S/O - teachers embarrassing students

amother

Mon, Dec 02 2019, 8:22 pm

When I was reading the other thread about being embarrassed, I was flabbergasted to see how many teacher stories were on there. Do teachers not realize that any comment they say can make or break a child? Like how can you accuse a kid of cheating if you do not have 100% PROOF! Or call a kid names or announce marks or anything like that? Just from the other thread alone there are so many older women who still remember mean things their teachers said/did. IMO a person with such an authoritave position has to be beyond careful. Words can literally make or break a vulnerable child.

amother

Crimson

Mon, Dec 02 2019, 8:29 pm

I was just as horrified to see so many awful remarks said by teachers but the only thing I can think is- teachers work very very hard and are often overwhelmed to the point where they say things without really thinking. by nature we dont think of children the same as we do adults. you might hold yourself back from saying st mean to an adult even if your exploding but not nec from a child.
as a teacher your words hold so much weight plus there is the factor of it being in front of an entire class that makes it so awful. . as a mother if you say st out of anger to your child even if in front of their siblings you and they probably dont even remember it a day later.

leah233

Mon, Dec 02 2019, 8:46 pm

As someone who is presumably one of the older women who still remember mean things their teachers said/did (actually it was a principal) being referred to here, I'll chime in

Through in all my elementary school years I never heard a single word on a one on one basis from that principal that wasn't either critical or disciplinary. Even today when she is in her 90s I still instinctively avoid her.

Even so

(1) at the time she was very sincerely convinced that her behavior was the best way to deal with a struggling student. She was not being malicious or spiteful

(2)There is no way anyone can judge her today based on when went on then.

Do you know where she spent her upper elementary and early high school years? In ghettos and then in a Nazi concentration camp.

You may not understand these teachers but please don't judge them.

Last edited by leah233 on Mon, Dec 02 2019, 9:02 pm; edited 1 time in total

amother

Aubergine

Mon, Dec 02 2019, 9:00 pm

I was one of those kids that was humiliated and embarrassed by my 4th & 5th grade teachers. It was awful and the damage and remarks last until today. Although 30 years have passed and I don’t dwell on it, I don’t forget it either. Teachers- please remember that child who doesn’t do her homework or not concentrating or just seems a little different then the typical girl has a whole life outside of school that you may know absolutely nothing about. If anyone would have cared enough to inquire about what was going on at home, they would have found an abused scared little girl.

singleagain

Mon, Dec 02 2019, 9:28 pm

I wonder how much of it is at all generational/changing times.

Also, hadn't education theory changed?

Just in my 33 years I've seen lots of changes in the world in general. How much more so in the nuances of teaching?

Also, consider the size of classes and stuff... And was there a ton of intervention in class or younger children.

Just do many factors to consider.

Though I agree, teachers especially have to be very careful

amother

Wheat

Mon, Dec 02 2019, 9:42 pm

It really is remarkable how badly it can affect you. When I was in high school, I had an art teacher who was an abusive nut job. She ruined art for me forever. To this day, I cannot visit an art museum and I hate anything to do with fine art.

amother

Lavender

Mon, Dec 02 2019, 9:51 pm

For those in their 40,50 and 60’s. Yes a lot of our teachers and principal were survivors and yes they had unspeakable horrors in their youth - but the trauma that they caused many of us is unthinkable. My face still turns red and I shake at some of the awful things that came out of some of my teachers mouths.
The only good thing that came out of that was that I am very careful not to embarrass anyone and to treat every person with kavod.

amother

Rose

Mon, Dec 02 2019, 10:26 pm

The cheder principal who banned my son from a major trip for a petty reason is now cheder principal at another cheder where my relative learns. Should I tell mom his capabilities so she has a talk wirh child about his possible abuse? If I knew before he was an abuser I would have told my son to call me from the office if such an abuse occurs.

zaq

Mon, Dec 02 2019, 10:32 pm

I don’t think it was just from being survivors, though there’s no question they had to be exceptionally tough to survive. Not everyone of that generation was a Holocaust survivor, you know, though in a sense nearly everyone was a survivor of hardship of some kind: poverty, persecution, sickness, separation from family, war, exploitation, discrimination
and so on.

The European philosophy of child rearing was different from the American. One wasn’t supposed to show children too much affection and one was NEVER to praise a child in his hearing. If your dc came home with a 98 on an exam, the correct reaction was not “ great job, I’m proud of you” but “why wasn’t it 100?” This was supposed to push the kid to succeed. If you praised him, he’d only get complacent and lazy.

Unless they make a concerted effort to change, people tend to repeat with their children the behaviors they saw growing up. Most people assume the way they were brought up is right and normal unless something major happens to make them believe otherwise.

amother

Firebrick

Mon, Dec 02 2019, 10:46 pm

You're all forgetting the reality that some schools, like most of the big ones in my community, employ terrible horrible teachers bc they 1) need a job 2) are all related 3) have been there so long they can't be fired.

