Our education system has evolved to the point where teachers have really become surrogate parents. We are no longer solely responsible for teaching reading, writing and arithmetic. Oh no, we are now responsible for teaching good nutrition, tolerance of others, good self-esteem and other value-based training. The line between teacher and parent has blurred and this is a dangerous place for teachers. Let me give you an example;
It was a typical day in Jones Elementary School. The kindergarten class was sitting in the cafeteria, lunch boxes open. The teachers walked easily through the tables observing the giggling, talking and eating. However, there was one little boy who was being quite active and not eating. He was a little louder, and distracting the other children from eating their lunches. The teachers tried to quiet him down, reminded him to eat his lunch before time was up, but he ignored them. The teacher reminded him again, and again, and again. Typical of five year olds, he was too busy having fun to eat. Lunch bell rang, his lunch got tossed into the garbage. He starts crying that he didn’t get to eat. The teacher reaches back into the garbage where his lunch is sitting on top, having not traveled any further down the trash can and hands it to him to eat – a box of chicken nuggets and a banana (in peel). He eats the lunch while she watches.
That teacher was arrested for “risking injury to a minor” (MSNBC article here). Before we all get defensive about this how many of us have done this in our own house? I have. Many times.
Why would ANYBODY want to be a public school teacher when treating children, as if they were your own, consistently runs the risk of landing yourself in jail? One word from a student accusing a teacher of ANYTHING, regardless of truth, at the minimum can cause public embarrassment and the loss of teaching license and at the worst can land you in jail. It is a profession that is atrociously under paid, requires the constant tolerance of parents who want results without effort, and the wrangling of administrative nonsense. We give our teachers the responsibility of being a parent but then scrutinize them to the point that they are consistently walking a litigious tight rope. I want all of us to think how many times we could be arrested in our own house for the way we treat our children. I kiss my child, hug my child, I yell at my child (and sometimes not very nicely), I spank, I deny, I punish, I even take away food and sometimes I dig food out of the garbage and give it to them. All of these same actions make a teacher susceptible to being fired or arrested.
I’m not saying that all teachers are great, because they are not. And I’m definitely not saying that some teachers act inappropriately, becacuse they do. The vast majority though, are good. I’m calling for the return of common sense. For parents, to take their egos out of the mix and look at the situation honestly. This poor teacher who is being arrested (at 67 years old) did not put that 5 year old in danger. No more than I do when I let Lucy ride her tricycle without a helmet.
