Guess the state!

[theweaselking]

Teacher has students vote on whether 5-year-old can stay in class

After each classmate was allowed to say what they didn't like about Alex, his teacher said they were going to take a vote.

By a 14 to 2 margin, the children voted him out of the class.

Comments

[sebkha.livejournal.com]

It reminds one that democracy is like a screwdriver. It's only the right tool for certain jobs.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

And even then, you're still screwed.

[jerril]

Welcome to the tyranny of the majority! The peer pressure forces even his friend to vote with the majority - 5 year olds don't have a lot of resilience, certainly not enough to stand up to this kind of situation.

I had a teacher in grade 2 who teased me in front of the class (and encouraged them to tease me) because I couldn't cursive write. This kind of behavior teaches the kids that it's OK to pick on the victim, because even the adults are doing it.

I'm pissed that this doesn't count as emotional abuse, but it'd better be found grossly unprofessional conduct by the teacher. There are channels to go through if the teacher thinks the kid needs to be put in a special class - the other students certainly aren't the authority to appeal to.

Of course, it probably wasn't "This child has problems and should be in a special class" - it was probably "I hate this little snot and I can't stand dealing with him all day". Which is GROSSLY unprofessional. ARG. STABBINGS.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

I'd assume that his one friend was one of the two dissenting votes.

[jerril]

'fraid not, it mentions in the article that his friend was pressured into voting against him.

Sadly, these are 5 year olds. They don't really have a lot of willpower at that age.

[fearmeforiampink]

No, it mentions that his friend had to join in the whole thing, I'm assuming that means the friend had to list something they didn't like about him.

[jirel.livejournal.com]

If you aren't willing to spend good money on the educational system and pay your teachers good money for creating the next generation, this is what you get.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

Not about women pulling the Kinder, Kirke, Küche routine, not about mad religious persecution.

Florida?

*checks*

Florida!

[missysedai.livejournal.com]

While I'm with you on publicly executing the teacher - because I used to be one, and she makes me ashamed of that - I take issue with this statement:

They have likely DESTROYED that kid's life, any chance he ever had at being able to adapt to living with the rest of the people in this stupid, fucked-up, badly-needs-to-be-annihilated world.

That's some pretty serious hyperbole, there. The kid is autistic, not irretrievably broken and unable to adapt to society at all. Truthfully, his mother is probably more hurt than he is.

Therapy will help him. But there's nothing on the planet that cures the stupid that teacher is afflicted with.

[jerril]

I don't think he was referring to autistic kids being broken in general, but this kind of encounter that early DOES cause long-term mental scarring. I have absolutely no idea why I suddenly woke up in grade 10 and decided my asshole peers could go fuck themselves, but that still put me GROSSLY behind in social development.

He was already going to have a bit of a challenge with social skills, but isolating him and exiling him is going to compound his problem immensely.

My grandmother was autistic and a victim of poor understanding by psychologists for decades, and my father was probably a high-functioning case of Aspergers. I'm a "touch" that way myself, but my coping skills are generally good enough that I don't qualify for any kind of diagnosis - I'm just weird.

I had it hard enough being "just weird" with a similar but less-extreme experience that can't imagine how a kid with a full blown case of Aspergers will be able to bounce back... Short of pulling him out entirely, home-schooling him for a while until he pulls himself togeather and moving him to an entirely different school... and that kind of disruption to his routine isn't going to really do him any good either.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I have absolutely no idea why I suddenly woke up in grade 10 and decided my asshole peers could go fuck themselves

I like to think I had something to do with it!

(Whether as inspiration or as asshole peer in need of a good self-fucking, I leave up to you.)

[unknownpoltroon.livejournal.com]

It was highschool. You were all assholes in need of a good fucking. ANd couldnt get any.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

This was rarely my problem. Which is, among other reasons, why I'm *totally* okay with either diagnosis, here.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_jeremiad/]

The kids are five.

Five year olds aren't known for their wisdom. Because, you know, they're five.

I agree that the kids need a new teacher, but punishing them for months won't solve anything.

[jerril]

This is a point that needs to be underlined for all sorts of reasons.

* Five year olds aren't known for their good judgment.
* Five year olds should be given pretty limited authority, and certainly not that kind of control over their peers at school. A choice between "peas and carrots" at dinner is about the kinds of things you can ask them. Or "Do you want the red t-shirt or the blue t-shirt". I wouldn't even give them a choice between a sweater and a t-shirt - I'd pick the class of clothing appropriate for the weather and let them pick from a subset.
* Five year olds ARE VERY EASY to prejudice and manipulate into giving desired answers - making everyone stand up and list what they don't like about the kid is going to bombard the entire class with negative information about him and an unspoken message that he's bad/wrong/nasty. Even his biggest fan in the world at the age of five would be likely to vote him off the island after an experience like that. I suspect the two that didn't are either more emotionally mature, were really upset about the whole situation and voting more "get things back to the way they were yesterday" rather than "get rid of him", or didn't have a clue what was going on and voted randomly.

