New York Police Handcuff First-Grader

[thir]

[B][COLOR=pink]This is all imho a direct result of what my owner likes to call....The pussyification factor.
Back in the day the teacher would have been able to most likely easily taken the child in hand and delivered a few well deserved swats to the childs fanny to chastize him and that would have been it, end of story.

As is said in another connection "violence is the last resort of the incompetent."
It isn't neccesary to resort to that, if you have been suitable educated to handle these situations, and if there is staff enough to deal with them. I have been there, and I know.

I am not saying it is as easy as pie or anything, but if you choose that kind of job you should know what you are getting yourself in for, and you should choose to do it properly.

Of course back in the day the parents would have raised the child to respect authority to begin with too.

Well, now, having been a rebel since before I came out of my mom, I do not have a lot of sympathy for that kind of thinking ;-)

Learning to respect authority uncritically? Parents? Teachers? Police? Kings? Gods? Politicians? Any authority would just love that, but I am not happy with the thought of what kind of society that would bring about.

I am not fond of authorites myself, but I do see that there is a difference between bad and good authority. Good is something earned or proven in some way or another, bad is one that just demands without respect.

Speaking of schools, I have often thought that we take schools too lightly. Yes, it is undoubtedly a great gift to be allowed to learn, a gift we may take for granted but which many do not have. At the same time, we take children at their most energetic age, and sit them down on a chair to listen and listen. Basically you have a sentence of 10 years or so without having done anything wrong, a captive audience, too easy for the school not to do what you really should to capture their interest and in generel make school bareable, free of mobbing and such, safe and reasonable interesting.

As I have said, I am saying it because I have been there with that age and it is not just some political idea. Yes, you do need to have authority. But that does not mean just sitting on them mentally speaking. You gain their trust first. Of course there are cases with chidren where you simply have to sit on them first, but then you gain their trust afterwards. Otherwise it is just a sort of 'because I am bigger than you and that's all you need to know.'

Authority and domination should never be taken ligthly.

But in today politically correct world, the teacher doesnt dare touch him for fear of a lawsuit and all sorts of cover one's ass procedural bull crap has to be resorted too, and sadely enough, the parents probabely dont spank him eaither for the same fear that they will get prosecuted.

Yes I can see what you mean, this problem would be bigger in US than where I am where we do not do so many lawsuits, but the problem is still here too.

But it is atill a matter of educting staff, not using spanking.

I bet whats made out to be so shooking in the report is actual "procedure" and school doctrine being applied as it was desgined by lawyers to avoid lawsuits from angry parents who would sue the teacher if she had intervened personally and disiplined the child.

I simply cannot imagine that threathening with the hospital (there is a thought for you) and calling the police is procedure. I think it is incompetence, or perhaps too few staff. Or both.

Of course the story is coming from a onesided source with an agenda, so I have to take it with a grain of salt, it looks like there is a wholle lot more going on than what was reported selectivly in the article.

Certianly it is one-sided, no staff was interviewed and we do not know it from their point of view. Maybe they they not allowed to speak to the press?

But what agenda are you thinking of here?

[leo9]

if you have been suitable educated to handle these situations, and if there is staff enough to deal with them.

And that, I'm guessing, is the root of the problem. One of the many consequences of the long-running American belief that anything done by the government is a waste of money (except wars) is that public education has been run into the ground, with teachers trained on the cheap who are only doing such a badly paid and unpopular job because they can't get another one.

(I learnt the background here from my oldest son, who is teaching in the US because it was a job he could walk into with a British diploma. US schools will hire anyone with a teaching qualification from another country, because they are so much better trained than the American ones.)

Naturally this goes double for special needs teaching, because properly done it costs more money than the usual kind, but the parents are too few to be a voting bloc, so it gets less. The only thing teachers are expected to do is keep the kids from doing anything that might open the school to a lawsuit. With that as the top priority, naturally they hand it off to hospitals or the police, or anyone else they can, whenever it gets difficult.