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This is a Tuesday Slice of Life for Two Writing Teachers.
Check out their website for many more reflections on teaching.
I have been obsessively watching the New York Times “undercover video” at a NYC public charter, which shows a first grade teacher berating her students. There have been several great pieces written in response to this article, including Michelle Goldberg's on Slate.com and two pieces in the Huffington Post - Alan Singer and John Thompson. But I need to vent a bit, too!
What stuns me, what I can't quite shake, is what is revealed by everything in the background of the video, everything behind the scene of the teacher and the young girl. These things stay the same even when the teacher isn't yelling.
I'm talking about the classroom environment, the classroom community, the classroom itself.
Look closely.
The room is sterile. I do not see any children's work on the walls, I don't see anything personal. I see many charts written by the teacher. I see a large flag for a university. How much voice do children have in this environment, when everything in the room is of the teacher? There is a permanent calm down chair. (And you go to this not when you are worried or sad or upset, but when you make academic mistakes.) What a sad routine in a young child's classroom.
Most importantly, look at the peers of the young girl. Throughout the video, the young children sit calmly, quietly, cross-legged, hands folded in their laps, perfectly still. Is this healthy, for children to not even flinch when an adult raises her voice? When a peer is chastised? What has led them to such a state of dullness? They do not flinch when the teacher rips up the young girl's paper. They quietly raise their hands, when the teacher insists "Somebody come up and show me how she should have counted." The teacher is upset, the young girl has been disciplined, and no one in the classroom looks sad or particularly concerned. In fact, they are ready to simply do it better than the young girl did...to ignore her issues, pass her right by, conditioned to step right over others and take care of oneself. This sends chills up my spine. This is the classroom community. This is not a healthy learning environment. What about children's emotions? What about being part of a community, working and learning together? What will these children be like as adults, as future citizens?
How many schools operate like this?
What are we doing?
Chilling.
How many schools operate like this?
What are we doing?
Chilling.
I haven't seen the video in question, and to ensure honest amistake not sure I cold stomach it, but your words made my blood boil.
ReplyDeleteThis model of discipline, where mistakes are public and permanent, rather than learning tools, terrifies me.
Secondly, where are the other teachers? Paras? Someone has to know what is going on. Someone has to stand up for those children.
It is very disturbing. A real classroom, real students. Where is the outcry?
DeleteI have not seen this video either, but now will have to search for it. Your description is just horrid. I do hope something positive comes out of this. I wonder why someone like this would choose to be a teacher and has anyone tried to help her? http://familytrove.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteI just saw the video and read the article. I am at a loss of words.
ReplyDeleteI know - it is very disturbing. I couldn't /can't shake it - keep thinking about it. We have become very complacent as a society, to imagine that this approach is right for anyone.
DeleteAs with the others who have commented, I haven't yet watched the video, although it has popped up on my social networking feeds. That said, your post takes me back to my own elementary school days, which were quite regimented. Our principal walked the halls w/ a paddle up his jacket sleeve and whipped it out to swat any child out of formation in the lunch line. It was the norm, as is the stricture of discipline-governed charters. For many, it's simply public tax dollars at work.
ReplyDeleteI, too, went to a discipline heavy elementary school. Thank you for reminding me of this! But I also remember joviality amongst the kids, a sense of caring and fairness in the room. These children seem so complacent and/or detached. Gives me chills.
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