25 Biggest Mistakes Teachers Make and How to Avoid Them (18 page)

Pedophiles are adults who are sexually attracted to children. They have no place in the classroom. This sexual deviation would be difficult for such a person to control in the presence of so many children. There are laws to keep pedophiles out of the classroom. The potential risk and possible injury to children justify denying anyone with pedophilic tendencies a job teaching children. In this scenario, the teacher may rationalize that the attractive girls are almost women and that he is not a pedophile. The fact remains that the “attractive girls” were school-age children and his pursuit of these children suggest pedophilia.

Teachers who suspect they have some pedophilic tendencies should get some professional help and change to a profession that does not offer so much temptation. There is no other answer. The “recovered” pedophile may not exist. A confirmed pedophile featured on national television begged to be castrated because he could not control his urges. In all fairness, there may be some of these people who can suppress their urges, but what if they could not in a moment of weakness? They could ruin a child for life. Caring teachers would make the well-being of their children a priority. They would seek different employment.

Mistake

9

Deliberate Mistreatment

SCENARIO 9.1
A Holy Terror

In first grade I went to Catholic school. My teacher was Sister A. I hated school. I was afraid to go and cried every morning. My grades were Ds and Fs, and my self-esteem was zero. The main reason for this is because Sister A. would make fun of me every day in front of the whole class. She would have me stand in front of the room and tell me how stupid I was. She would regularly hit students very hard on their legs and hands with rulers. Today this would be called child abuse.

In first grade, I didn’t know anything about death or funerals. I had a goldfish that died and that was about it. When the parish priest died, his open coffin was in the church. Sister A. took her class to see him. I was so scared. She wanted each of us to go up to his coffin and say a prayer. I didn’t want to go. She forced me to go up to his coffin and then she pushed my head down to look at him. I was screaming and crying. In second grade, my mom and dad put me in public school and I made straight As. I loved school. I wasn’t afraid. I could go on and on about the things Sister A. said to me. It’s because of her that I said I’d never put my kids in Catholic school.

Evil usually refers to something bad, immoral, malicious, wicked, harmful, ruinous, and the list goes on. Sister A. is a personification of evil; she fits many of the previous characterizations. Her wickedness is obscured by her holy robes, which have long been associated with goodness and purity. Her evil enjoyed a daily feast of physical, emotional, and psychological abuse of children. Her academic status gave her full license to indulge her evil in the classroom. She is a traitor to the cloth and her charge. She is not good and she has betrayed and
abused the children entrusted in her care. The evil within her is laid bare in her treatment of the child and the dead priest. The act of forcing the screaming child’s head down into the priest’s coffin erases any doubt about the nun’s malevolent intent.

Child abuse often finds its way into the classrooms via teachers who may have been abused as children. These teachers may find themselves terrorizing and humiliating their students and hating themselves for it, yet they are powerless to stop.

Insightful teachers who realize that their behaviors and words are abusive take ownership of the problem and seek solutions. They explore their own history of abuse and unrealistic expectations of children, their stress and tolerance level, and their need to control their life. Teachers are caregivers and they fall into the same categories as parents. If they are abusive, like some parents, they need the same treatment as abusive parents. Caring professionals will get some help and counseling and will work on their issues.

Good teachers who have addressed their own issues and dysfunction can provide the care and understanding needed to discuss death with small children. Sensitive teachers know that children’s feelings run deep. They would not force children to view a dead person against their wishes. Death education is an important part of child development. This type of education is best accomplished through biblio-therapy, social studies of cultural practices, and religious beliefs about death. A caring adult in a warm, supportive environment should handle death education, exercising caution to avoid creating anxiety or stress for the child.

SCENARIO 9.2
It’s Snowing Down South

I had an experience of having to go in front of the class to give a book report with my slip hanging out. Even though the teacher knew about my problem, she made me go in front of the class anyway. This happened in third grade.

Speaking in front of an audience can be difficult for most people. If speakers are aware that something is wrong with their appearance, the experience can be traumatic. The teacher in the scenario sacrificed the student’s psychological safety for a book report. She forced the child to go to the front of the class to report knowing that the child’s slip was hanging down. Teachers who would do such a thing are either mean-spirited or indifferent to children’s feelings.

Caring teachers are aware of the fragility of children’s self-esteem and seek to keep it intact. Astute teachers can anticipate situations that may cause students distress and will avoid them. Good teachers would
have the student give the report from her seat rather than have her embarrass herself in front of the class. Another alternative would be to let the child go to the restroom and either repair or remove the slip.

SCENARIO 9.3
Sins of Big Sister Visited on Little Sister

My ninth-grade year, I was taking geometry with Ms. M. She also taught my eleventh-grade sister trigonometry. My sister and Ms. M. did not get along because my sister would correct her answers. Ms. M. invariably took this out on me. She was very nasty to me.

The battle rages on. The teacher picked up the gauntlet to continue the fight with a new student who happened to be the sister of an old enemy. Apparently, the teacher was entertaining a great deal of displaced anger and was directing it toward the younger sister. Some teachers project undesirable qualities of former students onto their brothers and sisters. There are some teachers that expect their current students to follow in their brother or sister’s footsteps. When they fail to live up to those expectations, these teachers make them feel inferior with comments like “You’re nothing like your sister; she was a good student.” Some teachers give siblings less credit for assignments and assume they copied the work of their sister or brother.

Discerning teachers know that students are individuals and not extensions of their brothers or sisters. Each student should be allowed to fail or succeed on his or her own merit. Good teachers wipe the slate clean for everyone that leaves. This gives all incoming students a fresh start. If teachers have a bad experience with former students, they should address the problems when they occur or let them go away with the students that caused them. The sins of a big sister should never be visited upon her sibling.

Mistake

10

Racial and Cultural
Discrimination

SCENARIO 10.1
Cross-Cultural Confusion

My worst experience was when I was in first grade. My teacher was a racist and I felt she really had it in for us (another Hispanic little boy and me). She made me stay after school every day. I hated going to school. She would yell at me in front of the whole class because I couldn’t understand what she was instructing me to do much less read in a language that was so foreign to me. The worst was that when she would yell at me, everyone laughed at me. It still hurts to remember.