Reply #14: I watched it without the sound and thought OMG, and then I listened to her story [View All]

[renate]

My computer is set on mute, so I just watched the beating without any context and thought there couldn't be any excuse for snapping like that, and then I turned the sound on and watched again and heard what she has to deal with.

Obviously her behavior isn't ideal but I can understand why she did what she did. The teachers there must be 1) afraid for their own safety, on a constant basis, so they're in a constant state of flight-or-fight but flight isn't an option, and 2) afraid for their students' safety. And in a "school" that doesn't even have a pencil sharpener in her classroom, she must feel like she's basically just trying to keep a bunch of kids with criminal histories from killing each other. With none of the training and none of the protective gear that a prison warder gets.

I have to admit that if I saw students--any kids, really, but especially violent kids like that--taunting a mentally challenged child in a locked room, my protective instincts (both for myself and for the innocent child) would go into high gear. And after three years of being in an environment like that, I can't blame her for not going the child-psychologist "Isaiah, let's talk about your inappropriate behavior" route.

I'm amazed that any teacher can last in that school for more than a day. I'm not excusing her behavior, and neither is she, but I think it's very understandable both psychologically and physiologically.