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So, today was a rather eventful day at school. For those of you who do not already know, I am a teacher. I am a rather new teacher (I have only been teaching for about a year-and-a-half), but I am in my mid-thirties. What can I say? Some of us just take longer to find out who we want to be, and even then, the path isn't necessarily a straight line . . .
Anyway, in my year-and-a-half of teaching, I have experienced enough bizarre things to last me a lifetime (and it isn't like my life before teaching was normal to begin with). But, today just pushed me over the edge, so much so that I am not even ranting here in my journal like I normally do. I am so beyond knowing what to think at this moment, I believe my words are the calmest they have ever really seemed to me.
I am over the edge because I saw another teacher, a male teacher, hitting a female student. This is at the junior high school level, so this student is, at most, fourteen years old, but more probably just thirteen years old. So, what had this student done to engender such an act? Had she assaulted another student or a teacher? Was she threatening someone with a weapon? Oh, no. She had just failed to finish an assigned task. And this earned her two punches - one to the head and one to the face. The punch to the top of the head was so hard that I heard it across the teachers' staff office. The punch to the face was hard enough to snap her head back.
While the student was sitting on the ground crying, the teacher continued to yell at her until another teacher and myself stepped in. Unfortunately, it was more the act of the other teacher that stopped this outrage. You see, I am a resident alien (a foreigner) where I live, and even in a case like this, it is impossible for me to stop "native" teachers. For, once it comes down to my word against his, I am automatically wrong because I am the foreigner.
So many levels of this have pushed me beyond my ability to cope. I hate being treated like I am subhuman simply because I was born in another country and grew up speaking a different language. I hate that my integrity is questioned even before I have done something wrong and even when it is someone else who is doing something wrong. But, what I hate most of all is that there are fellow teachers who are harming students. It is bad enough when teachers bully students verbally and emotionally (and this does happen). That is completely unacceptable in and of itself. That there are teachers that physically assault students infuriates me beyond the point of reason. It is a travesty of such scope as to defy comprehension. What a betrayal of trust.
At this point, the Board of Education where I work has reassigned me to other schools. This is done because I refuse to work with the teacher who hit the student, yet they say they are unable to fire him or remove him from his position. I guess as long as no one gets killed it must be OK.
And they wonder why students disrespect adults and hate education. Well, ******** you! I'm an adult and a teacher and now I don't have respect for adults nor the education system!
This teacher got a warning from me. I told him that I better never seem him lay a hand on another student ever again. Given how futile that conversation seems and how nonchalant he was about it all, I am thinking that the next teacher who starts hitting a student gets no warning what-so-ever.
I'm a teacher and a parent; this is my line, it will not be crossed.
evil
 Rohkaze · Mon Dec 17, 2007 @ 07:08am · 1 Comments |
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