[bluetara2020.livejournal.com]

I read it yesterday, so I already know...

Is there anything in that state even worth keeping or can we sink it into the ocean yet?

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Narrow Margin.

[chrisrw109.livejournal.com]

If the child, who is semi-autistic was causing a disruption to the class, then I don't necessarily think it's wrong for the teacher to consider having him removed from class. There are special education plans for a reason, after all, and sometimes those plans can't be executed within the framework of the larger class room. The teacher may even have been self-aware enough to know that she couldn't teach the kid... which I'd give her credit for.

So for that 5 seconds of thought, I'll give the teacher.. not credit.. but at least an even break.

And for everything that follows, she's just about the worst person ever.

Let's tell all of the kids to say what we don't like about this person, not what we *think* about the person.. but what we don't like about this person. Which means that any chance of it not turning into a verbal beatdown on precisely the kind of kid who's not able to deal with it, is infintessimal. Then let's make all the kids vote about whether he should go or not.

I don't trust a 5 / 6 year old to choose what they have for lunch, I certainly am not going to trust them to make a decision about the educational fate of a different kid after I've done everything I can to prejudice them against him.

This smacks of the teacher not being able to deal with the one kid, and wanting to be able to say 'Oh well the kids in class didn't want to deal with him.

I think the parents of every autistic child in that school district should have a meeting where they get to say what they don't like about her, and then vote on whether she should be allowed to still teach.

Or y'know... punch her repeatedly in the face.

Re: Narrow Margin.

[chrisrw109.livejournal.com]

Oh and obviously the kid will get over this issue. It's the utter lack of judgement she demonstrated, and the lesson she taught the 14 other kids.

(And btw: Kudos to the 2 holdouts)

Re: Narrow Margin.

[sivi-volk.livejournal.com]

Speaking as someone with a younger sister who has Down's Syndrome, I agree with the parental voting idea.

[botia.livejournal.com]

You know, when I first saw your lj entry, my mind immediately thought that it was a group of older kids not wanting their teacher to bring her own child to class, which is something that happens way too often in universities these days.

But the real story? Not cool. If he was a problem, they should have moved him to a more appropriate class without the nasty voting.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_jeremiad/]

Stuff like that contributes to the perpetuating stigmatization of mental illness.

[glitteringlynx.livejournal.com]

SCHOOL IS NOT A DEMOCRACY!!

Okay, I'm done.

[atlasimpure.livejournal.com]

If it was, students would have civil rights.

[crazy-alexy.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's just horrifying. As a teacher, I want to smack the crap out of elementary teacher.

[paoconnell.livejournal.com]

I read about this elsewhere. The kid is being evaluated for high function Asperger's Syndrome. In other words, he's a potential genius or savant. He's probably disruptive because he's smarter than anyone else in the class, and he ticks off the teacher because he's smarter than she is.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Or, because he's clueless with regards to social cues and incapable of self-control, he might be *just as dumb as anyone else* and *also an asshole who can't take a hint* - but that doesn't make it his fault, only his problem. And it's absolutely *not* the right thing for a kindergarten teacher to encourage the other students to victimise him, then add to it herself.

Re: Smart People

[paoconnell.livejournal.com]

I don't have Asperger's. This kid might or might not have Asperger's; that's why he's being tested. He might just be acting out because he's bored spitless in that school and wants attention. But what the teacher did was unconscionable.

I would hope that jocks/cheerleaders would still take science classes (our high school quarterback from back in the 60s is now a psychologist, and so is his cheerleader wife). Many kids these days just take the easiest classes so they can get out of high school. I have grown up kids of my own, and knew many of their friends, and some of them aren't doing so well 10 years down the road because they slacked off in high school.

Florida's public schools are worthless. . .

[lunargale.livejournal.com]

I went to school in Florida, and would like to say that pretty much *every* school I either attended or even visited (aside from the private schools, which I never was able to check out first hand) are run by people just as incompetent as her. Hells, when I was around his age, my kindergarten, first grade, and even second grade teachers did not know how to work with someone outside the norm, so they repeatedly booted me from class. . .on a weekly basis. They made me sit outside of the classroom on the sidewalk, doing nothing for the first half of the day (or last, depending on what we were doing), not being allowed to join in until after lunch. Also, my first grade teacher liked to tell the rest of the class that I was a terrible student, and did not need to be talked to, or played with when we went to recess. That being said at a volume which guaranteed I would overhear it.

I'm not saying it bothers me now, but I still think about it from time-to-time. It is something that really makes me wonder if I would have as many problems with my social skills if it weren't for teachers like her.

How can anyone allow teachers like this to continue teaching? It is ruining children, and putting the parents through pure hell.

[atlasimpure.livejournal.com]

I think the two holdouts should be skipped to the next grade.

Obvious displays of independant thought and empathy should be rewarded.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

What, WHY!? Had the teacher just come off their crack break or something?