This Friday, I completed an observation hour for one of my education classes. One of the classrooms I observed was a special education (FMD) room. There were children with autism, down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and etc. One of the children throws huge tantrums when he gets upset over something and starts using foul language. Obviously, the other students have picked up on his choice of words, and started saying those things too. The next thing I am about to explain kind of makes me mad. While I was there, one of the other teachers came into the room for some reason to talk to the special education teacher. The special education teacher starts talking to one of the students in the room and says, "What is Mrs. ______?" (Talking about the teacher who had walked into the room to speak to her. Then the student says, "Dumb a**." The special education teacher, the aids in the room, and the teacher who had came in to talk started laughing like it was cute and acceptable. So after the child saw that it got a positive reaction out of the adults and they were laughing, the student said it again. Again, the adults laughed a little bit and talked about how she had picked up the language. Then the student said it again. This time, the teacher told the student to stop saying that and got kind of upset. She even told her she would get in trouble for saying it and if she went home saying that word she would be in trouble. She said if she said it again that she would put her in timeout. Although the teacher was excellent when I observed her, this situation made me mad. I don't think it was right to send that student mixed signals like that. The teacher basically told the little girl to say that. Then she laughed about it like it was ok. And when the student saw she liked it she just did it again and got jumped on over it! I hope I never send my future students mixed signals like this. If you do not want a student to say something or do something, you should not act like that.
But please don't get me wrong...this teacher obviously cared a LOT for her students and they really love her. She is a great teacher and caregiver. (That is basically the only thing I disagreed with in that room.)
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The last thing I said in parentheses was talking about how I disagree with the cussing situation....not about how she is a great teacher! Just wanted to make that clearer because after I read it, it sounded kind of funny!
ReplyDeleteI can understand your frustration with the situation. My three year old cousins use cuss words all the time, especially when they get mad. Now that they are in school it seems like it's calming down a little because their teacher puts them in time out the first time they say it now because she has told them before the words that they aren't allowed to say at school. However, it is frustrating because their parents don't continue this punishment at home so the kids think it's okay as long as their not at school.
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