Teacher mistreating student in the classroom
Karin S. Fester
April 20, 2007
Teacher brutality in the classroom
In Milan, Italy, February 20, the newspaper headlines reported the horrible incident of a Milan school teacher brutally cutting a young Tunesian-Italian boy’s tongue with a scissors. The boy required five stitches in the hospital emergency room. Since then the Marco Ghezzi, the prosecutor in Milan working on the case, has made strong effort to start legal proceedings against the former teacher.
Read the original story here:
http://www.ansa.it/site/notizie/awnplus/news_collection/awnplus_english/2007-04-13_11381802.html
http://www.ansa.it/site/notizie/awnplus/news_collection/awnplus_altrenotizie/visualizza_new.html_2138800701.html
How can any teacher want to bring bodily harm on a young child? Since the incident, all sorts of versions have appeared in the media, that is, the teacher is trying to find ways to cover up her actions. The 22 year old teacher claims she was only teasing the boy with cutting off his tongue. Tongue cutting is not something to joke about. Teasing the child with a scissors because he was acting unruly, i.e. speaking too much? Please, please!
To make matters even more complicated, this was the child of Tunesian immigrants. In my view this is a racial hate crime carried out on a young child. The teacher claims the boy was acting unruly. So what? This was a boy of seven years old. Children will be children and we adults all know that, still that leaves no room for allowing a teacher to acting so cruel, hateful, so stupid and so morally bankrupt and thinking about cutting a young child’s tongue? A new law specifically for addressing racially motivated hate crimes was developed and implemented here in Italy on February 15, 2007. Thank you!
Unfortunately, during the course of the last few weeks, since the Milan incident, I have even come across comments from people who classify themselves as ex-teachers and have gone so far to say—without any restraint or shame—that some children deserve having something bad done to them. Being a teacher may not be an easy job but in no way is it the teachers job to inflict harm on a child as a means of discipline. This brings to mind the harsh way of old school masters and mistresses, which I can still remember from the 1960’s, who would beat a child’s fingers as punishment. Very sad, but true. We don’t need people like that who use violence in the classrom to be the teachers of our children. The unruliness of a young child in the classroom does not justify any teacher taking it upon themselves to even think about toying with the idea of inflicting bodily harm on the child.
The really bad news is that, prosecutor Marco Ghezzi in Milan has claimed that the medical evidence shows that the scissors had been squeezed hard enough to show intent of causing deliberate bodily harm to the child.
Now to go off on a tangent for a bit. Here in Italy some other cases hti the news big. From a few months ago, there was the case of the substitute teacher who acted irresponsibly (the Milan area) who engaged in lewd sexual acts with her male students in a classroom on a school day. There was also the case of the school teacher who had a porno website and the court ruled that her private life had no connection to her life as a school teacher. What else is going to happen next?
The picture seems clear to me: there are unruly teachers. Why are these individuals unruly? Well, there is no easy answer for this and we all know that. But, it seems someone in society is responsible for this? Sometimes I think we should be pointing the finger at the parents who raised these teachers, or what? Where did the teachers develop their value system from? Teachers, if they are properly trained, have to learn some values and ethics while training. Was the teacher who cut the boy’s tongue not educated in child psychology and teaching methodolgy and everything else a good democratic-minded teacher ought to know and practice? The student was a very young child, acting like a child as they all do at that age. The teacher is supposed to be the rational and responsible one. More and more I am convinced that this particular woman teacher lacked credentials to teach, or had no idea of what ethical treament of children and students was, or both. There has to be an intelligent way to deal with a talkative child—even one who might be disruptive—in the classroom other than threatening a child with violence?
To make matters even more complicated, now we now have to think about future implications. Did this teacher ever reflect about what she was about to do and the possible repercussions? Did she ever think about the long-term psychological affects on the child, his family and also the community at large? Sometimes it is difficult for immigrant children to integrate into society and an event like this can only make it more cumbersome for an individual later. How will this child in the future think about the dominant Italian culture around him? This is a profound question because it is about an ethnic minority individual who was violated by a member of the dominant society. How will his ethnic community view this event? And, what will his future attitudes be towards women, towards future teachers and bosses? For all the questions that I have just posed, the teacher clearly was not a mature thinker when she behaved in the way she did and her sense of good will appears questionable.
Many of us in Italy will be curious as to how this legal saga unfolds. It is hoped that the lawyers and courts will derive at a just decision and that the teacher, hoepfully, has learned from this incident. A good book on ethics and the human condition should be a must reading for her as well as doing volunteer community service.
Everything that is written here today is the result of my constant questioning of the society in which I live, day in and day out. From this I have gleaned the good and the bad and the right and the wrong. The tragedy of the little boy is one that should never have happened. Did it happen because people just don’t think about how to respect each other anymore? Where is the good will among us humans? I don’t think we could ever ask that question enough.
