4th graders who flunk reading have faces marked

[The Straight Story]

DECLO, Idaho (AP) — A fourth-grade teacher in southern Idaho is being criticized after having her students use permanent markers to draw on the faces of classmates who failed to meet reading goals.

Some parents and administrators say the punishments given to nine students in Summer Larsen's class were inappropriate and left the children feeling shamed.

Cindy Hurst said recently her 10-year-old son came home from school Nov. 5 with his entire face — including his eyelids — scribbled on with green, red and purple markers.

"He was humiliated, he hung his head and wanted to go wash his face," Hurst told The Times-News of Twin Falls (http://bit.ly/QMwMTJ). "He knows he's a slow reader. Now he thinks he should be punished for it."

Larsen, who has taught at the school for six years, didn't respond to requests for comment. But Cassia County School District Superintendent Gaylen Smyer confirmed what took place in her classroom, though he didn't name Larsen.

http://www.bigstory.ap.org/article/fourth-graders-who-flunk-reading-have-faces-marked

[Turbineguy]

1. Oh noes!

not another Romney tattoo!

[Skidmore]

6. You pretty much failed in the same way that this teacher did.

[Celebration]

2. Summer Larson

Your judgment is so terrible that you do not deserve to have any students!

[Rhiannon12866]

3. How awful!

Doesn't this mean the teacher failed, too?

[gollygee]

4. Holy crap

I am trying to imagine how angry I'd be if my daughter came home from school with her face, including even eyelids, scribbled on with permanent marker.

[PotatoChip]

12. Yup.

[elehhhhna]

27. you'd feel like your baby was bullied

mark my words, that teacher will be working in a non-union low-paying non-background-checkin' CHARTER school by January 2.

[Klukie]

5. This is completely disgusting!!!

I really hope that the teacher is reprimanded. I have a 4th grader who never passes her oral reading fluency benchmark and I would be livid if this happened to her!! Although she doesn't read at the the standards that were set up by Dibels, she has all A's in reading and she scored advanced in the state standardized test at the end of the third grade. The judgment of this teacher was horribly wrong!

[Hekate]

7. What, was she out of dunce caps?

How can you do that to a kid? That teacher should be ashamed of herself, the self-righteous so-and-so.

When I was in school I was a whiz at reading, always above grade level. But if someone had punished me with social humiliation for my performance in math or foreign languages, I would have wanted to drop out of school rather than endure such a thing.

Where is this teacher's empathy? Sorry, I give her an F in that subject.

[backtoblue]

8. The wrath from this mother if that happened to my child

would be horrific on the grand scale of making news headlines. How humiliating to those kids! The teacher is a bully.

[Downwinder]

34. And encouraging bullying

by having the other students apply the punishment.

[aroach]

36. I'm with you

If this had been my kid I'd be needing bail money.

[Barack_America]

81. Yup.

Just what I was thinking.

[CoffeeCat]

9. What in the hell is wrong with this disgusting teacher?

Some kids ARE slow readers. Some kids are late bloomers. One of my daughters is a straight-A seventh grader who reads three books a week. She was a late bloomer who had trouble reading in elementary school.

I can't IMAGINE what this stupid teacher was thinking. The humiliation of allowing OTHER students to mark up this child's face. These are eight and nine year old kids!

This act was abusive. It was a severe boundary violation, teaching these kids that their bodies deserve violation by a mob of students who were probably laughing, mocking and taunting them as they treated their faces like an object that deserved to be vandalized--like spray painting graffiti on a cement wall.

This teacher showed such poor judgment and obviously lacks empathy and critical thinking skills. She sounds like a complete idiot who probably has some very deep issues of her own.

If I were the parent, I'd be lawyering up. Intentional infliction of distress, humiliation, harassment--just to start.

[Arkansas Granny]

10. She should not be teaching children. Period. This is not acceptable.

[siligut]

11. The children had a choice, miss recess or get scribbled on

The students were allowed to choose their own incentive to meet the reading goal, but instead of a reward, the class chose a punishment: Students who failed to meet the goal could either stay inside at recess until it was met, or have their faces written on by classmates who met the goals.

Nine students didn't meet the goals, the paper reported Friday. Three chose to forgo recess, and the other six chose to have their faces marked on.

"Although all the students in the class agreed to the incentive, once it occurred it was not so well received. Nor should it have been," Smyer said.

I don't know why children would choose punishment, rather than reward. I am guessing an overly authoritarian environment.

Some parents were supportive, however. Karla Christensen, whose daughter met Larsen's reading goals, said the teacher was just trying to motivate students.

