rest of the class. Teachers with a modicum of responsibility cannot allow the disruptive child to destroy the learning of the rest of the class, but yet her hands are tied in so many ways. Her professional duty as a care-giver cannot allow her to discipline a young child using the way that most young children know best - a light tap with the cane, enough to feel pain, insufficient to do permanent damage. As a teacher, I do not subscribe to that too (no teacher should). Caning is for the parents to administer, not the teacher, and that really means we can only use a time-out. And even then it does not work for some children.
And when the teacher comes under all that pressure, it is the responsibility of the management to see that source of pressure relieved. A rotation of teachers, or even a simple invitation to the parents to withdraw the difficult child, can do wonders to besieged teachers. But when management refuse to think in humanitarian ways (humanitarian for the teacher and the child, though admittably not so much for the parents), the pressure boils until something snaps.
And so we witness a teacher gone ballistic, her normally good judgement clouded by frustration and a pressure that has built to levels beyond what many humans can sustain (a select few can sustain greater pressure - we call them "saints" or "star teachers"). A teacher gone ballistic found herself doing something that would be on her conscience forever, and which would destroy her career forever, and which would make the public hate her forever.
Was the teacher in the video one who has been habitually abusing the children? If the investigation shows that this is so, I join in the condemnation of one who has sullied our profession. If the teacher in the video was not one who has been habitually abusing the children, but one who has been firm and loving all the while? Then perhaps we should begin to aim our arrows at a management that treats its teachers as nothing more than sheepdogs for their cattle.
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