5-year-old boy "voted out of class"
I am so glad I never had a teacher like this. I don't care how annoying a kid is, you do not encourage - even force - kids to tell a classmate that he's "disgusting" and "annoying", or that it is acceptable to ostracize someone.
Normally, I'm pretty supportive of teachers - I'm not one myself, but I've been a substitute, and as a librarian I've dealt with some rather annoying kids. But if I'd ever held a child up for public humiliation like this, I'd have been fired in an instant - and I don't even want to think of what my MOM would have said. *shudders* She raised me better than that, and she'd have damn sure let me know it!
So, my letter to the school district, after the cut.
Dear sir/madam,
I am sure you've been overwhelmed with negative commentary from people who have been appalled by the callous and cruel behavior of Wendy Portillo. Unfortunately, I am in agreement with them.
No teacher should encourage bullying, belittlement of others, and discrimination among their students. They particularly should not use their authority to force their students to ostracize one of their classmates, and to do so is not only damaging to the student who was held up for ridicule and verbal abuse by the children he went to school with, but to those doing the abuse. And to do so to a child so young, and one that admittedly had behavioral problems but whose parents were working with the teacher and administration to deal with the situation, is utterly unacceptable.
Think of what kind of lesson this "teacher" has taught: that those who are different are to be made outcasts. That it is acceptable, even demanded, that to be accepted among their peers, it is necessary to abuse those who don't fit in. That if they don't behave in a way that those in authority find acceptable, they will be held up as an object of hatred and humiliated publicly. If this child were being treated in this way because of the color of his skin, you know that the NAACP would be screaming for that teacher's head, and quite justifiably. To do this to a KINDERGARTENER because he has behavioral problems is just as inexcusable.
One of the most important tasks of a school is to teach children how to behave as members of society, to become productive adults who will be able to work together for the betterment of all. How are these children to be able to deal with those of different cultures, different abilities, different backgrounds when they grow up, with such an example set for them at such an impressionable age?
I ask that you do your best to see to it that Ms Portillo never has a chance to abuse another 5 year old or to twist the psyches of his classmates by terminating her employment as soon as possible.
Thank you for your time,
rurounitriv
If you'd like to send your own emails, there's a link in the article. And I don't blame that poor kid for screaming at the thought of having to go back. I'm not any kind of autistic, but an experience like that would have been horribly traumatizing to me at that age, too. Hell, it would be difficult for an adult to handle. I mean, think about it - imagine be stood up in front of your coworkers as they were basically ordered to tell you that you're worthless, annoying, disgusting... that would be hard to deal with as an adult, much less a kindergartener.
And that wasn't the only thing that put me in a pissy mood. Apparently, my insurance company and my mortgage company haven't been talking to each other for the last year, and the mortgage company is now saying "Rarrr, if you don't show you've got property insurance, we'll buy it and it'll only pay us if anything happens and not you!"
I've been paying the damn insurance for the last year, thank you very much. I don't know why they don't know that, but I sicced my agent on them during my lunch break. Of course, since I was doing this over lunch, it took 45 minutes to get the damn fax to go through... out of my hour's lunch. Which left 15 minutes to actually, y'know, eat.
So I head over to Subway, figuring I can grab a sandwich really quick and Hoover it down, and of course, I walk in there and the staff is sitting around looking bored and the lights are off. Power outage. -_-;
I wound up having to go to the grocery store deli and attempt to find something that wasn't old and dry enough to either gag on or give me food poisoning, was still late getting back to work, and hadn't even eaten when I got there. So I took my permitted fifteen-minute break hiding in the staff room and gulping down ribs and pasta salad. Feh.
Ah well, at least the financial side of things should be straightening out quick-like.
Okay, that's enough for now.
Normally, I'm pretty supportive of teachers - I'm not one myself, but I've been a substitute, and as a librarian I've dealt with some rather annoying kids. But if I'd ever held a child up for public humiliation like this, I'd have been fired in an instant - and I don't even want to think of what my MOM would have said. *shudders* She raised me better than that, and she'd have damn sure let me know it!
So, my letter to the school district, after the cut.
Dear sir/madam,
I am sure you've been overwhelmed with negative commentary from people who have been appalled by the callous and cruel behavior of Wendy Portillo. Unfortunately, I am in agreement with them.
No teacher should encourage bullying, belittlement of others, and discrimination among their students. They particularly should not use their authority to force their students to ostracize one of their classmates, and to do so is not only damaging to the student who was held up for ridicule and verbal abuse by the children he went to school with, but to those doing the abuse. And to do so to a child so young, and one that admittedly had behavioral problems but whose parents were working with the teacher and administration to deal with the situation, is utterly unacceptable.
Think of what kind of lesson this "teacher" has taught: that those who are different are to be made outcasts. That it is acceptable, even demanded, that to be accepted among their peers, it is necessary to abuse those who don't fit in. That if they don't behave in a way that those in authority find acceptable, they will be held up as an object of hatred and humiliated publicly. If this child were being treated in this way because of the color of his skin, you know that the NAACP would be screaming for that teacher's head, and quite justifiably. To do this to a KINDERGARTENER because he has behavioral problems is just as inexcusable.
One of the most important tasks of a school is to teach children how to behave as members of society, to become productive adults who will be able to work together for the betterment of all. How are these children to be able to deal with those of different cultures, different abilities, different backgrounds when they grow up, with such an example set for them at such an impressionable age?
I ask that you do your best to see to it that Ms Portillo never has a chance to abuse another 5 year old or to twist the psyches of his classmates by terminating her employment as soon as possible.
Thank you for your time,
rurounitriv
If you'd like to send your own emails, there's a link in the article. And I don't blame that poor kid for screaming at the thought of having to go back. I'm not any kind of autistic, but an experience like that would have been horribly traumatizing to me at that age, too. Hell, it would be difficult for an adult to handle. I mean, think about it - imagine be stood up in front of your coworkers as they were basically ordered to tell you that you're worthless, annoying, disgusting... that would be hard to deal with as an adult, much less a kindergartener.
And that wasn't the only thing that put me in a pissy mood. Apparently, my insurance company and my mortgage company haven't been talking to each other for the last year, and the mortgage company is now saying "Rarrr, if you don't show you've got property insurance, we'll buy it and it'll only pay us if anything happens and not you!"
I've been paying the damn insurance for the last year, thank you very much. I don't know why they don't know that, but I sicced my agent on them during my lunch break. Of course, since I was doing this over lunch, it took 45 minutes to get the damn fax to go through... out of my hour's lunch. Which left 15 minutes to actually, y'know, eat.
So I head over to Subway, figuring I can grab a sandwich really quick and Hoover it down, and of course, I walk in there and the staff is sitting around looking bored and the lights are off. Power outage. -_-;
I wound up having to go to the grocery store deli and attempt to find something that wasn't old and dry enough to either gag on or give me food poisoning, was still late getting back to work, and hadn't even eaten when I got there. So I took my permitted fifteen-minute break hiding in the staff room and gulping down ribs and pasta salad. Feh.
Ah well, at least the financial side of things should be straightening out quick-like.
Okay, that's enough for now.