While the children made the choice, it seems, the teacher should have known better. Children don't learn well through humiliation.

[CoffeeCat]

14. But to a child--missing recess is very concrete and almost measurable to them...

This teacher set up a false choice--because in a child's mind missing recess is so awful to them. This is their only time to socialize, get fresh air and to have fun outside, during their seven hour day. It's easy to say--I'll take the other punishment.

I don't think these kids--who are only eight and nine years old--really understood the ramifications of the alternative or knew how they would feel when a mob of kids marks up your face and humiliates you.

It's like asking an eight-year old--Do you want to have your bike taken away, or do you want to do some welding with a blow torch by yourself? It was an unfair choice, but I think the teacher knew that.

This should have NEVER been an alternative. Humiliating children and singling them out--when they are trying their best--is not humane. It is disgusting.

[elehhhhna]

30. hey! bullying is a motivator!

that mom is right!

[marmar]

17. Being publicly humiliated is about an hour past "criticism", don't you think?

nt

[ohheckyeah]

18. Obviously you don't know the difference

between criticism and humiliation.

[The Straight Story]

25. I was a nerd too. Played in the chess club. Winners and losers. Classrooms are not sports arenas (nt

[elehhhhna]

33. if you're intellectualism is being denigrated

you need to hang out with different people. just sayin'.

sounds like you were bullied. have you no compassion for other bullied 9 year olds?

[ohheckyeah]

63. So, marking up the face of someone slower is a

real reward?

Humiliating a kid will teach them not to bully someone else? Like being humiliated taught you that it's wrong to humiliate kids?

[ohheckyeah]

32. So, why are you okay

with others being humiliated?

Generally fuck you as a response is not considered up to community standards....something to think about.

[Chan790]

51. Ignore him, he's not worth the breath.

A bitter vengeful person who thinks its' okay to humiliate children because they were bullied. Poster says they learned empathy but I think they need an incomplete or a refresher course.

[ohheckyeah]

57. True - you would think a person

who lived through humiliation would recognize it.

[elehhhhna]

31. and bullying, and poor sporsmanship, etc. ...

[DisgustipatedinCA]

39. This is an unoriginal, right-wing talking point.

Where'd you pick it up?

[DisgustipatedinCA]

43. So you were successful in getting rid of your self-esteem sometime during high school?

Well, congratulations, I guess. Sorry about the right-wing thing. It's just coincidental that you independently came up with self-loathing as a good idea at the same time that droves and droves of fuckwitted, inbred, anti-young-person Republican troglodytes did--it confused me momentarily.

Anyhow, have a great, self-loathing weekend.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

52. Roll those dice

You may get my post blocked. You may not. Neither outcome will change the basic fact that you are in favor of bullying children because you believe that self-esteem is "crap".

Do what you need to do.

[Chan790]

55. I'd vote to "Leave it Alone". n/t

[ohheckyeah]

59. From the person

who responded with fuck you? LOL

[ceile]

50. Poor you.

Only a fool would think this was a good idea.

[jpak]

60. Justifying child abuse is sick high order douchebaggery

Just sayin'

[backscatter712]

67. Why don't you find your nearest university and take Psych 101.

Any basic psych student would tell you that you were completely and utterly wrong, and be able to cite several dozen academic articles to prove it.

What you're talking about is legitimizing abuse.

[HiPointDem]

15. because nothing makes children want to learn as well as shaming does.

i mean, everybody knows that, right?

don't we all respond well to shaming?

[hollysmom]

16. Isn't this considered assault?

[forestpath]

24. It is by me.

[Waiting For Everyman]

19. She needs to be fired asap.

That teacher is behaving like a punk herself. That's every kind of fail.

[GiaGiovanni]

94. If you fire her, you need to fire every teacher using peer approaches in the classroom because

eventually, they will lead to more of such incidents.

The problem here is the educational "theory" that encourages teachers to allow the 9th graders to decide on classroom management issues.

[nichomachus]

20. "Is being criticized?"

How about being tarred and feathered? That teacher should be fired and barred from having any contact with children.

[Downwinder]

21. Institutionalized bullying?

[retread]

23. That explains this!! He flunked 4th grade reading.

[nenagh]

26. That is despicable... and breaks my heart...

My youngest son was slow at reading...but as he grew up, he loved computer games.

He wanted me to buy him computer game magazines and learned to read extensively in order to understand the tricks involved in Super Mario Bros etc... That was long ago...

He is now a University graduate in Computer Engineering who also loves to draw...

