DD's teacher has a "cry board" in her classroom

[Anonymous]

This is abusive and I would get that teacher fired. They should not be working with children. What a psycho.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Genuinely confused, WTF is a cry board/closet tears? Is she really tracking/shaming kids for crying??? This just blows my mind.

I’m confused too. What’s the closet part about?

[Anonymous]

I think what the teacher is trying to do is to create “antifragile” kids. And teach that kids can’t use tears to get out of trouble. It’s a good lesson, but maybe not well delivered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think what the teacher is trying to do is to create “antifragile” kids. And teach that kids can’t use tears to get out of trouble. It’s a good lesson, but maybe not well delivered.

It's clear the teacher is more interested in keeping a tally of how many kids she bullied to the point of breaking down. Anybody who thinks it's their job to harden a 9th grader should not be working with children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think what the teacher is trying to do is to create “antifragile” kids. And teach that kids can’t use tears to get out of trouble. It’s a good lesson, but maybe not well delivered.

It's clear the teacher is more interested in keeping a tally of how many kids she bullied to the point of breaking down. Anybody who thinks it's their job to harden a 9th grader should not be working with children.

This is OP. Yes, there is a board hanging up in the classroom with tally marks for each time she makes a student cry. Nice, isn’t it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think in the long run, it will be better to help your daughter deal with the failing grade than try to battle the teacher. She couldn’t do the work because she was sick, so she failed. That’s the bad thing that happened. The recovery is retaking the class, or summer school, or whatever. This is a college essay waiting to be written. The D is not an insurmountable problem.

The teacher is wrong and crappy, sure. But your daughter needs to learn which fights to fight. It doesn’t help her to try to get the teacher in trouble and it doesn’t mean she actually completed the assigned work. She’s not the teacher police, she’s a student. She couldn’t do the work because she was sick and so she failed the course. That’s OKAY. Help her work through THAT.

OP here. This was my gut reaction and why I didn't mention the cry board yesterday in the emails to the school administration. DD wanted to put her video on the schools snap chat page yesterday and I would not allow that. I think this teacher is well liked by the staff and do not want any retalition.

Perhaps once you have your results. Then. But. Help the next poor student to not have the same humiliation. Please.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think what the teacher is trying to do is to create “antifragile” kids. And teach that kids can’t use tears to get out of trouble. It’s a good lesson, but maybe not well delivered.

It's clear the teacher is more interested in keeping a tally of how many kids she bullied to the point of breaking down. Anybody who thinks it's their job to harden a 9th grader should not be working with children.

This is OP. Yes, there is a board hanging up in the classroom with tally marks for each time she makes a student cry. Nice, isn’t it?

Turn this person in once you have completed your appeal process. How is this not bullying?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. We are in public in Western Prince William County. DD just found out what the board was yesterday. I have no idea how this has not been brought up by other students until now.

And yes, this is flipping PHOTOGRAPHY! It's not algebra or an important core class. DD loves art and wanted to take a lot more art classes but doesn't want to any more because this teacher teaches art as well.

If anyone has recs for an advocate or attorney, I would love to have them.

And thank you, everyone, for your support. I was questioning whether my rage was valid.

OP, I feel before committing to anything punitive towards the teacher you need some more information. I'm still unsure what the "closet" part of the board is, what it's purpose is, when it was started, and why the teacher implemented it. Get the teacher's perspective before assuming your DD has provided accurate and detailed information. Better to have the teacher implicate themselves and leave your DD's interpretation out of it if you can.

[Anonymous]

I personally would be pursuing both issues. I would not only address my comments to the school administration, but also cc the school board on your communication.

First, you need to present the medical evidence that your child was ill and hospitalized. Doctor records of treatment, the discharge papers from the hospital. You have documented evidence that your child was ill enough to be admitted to the hospital and that the teacher refused to take this into account and provide laxity in grading and allow her time to catch up. You can point to the fact that you requested support services for your child as soon as she was diagnosed, but the school deferred her review until the summer and hence she is being punished for the school administration's procrastination. This topic is for the school administration.

