Comments on: Educator Fail: Maybe certain grownups shouldn’t be allowed to use scissors—or teach

By: Mary

Mary — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:10:17 +0000

Thanks for sharing this insight, it’s frighting to me that this still goes on, these teachers have loads of training, and a Master Degree in child development. I was a room mother years ago 20+ and the Kindgarten teacher was a crazy bit**, she said nasty things to these children and singled out the day care kids. I must not have been the only parent to report her because they transfered her to 3rd grade where hopefully she was better suited! I remember her ripping a kids paper up because he did not color in the lines! yikes.

By: Denene@MyBrownBaby

Denene@MyBrownBaby — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:02:51 +0000

Brilliantly said—particularly the part about assaulting little humans AND what hair (and hair management) means to black children/women. I’m impressed with your insight—and thank you for it!

By: Kizz

Kizz — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 23:05:27 +0000

She’s 6. This is, presumably, her first year in a real, learning classroom (the quality of learning in that particular classroom still up for debate). Also? SHE’S 6! You deceive her, you assault her (because coming at a vastly younger being with scissors is just that) and you threaten her. Clearly your training as a teacher is deficient and you need to re-train before you’re sent back to the classroom (to say nothing of having a hard think about whether this is the correct profession for you). $175 fine doesn’t begin to address the issue. Not nearly.

By: Robert K

Robert K — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:04:52 +0000

Oops…

“classroom a courtroom” -> “classroom is not a courtroom”

By: Robert K

Robert K — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:02:29 +0000

In reading this, what I find most offensive about the teacher’s behavior is not the hair-cutting, but that she deceived the child in order to punish her. I suspect the lessons learned by Layma are quite different from what the teacher intended.

As for whether or not cutting her hair was out of line, I’ll be honest, it doesn’t bother me. Iignoring all the emotional baggage we adults have about the use of head shaving as a means of demeaning people, this was one braid that didn’t alter Layma’s appearance (much). It certainly got the point across, and her hair will grow back.

Aaron, you’re suggestion about giving Layma the elastic band to hold her hair back is a great solution – one I wish I could say I would have thought of. But I’m a guy, and my 9-month old kid is a boy too (not to mention that “incident” while cutting my own hair has left me with a just-about-shaved head of my own.) So I’m the last person I would expect to handle this situation gracefully. But that’s probably true for all teachers: they can’t be expected to come up with the ideal solution to every disciplinary problem. A classroom a courtroom, where appropriate punishments are well documented, nor are children grownups that can be expected to behave rationally. Maintaining discipline in such an environment is hard, often requiring ad hoc solutions.

My point is this: it is grossly unfair of us parents to expect teachers to be the ideal disciplinarians. For them to do so would leave no time for actually teaching. As long as a teacher is up front about what is expected in their classroom, and what the consequences for acting up are (and those consequences don’t do any permanent harm), we shouldn’t be second guessing them. For in doing so, we do much greater harm to our children. Rather than teaching them that there are punishments for their actions, we’re teaching them that the best solution is to go crying to mommy and daddy.

By: Jenn @ Juggling Life

Jenn @ Juggling Life — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:07:41 +0000

Her behavior is outrageous.

I spent 8 weeks in a first-grade classroom and I was shocked to find out that I could handle all the boys wiggles much better than the girls and their damn beads and bracelets (it made me want to find my daughter’s first-grade teacher and apologize for all her accessorizing back in the day). BUT–as you said, WTF?

When my sister was in kindergarten she was repeatedly asked to quit chewing on her long blonde hair. One day the teacher cut that chunk of hair off at the ear so it would no longer reach to her mouth. This was a private school and it was 1970 so we left. After a huge confrontation between my mom, the teacher and the principal, of course.

By: middle-aged-woman

middle-aged-woman — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:47:38 +0000

I was a teacher, and it’s simply understood that no matter the frustrations of budget cuts or asshole administrators, you NEVER take it out on the kids. If my kid was in that woman’s class, I’d demand a switch of classrooms.