Saturday, March 5, 2011
stupid idiot
I was at Whataburger eating a burger and some people with a kid sat down behind me. I think the kid spilled something and the dad called him stupid at least three times and called him a fucking idiot at least once. Now this kid was not older than 4. I do not want to be someone that says that I cannot teach kids because they have bad parents. But, it will be my job to try to motivate this kid to learn 5 or six years down the road after he has been called stupid who knows how many times by his dad and may already be convinced that he is stupid. That seems like it will be a challenge. I wondered how that kid might be in my middle school science class. If he would be tough and demeaning like his father was or if he would take encouragement well even if he had never had any encouragement before. In a perfect world a teachers encouragements and efforts are appreciated and met with enthusiasm despite all circumstances. In the real world, each child has a background that may never be known by a teacher. It seems like it will be a puzzle to figure out different students and what motivates each of them. I have seen teachers kind of give up on certain students and it is sad to see. However, I do know that a single student can make a teachers job very difficult.
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Sad. There's something about restaurants that often put a person's true parenting and coping skills on display.
ReplyDeleteI think you witnessed a crime against this child but not one that our society acknowledges. If the dad had hit the child, he would be hauled off, but calling a child stupid is just as devastating but not illegal. Maybe more devastating because the child never has anyone step in and say, "that's not right."
Even though there tends to be this idea that very young children are a fresh clean slate arriving at school ready to learn, I think you're right that they can already be a major emotional disaster.
It takes time to figure out what makes a person tick, but how will we do that in a class of 20-25 or more students?
Your post made me think of how much stress that students like this can cause a teacher. When I hear news stories about a teacher losing it and duct-taping mouths shut or clobbering a student, I think that this is the result of stress, not that they set out to treat students this way. (I hope so, anyway.)
I wonder how this CNM program will teach us to deal effectively with this level of stress or if they even address it at all.
I think teachers can experience the same levels of stress as folks in jobs like firefighting, law enforcement,nursing, etc and there needs to be a lot of training in that area. Like a Stress Boot Camp. Learn to deal with stress from students before you get into the classroom.
Personally, I'm not too optimistic that CNM will even address it. Hopefully, I'm wrong.
It is so difficult to see children put into those types of situations. It's even worse when you see their own parent treating them in that manner. It makes you wonder if the father is acting that way in public, how is that child being treated at home? It's nice to know there are educators that truly care about the education and well being of their students. I do find it difficult to know how to handle coping with a child that is suffering from that type of abuse. I'm confident I would do my best in being a positive role model for children but how does that compete will the different types of neglect children could be faced with at home?
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