Second, you need to address the issue of a teacher that is bullying her students. The cry board is completely inappropriate and the teacher needs to be disciplined and educated about appropriate educational tools. Bullying does not qualify as a teaching tool under any circumstances and the school board needs to be aware that there is a teacher in the school district that is doing this. This needs to be on the teacher's record. This way if she transfers to another school, there will be a record that this teacher has done this before. While I know that most people want to avoid going out there to do this, you are doing this to ensure that your child is the last child to be bullied by this teacher. Too often, I've seen and heard of teachers who had problems and bullied students who transferred to another school and there was no record of what they did and they were free to bully an entirely new cohort of students with no repercussions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. We are in public in Western Prince William County. DD just found out what the board was yesterday. I have no idea how this has not been brought up by other students until now.

And yes, this is flipping PHOTOGRAPHY! It's not algebra or an important core class. DD loves art and wanted to take a lot more art classes but doesn't want to any more because this teacher teaches art as well.

If anyone has recs for an advocate or attorney, I would love to have them.

And thank you, everyone, for your support. I was questioning whether my rage was valid.

OP, I feel before committing to anything punitive towards the teacher you need some more information. I'm still unsure what the "closet" part of the board is, what it's purpose is, when it was started, and why the teacher implemented it. Get the teacher's perspective before assuming your DD has provided accurate and detailed information. Better to have the teacher implicate themselves and leave your DD's interpretation out of it if you can.

NP. This is the first post I agree with. I’m not a fan of shaming people online when you don’t have the full story. Why isn’t the first course of action talking to the teacher? How hasn’t that been suggested yet?

Shaming before approaching the person directly? That would make the OP and the student look bad.

If this is true, it’s horrific. But what’s the full story? Nobody on this thread (including OP) knows it yet.

[Anonymous]

If the cry board is a real thing, hard to believe the administration doesn’t already know about it and either approves or doesn’t care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you need a counting board to keep track of how many times you make the kids in your class cry during the term, it would seem that the problem is you, and not the kids you are trying to shame.

Especially in NINTH GRADE. Kids at this age do cry, sometimes because they are struggling to manage emotion but also often because they are super hormonal and still adjusting to puberty. But they aren't crying for absolutely no reason like small children. I don't think a "cry board" is appropriate for any age, really, but I could understand having an incentive to control crying in the classroom at other ages. Like in 2nd or 3rd, where you might be looking for kids to learn to control their upset reaction a bit more. Or if these were high school seniors and your goal was to say "I'm going to treat you as an adult, and in college and the world beyond, people are not going to be swayed by tears." I still wouldn't do it in this weird shaming way, but at least in those cases it would make sense.

Doing this with high school Freshmen seems deranged. Those kids are still making the transition to adulthood, dealing with major hormone swings, and just generally a bit emotionally volatile. It makes no sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If the cry board is a real thing, hard to believe the administration doesn’t already know about it and either approves or doesn’t care.

I would not be surprised to learn that the administration at a school doesn't know about an art elective teacher's weird methods. If it were an English or Science teacher, probably. But lots of administrators are checked out generally, and often teachers of electives get ignored by administration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the cry board is a real thing, hard to believe the administration doesn’t already know about it and either approves or doesn’t care.

I would not be surprised to learn that the administration at a school doesn't know about an art elective teacher's weird methods. If it were an English or Science teacher, probably. But lots of administrators are checked out generally, and often teachers of electives get ignored by administration.

I agree with this. Having worked in schools I've seen how teachers of electives are often held to a different, lower standard in many ways than classroom teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the cry board is a real thing, hard to believe the administration doesn’t already know about it and either approves or doesn’t care.

I would not be surprised to learn that the administration at a school doesn't know about an art elective teacher's weird methods. If it were an English or Science teacher, probably. But lots of administrators are checked out generally, and often teachers of electives get ignored by administration.

Not only that, but the cry board is a recent addition. It is quite possible that at the end of the year, the administration is already working on plans for next school year, including teacher assignments, rooms, supplies, reporting to the school district, returning equipment to the school district, bussing, end of year ceremonies, closing out the school year, etc and doesn't really have time to find out want an elective arts teacher has changed from the curriculum discussed at the beginning of the year and chose to implement in the last week or two of the school year.