Sometimes I wonder whether some slower readers may not be gifted in other fields... But shaming the child is not a method of encouraging further study.

[yardwork]

46. I was slow in math but quick to learn reading.

I still remember how uncomfortable I felt in elementary school when the children who were not as good at reading had to read out loud. I felt worse for them than I felt for myself when I did poorly at the "game" the teacher made us play that showed off the children who were good at arithmetic.

It's not a good idea to make learning into a competitive game. Some people pick up reading and writing quickly, as I did. Others are math whizzes at a young age. These are natural gifts, encouraged by parents who have the education and leisure to help their children. Not being quick at learning should never, ever be punished. It's not something that the child is doing on purpose. It has nothing to do with poor discipline or not trying hard enough. Children need to be allowed to learn at their own paces.

I did eventually learn math.

[GiaGiovanni]

48. Actually, this teacher's blog has some student reading videos that are anything but shaming

http://summerlarsendes.blogspot.com/p/farmer-rt-group-1.html

Here's what I think happened. This teacher seems very student centered. A student centered classroom requires that students make many of their own decisions as a class, including decisions about incentivizing learning. The students themselves (according to the AP article) chose the disincentive of writing marker on children's faces. A student centered classroom might in fact go with the student's own idea of an appropriate punishment to see what happens and to talk about it later. I heartily agree that this particular exercise was cruel, and something to be expected of 4th graders whose moral systems are still developing. However, some student centered educational methodologies require going along with such decisions, provided they are not truly dangerous.

You might argue that the exercise was psychologically damaging to students, but remember, there have been lots of educational "experiments" in the past 30 years, such as the discrimination game described in the documentary A Class Divided. Under the guise of education, such psychological experiments certainly affect children, and not only in a good way. One Florida school, for example, decided to play a "Holocaust Game" in which certain random students were chosen to be Jews for a day. There were many children traumatized.

[liberal_at_heart]

28. That's horrible

This is why I think we need teachers with advanced degrees. Teachers with advanced teaching degrees know to how to encourage and motivate without humiliation or shame.

[GiaGiovanni]

38. She actually seems like a devoted teacher. Her blog is available here:

Summer Larsen's blog about her students:

http://summerlarsendes.blogspot.com/

[yardwork]

47. She may be a devoted teacher but she made a terrible mistake.

I still can't imagine how any teacher could think that punishing children for not being as quick to learn something as their peers is a good approach to education.

Frankly, I'm appalled.

[GiaGiovanni]

58. Did you read the blog? She's not a horrible person, and the peer approach requires follow through

That's one of the reasons I don't believe in peer guidance of education. Certain manipulative children and cliques can end up running the process.

For the record, I disagree with the whole premise: you don't punish kids for learning speeds, you don't put incentivizing in the hands of 9-year olds, and you don't let the students run the show. However, many schools of education radically disagree with me, at least in terms of the latter.

And, sad to say, as schools are judged more and more by test scores, expect more "peer guided incentives (or disincentives) for reading scores.


The blog contains some interesting video:

http://summerlarsendes.blogspot.com/p/farmer-rt-group-1.html

[GiaGiovanni]

35. The "punishment" was apparently the idea of the students themselves (a stupid one admittedly)

The school involved is Declo Elementary in Declo, Idaho:

https://sites.google.com/a/cassiaschools.org/declo_elementary/faculty-staff

According to AP:

The students were allowed to choose their own incentive to meet the reading goal, but instead of a reward, the class chose a punishment: Students who failed to meet the goal could either stay inside at recess until it was met, or have their faces written on by classmates who met the goals.

Nine students didn't meet the goals, the paper reported Friday. Three chose to forgo recess, and the other six chose to have their faces marked on.

"Although all the students in the class agreed to the incentive, once it occurred it was not so well received. Nor should it have been," Smyer said.

http://www.bigstory.ap.org/article/fourth-graders-who-flunk-reading-have-faces-marked


If you are a teacher, you often try to get students to provide their own incentives: they work harder if it's something meaningful to them and if it's something they have decided on as a class. However, you have to guide the process (insuring the fairness of the outcomes) and you never allow students with developing moral characters to decide upon disincentives. It makes me think that Larsen (the teacher) is either young & inexperienced or very idealistic.

[yardwork]

53. In other words, the teachers enabled her students to be bullies.

The kids who were quick readers got together and decided to humiliate and abuse their peers who were slower to learn reading. That's called bullying.

This is the kind of mindset that leads teachers and administrators to watch kids being bullied until they literally commit suicide, and never step in and stop the bullying.