Karin Fester © 2007
Email: karinfstr@yahoo.com
In Milan, Italy, February 20, the newspaper headlines reported the horrible incident of a Milan school teacher brutally cutting a young Tunesian-Italian boy’s tongue with a scissors. The boy required five stitches in the hospital emergency room. Since then the Marco Ghezzi, the prosecutor in Milan working on the case, has made strong effort to start legal proceedings against the former teacher.
Read the original story here:
http://www.ansa.it/site/notizie/awnplus/news_collection/awnplus_english/2007-04-13_11381802.html
http://www.ansa.it/site/notizie/awnplus/news_collection/awnplus_altrenotizie/visualizza_new.html_2138800701.html
How can any teacher want to bring bodily harm on a young child? Since the incident, all sorts of versions have appeared in the media, that is, the teacher is trying to find ways to cover up her actions. The 22 year old teacher claims she was only teasing the boy with cutting off his tongue. Tongue cutting is not something to joke about. Teasing the child with a scissors because he was acting unruly, i.e. speaking too much? Please, please!
To make matters even more complicated, this was the child of Tunesian immigrants. In my view this is a racial hate crime carried out on a young child. The teacher claims the boy was acting unruly. So what? This was a boy of seven years old. Children will be children and we adults all know that, still that leaves no room for allowing a teacher to acting so cruel, hateful, so stupid and so morally bankrupt and thinking about cutting a young child’s tongue? A new law specifically for addressing racially motivated hate crimes was developed and implemented here in Italy on February 15, 2007. Thank you!
Unfortunately, during the course of the last few weeks, since the Milan incident, I have even come across comments from people who classify themselves as ex-teachers and have gone so far to say—without any restraint or shame—that some children deserve having something bad done to them. Being a teacher may not be an easy job but in no way is it the teachers job to inflict harm on a child as a means of discipline. This brings to mind the harsh way of old school masters and mistresses, which I can still remember from the 1960’s, who would beat a child’s fingers as punishment. Very sad, but true. We don’t need people like that who use violence in the classrom to be the teachers of our children. The unruliness of a young child in the classroom does not justify any teacher taking it upon themselves to even think about toying with the idea of inflicting bodily harm on the child.
The really bad news is that, prosecutor Marco Ghezzi in Milan has claimed that the medical evidence shows that the scissors had been squeezed hard enough to show intent of causing deliberate bodily harm to the child.
Now to go off on a tangent for a bit. Here in Italy some other cases hti the news big. From a few months ago, there was the case of the substitute teacher who acted irresponsibly (the Milan area) who engaged in lewd sexual acts with her male students in a classroom on a school day. There was also the case of the school teacher who had a porno website and the court ruled that her private life had no connection to her life as a school teacher. What else is going to happen next?
The picture seems clear to me: there are unruly teachers. Why are these individuals unruly? Well, there is no easy answer for this and we all know that. But, it seems someone in society is responsible for this? Sometimes I think we should be pointing the finger at the parents who raised these teachers, or what? Where did the teachers develop their value system from? Teachers, if they are properly trained, have to learn some values and ethics while training. Was the teacher who cut the boy’s tongue not educated in child psychology and teaching methodolgy and everything else a good democratic-minded teacher ought to know and practice? The student was a very young child, acting like a child as they all do at that age. The teacher is supposed to be the rational and responsible one. More and more I am convinced that this particular woman teacher lacked credentials to teach, or had no idea of what ethical treament of children and students was, or both. There has to be an intelligent way to deal with a talkative child—even one who might be disruptive—in the classroom other than threatening a child with violence?
To make matters even more complicated, now we now have to think about future implications. Did this teacher ever reflect about what she was about to do and the possible repercussions? Did she ever think about the long-term psychological affects on the child, his family and also the community at large? Sometimes it is difficult for immigrant children to integrate into society and an event like this can only make it more cumbersome for an individual later. How will this child in the future think about the dominant Italian culture around him? This is a profound question because it is about an ethnic minority individual who was violated by a member of the dominant society. How will his ethnic community view this event? And, what will his future attitudes be towards women, towards future teachers and bosses? For all the questions that I have just posed, the teacher clearly was not a mature thinker when she behaved in the way she did and her sense of good will appears questionable.
Many of us in Italy will be curious as to how this legal saga unfolds. It is hoped that the lawyers and courts will derive at a just decision and that the teacher, hoepfully, has learned from this incident. A good book on ethics and the human condition should be a must reading for her as well as doing volunteer community service.
Everything that is written here today is the result of my constant questioning of the society in which I live, day in and day out. From this I have gleaned the good and the bad and the right and the wrong. The tragedy of the little boy is one that should never have happened. Did it happen because people just don’t think about how to respect each other anymore? Where is the good will among us humans? I don’t think we could ever ask that question enough.
Karin Fester © 2007
Email: karinfstr@yahoo.com
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