I love these beautiful dlkz points (sarcasm). They're correct but sorry, you should not be a teacher.

I can tell you stories of literal verbal abuse. I have such hatred towards my high school. Nobody can ever get fired, ever, so there are 60y+ and even a handful of 80 year Olds working til the day they will die and terrorizing little 9th graders. I'm now an adult so I will refrain from writing what I used to say and believe, actually I won't, that the building burns and the teachers in it so it can start fresh bc that's the only way.

We once had a teacher who was mentally unstable. The principal told us it was because she was the other principal's chessed case. Literal quote. She made our freshman year a living hell and put my smart, school loving friend into a deep depression.

ra_mom

Mon, Dec 02 2019, 11:13 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

I'll never forgot how a high school teacher bullied a heavy girl all year. When I saw her more than two decades later I wanted to scream and let everybody know what garbage she is. It's only by the grace of God that this wonderful girl is still frum today.

amother

Orchid

Tue, Dec 03 2019, 12:43 am

This is why I am so scared and daven not to offend any of my students. I am a first year teacher of hs modified classes and I am so scared of saying something that might cv hurt a student. I obviously wouldn’t maliciously Hans our grades in order, make fun of students etc, but I get scared when I think of the power of my words and how magnified it is. My students have told me that they repeated lessons I told them to their parents, they have remember tiny details about things I have told them— it seems they really pay attention to every word I say. The way the teacher student relationship is built is this hierarchy of a teacher standing in front of a room, etc. and being at the top is a lot of responsibility! As I was told by a mentor, just daven to do no harm!

amother

Forestgreen

Tue, Dec 03 2019, 1:00 am

I can remember humiliating things that teachers said to me in elementary school, and I'm a grandmother.

But here's the thing - some teachers really are abusive. The vast majority are good people who mess up or get overwhelmed, just like anyone else. When you consider how many hours kids spend at school, you'll realize that for most children, most of the time, the adults are treating them kindly. We need to weed out the teachers who aren't doing their jobs.

To the poster who went to a school where teachers were hired as Chesed cases - promise you won't send your own children to a place like that. Teachers and administrators should have the oversight of an independent board of directors.

amother

Oak

Tue, Dec 03 2019, 7:51 am

amother [ Firebrick ] wrote:

So true.

In my alma mater, the principal's wife is the unstable teacher. We've all been waiting for the time when she'll finally leave. The principal knows his wife is unstable, but how can he fire her?

This is one of the issues with nepotism.

amother

Chartreuse

Tue, Dec 03 2019, 7:58 am

Parenting/ teaching methods were different 20-30 years ago. I remember many teachers using discipline methods and saying things that they would never get away with today. Embarrassing students, Name calling and yelling was a regular occurrence especially when with the older teachers. Today everybody is more sensitive and with social media, there is the risk that any mishap on the teachers part will be publicized.

amother

Amber

Tue, Dec 03 2019, 8:07 am

My students last year of a difficult class asked me why I never yelled. I told them that just like doctors take the Hippocratic oath to do no harm, every day I made a commitment not to hurt anyone. At least that.

ShishKabob

Tue, Dec 03 2019, 11:42 am

zaq wrote:

Excellent post

amother

Slategray

Tue, Dec 03 2019, 12:50 pm

When I was in elementary school, the teacher decided that she saw me taking a candy out of a pack I supposedly had in my breifcase and eating it. She took away my breifcase and unpacked the items one by one & picking it up for everyone to see. She didn't find a pack of candies she was sure I ate from. Instead of apologizing and giving me back my breifcase, she kept it till dismissal and gave me a talking to about not eating in class!! I was utterly insulted. If she realized she made a mistake, why didn't she own up to it??????

amother

Honeydew

Tue, Dec 03 2019, 1:04 pm

My older sister's first grade teacher accused her of lying about doing her h.w., saying that the fact that she doesn't know the material "proves" that she didn't do it. She made my sister stand up in front of the whole classroom with a piece of masking tape over her mouth (ostensibly to teach her not to lie) for the entire morning, including recess time.

This teacher taught in that school for many years, and is lauded as a top teacher, honored by the school, etc...My sister says she was nothing more than an abusive witch. All the girls were terrified of her. Everyone knew it was scary to be in her class.

(I was lucky enough to be in the other class in first grade. I tell you that we all used to daven in pre-1-A to get the other teacher. Everyone knew this truth, except for the blind adults running the school.)

ETA she was not a holocaust survivor. There was actually another teacher in the school who was, and was known to be tough...but not nearly as tough as this woman. The other teacher was just tough on the outside - if you got to know her a certain way, you realized that inside she really cared.