[GiaGiovanni]

65. The peer approach often results in that, especially with younger children

Manipulative children and cliques can often hijack the process. The teacher, usually a well-meaning person full of educational "theory" and good intentions, often doesn't see the mischief under her nose.

For the record, I think the peer approach is ridiculous at the lower grades and that the teacher (and administrators) do need to be the moral authority. However, Mrs. Larsen's activities with her 4th grade class do not exist in a vacuum. Schools of education actively promote peer/student-centered approaches and, in fact, promote crossing children's psychological boundaries.

[yardwork]

83. My children went to a student-centered alternative school, and nothing like this was done.

I've never heard of this before, and I know quite a few early childhood educators. Maybe this is something new. I don't hold with it.

[GiaGiovanni]

90. What kind of alternative school?

Sometimes they escape certain educational trends.

[yardwork]

96. It was founded in the 1970s, based on Piaget's theories.

[surrealAmerican]

37. I would be worried as much about the effect of this "punishment" ...

... on the kids who were wielding the markers as the kids who were drawn on. She's teaching them to abuse their peers, and to mistreat others for what? It's not going to make anybody a better reader.

She should not be teaching, and the whole class needs to deal with the aftermath of this incident.

[Iwillnevergiveup]

42. If I'd had my face marked on

I'd NEVER want to return to that class or that teacher. Shaming and humiliating are not the roads to learning or success.

[yardwork]

44. OMG. What incredible stupidity and cruelty.

[rrneck]

49. Fire that incompetent fuck. nt

[smirkymonkey]

89. +1000

Thank YOU! What a horrible thing to do to children. She is a sick woman.

[HereSince1628]

54. Teacher needs to write the meaning of STIGMA on her blackboard 1000 times

[redwitch]

75. How about the students write on HER face? nt

[jpak]

56. Those poor kids! What a sickfuck teacher.

ugh

[GiaGiovanni]

73. The kids themselves chose the punishment, and some student-centered approaches

require follow through on student decisions like this.

This is why I support the traditional classroom and homeschooling.

However, don't assume this teacher was a horrible person. Her training in student-centered (peer) approaches is not unique, but is actually more common than traditional approaches. You might argue that she should have guided the students to a different kind of disincentive (or, better yet, incentive) but one of the issues with peer approaches is that you have to allow the students to make their own decisions.

[Hekate]

82. Thanks for the input, esp the link

People are off on their own tangents and hobbyhorses full tilt by now, as you can see.

As you can also see, I have opinions of my own, but I do appreciate knowing where the teacher might have thought she was coming from, mistaken as she appears to have been. Hopefully it will be a learning experience and not a career-ender.

[GiaGiovanni]

91. Thanks for a civilized response. A wrongheaded philosophy, supported by research and

in-service programs, is not the same as being mentally ill.

I do think parents need to know more about the educational "theories" that affect their children.

[Butterbean]

62. What if one of these poor kids is an unidentified dyslexic? It happens.

This whole thing just makes me nauseated. I'd be furious if I was the parent.

[Initech]

64. And I thought the education bar was lowered when our former president asked:

"Is our children learning?"

[EC]

66. Wow, really?

How could someone be so cruel? Where did this teacher learn this type of behavior?

[backscatter712]

68. Any punishment for this teacher should involve a tattoo gun... n/t

[kath]

69. Yet another reason why I'm glad we homeschooled our kids.

Both of whom are now at top-rated colleges, thank you very much.

But having a kid who has trouble learning gives parents even MORE reason to homeschool.

[GiaGiovanni]

71. I am a HUGE advocate of home schooling, especially considering current education "theory" at

university departments of education.

I have friends homeschooling their children and they are all far more advanced than their school-attending peers.

[GiaGiovanni]

70. The teacher is NOT a horrible person or even an abusive one. It's a peer teaching methodology that

is causing the problems here.

The teacher, Mrs. Summer Larsen, has a blog here. You can see student videos of her reading students on this web page. She seems to be a very devoted 4th grade teacher.

The marker incident (above) is part of a common teaching methodology involving the student-centered classroom and peer decision-making. The teacher talks with the students about an issue--in this case, reading scores--and the student come up with class incentives or, in this case, disincentives. There is nothing unusual about this except in the choice of disincentive.

The AP article makes it clear that the students themselves chose the disincentive (punishment).

Recent education "theory" (and I use the term very loosely) has been pushing peer approaches since the 70s and 80s. Those of us who have taken writing classes in the past 30-40 years surely remember "peer review", a fairly useless process in which students are asked to comment on each others' high school or college compositions. If you've gone through this, you remember just how valuable most of your peers' advice was.

