Retiring Teacher Shares Lessons She Has Learned

The link to this interesting article was posted on Facebook today. I'm curious: Who agrees with this teacher? Who disagrees?
Here's the link: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/columnist...has-learned.ece

Yes, discipline is important. And some parents seem to think it isn't necessary. I agree with most of what she says, but I don't think spanking works. And it's too easy for a parent to lose control and beat a child, which is never okay. If kids are forced to face the consequences of their actions, they will think twice about what they are doing. I never 'bailed out' my boys; if they misbehaved, they paid for it. No empty threats here.

i agree with the entire article! I'm so proud of this teacher for speaking the truth! I've shared this with some people.

"Spare the rod, spoil the child" still stands with me! (Having not had my own, yet my parents did that and I'm so glad!)

Great article...she sounds like a wonderful teacher. I agree that parents are too eager to give in to their children to avoid confrontation or to avoid temper tantrums and dissent in the house. But we're seeing first-hand how all that giving in ripples out farther down the road...I know one set of parents who are now really struggling with the ripple effect of their earlier parenting mistakes. They now have a child that nobody can tolerate being around for very long at one time. Very sad.

As for discipline strategies, I never had my own children but was an early childhood teacher for several years, and was a live-in nanny to pay my way through college. Every child is different and no one thing works for all. I've seen children respond very quickly to a quiet reminder, so anything beyond that could have done more harm than good. Then there are some who seem not to respond to anything at all. Those are tough, but I guess a parent would hopefully know their child well enough to know what works best for that particular child.

As for me, I can tell you that I was spanked when I was 12, and it was the most humiliating, defining moment of my entire life. That was the night that I decided I didn't want to live anymore, and I struggled with suicidal thinking for the next 40 years. It was the wrong punishment, the worst possible recourse my parents could have chosen at that moment in my life. It sealed the deal, so to speak. I was already struggling with feelings of being an unwanted misfit in the family, and that spanking at that moment in response to my desperate vocalizing of those feelings confirmed everything I had been feeling. It took me forever to move past that spanking. Maybe it would have been the answer for another child, but my experience was horrific enough that I have been and will always be adamantly opposed to spankings. As Yonuh says, it's too easy for a parent to lose control, and there's too fine a line between a well-intentioned disciplinary pat on the bum to life-altering outright physical abuse.

I never felt that I was physically abused by that spanking...but it certainly left emotional scars that have at times debilitated me and taken me to precarious edges.

I agree there needs to be some sort of discipline. And spanking, which is what was meted out when I was a child, doesn't always work.

I would get so frustrated with my son that I tried spanking him, but he would laugh through it, and definitely not seem deterred by it. So I tried hard to figure out what sort of punishment would actually have an impact on him: Generally it was some sort of denial of privileges.

My son laughed at me when I tried spanking him, too. He still laughs at me; he's 6 foot tall; I'm less than 5'1". Talk about lookin' down on your momma!

Even though I agree with much of this teacher's philosophy, I'm not with her on the spanking. I don't care how many kids she had taught, she suffers from the same problem we all do: you never know whether some tough stand you take is going to backfire in ways you didn't expect.

I once watched a teacher full-on slap a kid right across the face; I mean she pulled her arm right right out to the side and let him have it. Of course he started crying and was humiliated, but I can still remember the incident clearly to this day. What I learned was this: she had completely lost control of herself and would get away with it because no one dared to challenge teachers back in those days. I lost a lot of respect for her that day because she was being a bully rather than a teacher. I have also seen teachers start screaming at kids like nuts.

You know, there are people who think you need to hit a kid with the business end of a belt to make your point. You want to let a teacher do that to your kid?

I'm all for discipline and believe that you are not your kid's friend, but I can guarantee this: if spanking is all you have in your discipline back of tricks, you'll become ineffective as the kids get bigger and it no longer works. Some kids respond well to occasional spankings and some kids learn to hate. They keep it silent for a long time and then learn to take it out on others.

Parents could make teachers' jobs a lot easier by preparing their kids more effectively at home, but not all teachers are good teachers or good mentors. There's no one perfect answer. I learned a lot of positive things from school, but I also learned a lot of negatives things as well.

One injustice I experienced..two classes were put together to have an art lesson.A4 art paper was passed round the class.Class started their landscapes.One boy went to get a second piece of paper having made a mess first time.When the art master saw this he exploded...He then punished the whole class with his leather belt.
I never forgot this...and saw no good in it then or now.

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In Scotland a leather strap was used to punish schoolchildren.It had cuts to make the end have several ends.This was banned in the 1970's.

A teacher is trained and should adopt a stance of professionalism and self control.

This brought a flash-back from Grade 2...I don't recall what the little boy sitting at the desk beside me did to deserve it, I just remember the teacher covering his mouth with a strip of tape wide enough to cover his entire mouth and part of his nose. I remember him panicking, presumably because he was struggling to breathe? She was so angry with him, she rushed over and ripped that tape off of his mouth and I remember that his lips were all bloodied. I don't know if she got away with it or if his parents complained. All I know is that she frightened a lot of us into terrified silence for many, many years. What kind of positive learning experience was that?

Poor little boy.I have heard of the elastoplast trick..and a skipping rope being used to restrain a child...
there seemed to be a silence from children "back then" maybe due to the parents belief "teacher is right"

Many other teachers have shared with me what they too observed and maybe made us strive harder to be fair..
I also think they way teachers speak and relate to pupils has to be positive...words are stored away too.

I agree with what all of you have said. While I do believe a parent should support a teacher in dealing with the child's misbehavior, as well as take responsibility for teaching the child self-discipline, I don't believe in physical punishment. If a teacher is being threatened at knifepoint or with fists, then she should defend herself. But hitting a defenseless child for misbehaving is cruel and unnecessary (in my opinion).