Peer related approaches have become more prevalent and more sophisticated. Group decisions involving incentives, disincentives, classroom management, and even choice of topics have become fair game as students are expected to direct more and more of the learning process and the teacher is supposed to erase him or herself from it. Ultimately, school becomes a behavior laboratory, not an academic learning process.

When you buy in to all this student centered/peer oriented "theory", you are required to follow through with student decisions that are made. This, of course, seems the height of silliness to a more traditional teacher who runs the classroom based on the idea that s/he knows better than a bunch of 9-year-olds. Really wise teachers understand that 9-year olds are not innocents and not all well-intentioned. They understand that manipulative students and cliques can hijack any peer process. They also understand that 4th graders are not always up on the consequences of their actions.

A more traditional teacher would never have let this kind of thing happen. But, the trend is against the traditional "teacher-cented" classroom (the one in which the teacher has the authority, decides on the academic topic to be covered, and stops cliques in their tracks.) The future is "student centered learning" in which the teacher is a mere facilitator and students "guide" their own learning using computer software (which essentially means that the software guides their learning.)

Before you tar and feather this teacher, understand that she is not operating in a vacuum. Parents need to be more aware of education "theory" coming from schools of education, and understand how this can directly affect their children.

[demhottie]

72. Labeling abuse as a "theory" doesn't make it less abusive

It's pretty frightening that you're defending her.

[GiaGiovanni]

77. Tell that to schools of education.

That's where it all begins.

[Sabriel]

98. That's complete bullshit

And if you worked in a teacher ed program, you'd know that.

But you don't.

I don't know where you're getting your misinformation from, but feel free to change your source to one that's a little more in the loop.

[proud2BlibKansan]

74. The teacher is an adult. She has an obligation to keep kids safe. She failed.

This doesn't have anything to do with methodology. What a ridiculous excuse.

[GiaGiovanni]

78. Safe, yes. But this has EVERYTHING to do with teaching philosophy coming out of universities

Once you take authority from the teacher and turn it over to a peer philosophy, you will end up with these kinds of things happening from time to time.

[Honeycombe8]

80. The reason an adult is the teacher is because students lack the judgment

to make "incentive" and "disincentive" decisions. They don't have the life experience to make those calls, and their brains are not fully developed.

This person should not be a teacher. Teaching methodology or not, when an adult knows that a child is about to be humiliated, that adult has a duty to stop it. If the adult is a teacher, that adult has the added duty to go a step further and explain to the children why the "disincentive" they chose is inappropriate. THAT is teaching.

That person should not be a teacher. She has no empathy for others, and no instinct for teaching.

[GiaGiovanni]

92. I agree, but peer approaches make the teacher step away from that role

It's not a personality problem, but a philosophical one coming out of the theories in schools of education. Teachers are required to go to countless in-services and trainings which preach that peer decision making is far superior to that of an individual teacher.

[Sheldon Cooper]

76. Stunning.

I'm at a loss for words. I simply cannot fathom the thinking behind this, and I shudder to think of what I'd have done were I a parent of one of these kids. I think I might actually be in jail right now.

[Hekate]

79. Teaches other kids that violating someone else's physical boundaries is acceptable

Hmmmm. Wonder if that would lead to ganging up on a boy with bleach-blond hair and scissoring it off while he cries?

The whole episode and the thinking behind it is awful.

[GiaGiovanni]

93. Teaches that such violation is OK when the peer group agrees on it

That's even more problematic in my opinion.

[Bad_Ronald]

84. My first grade teacher used to pin failed tests to our shirts & force us to keep them there all day

Some people simply aren't fit to work with children.

[dsc]

85. I am in no way defending this teacher

who deserves any and all criticism she gets. But you will see more of this in the future unless and until we stop this mania about test scores.

[Whisp]

86. what a crappy human being/teacher. n/t

[Marrah_G]

87. What the hell..........

[Auntie Bush]

88. So this teacher believes in "Scarlet Letter" type punishment in 2012.

She needs to be replaced or at least get sensitivity/empathy/compassion training.
I have a good idea! Let the kids who were punished use markers on her face and see how she likes it. Let her explain what happened and why to her husband and kids.
Bet she'd think twice the next time she dolled out punishment.

[Comrade_McKenzie]

95. Fire her. None of that sit in a room for a year and get paid bullshit. nt

[former-republican]

97. unreal

" A fourth-grade teacher in southern Idaho is being criticized"








Really !!!!


She is being criticized for letting her students be bullied and abused with her consent.

Imagine that!

She should be fired immediately.