Someone Explain To Me Why Physical Violence Is Always Wrong

Alex Barton is a 5-year-old boy who, until this last week, was a kindergarten student at Morningside Elementary School in Port. St. Lucie, Florida.  Apparently young Mr. Barton has been disruptive in class, and was sent to the principal's office.

Upon his return to class, the teacher, one Wendy Portillo, led Alex up to the front of the class, at which point she instructed the other students to each say what they didn't like about Alex.

I need to write it again:  a kindergarten teacher brought a student to the front of the class and led the rest of the class in a public discussion of what each of them thought was wrong, or bad, about that student.

She then had a class vote over whether Alex should remain in the class.  He lost that vote, 14-2.  In a move that honestly boggles my mind, she then treated that as a legitimate vote and required Alex to spend the rest of the day in the nurse's office.

Alex's parents were not notified by the principal, the teacher or the nurse about what had happened.  His mother discovered him leaving the nurse's office when she arrived to pick him up from school.

According to the article, the other students told Alex he was disgusting and annoying, and Alex has been repeating "I'm not special" over and over since the incident.  When his mother drops his siblings off at that school, Alex starts screaming.

The school district and the Department of Children and Families are investigating.  For their part, the state attorney's office has already decided that no there was no abuse and therefore no crime, so the Port St. Lucie police are only "documenting the complaint."

That is, of course, unacceptable.  What that teacher did was a shaming ritual - others include making a child dig and refill holes in the yard, or move a pile of bricks, one at a time, from one location to another.  There is no relation of the "punishment" to the infraction and no restoration that can happen as a result of the punishment.  Instead of trying to bring about a change in behavior because of a greater understanding of why something is against the rules, shaming rituals seek behavior modification through the destruction of a child's sense of self worth.

This would not be more clearly an incident of child abuse if Wendy Portillo had hit Alex Barton with a baseball bat, and as far as his emotional development is concerned, it's slightly possible that the baseball bat would have done less lasting damage.  The teacher, the principal and yes, even the school nurse should all be fired and stripped of their professional licenses so they don't have the ability to perform such egregious abuse and malpractice upon any other children.

And if it had been me discovering upon my arrival at the school that my daughter had suffered this treatment, there's way better than even odds I'd be out on bail right now.  Hell, I'd dare the DA to get a jury to convict me of being anything other than a normal human being.

Comments

[parmenides]

I had shaming rituals done to me in fourth grade, nothing that egregious, and I can tell you it plays with your sense of self for a while. Most of what I've read is that putting massive stress on a child without any relation to any particular behavior is liable to create generalized anxiety issues later which can manifest themselves in ways that are not pleasant for anyone.

[NealB]

The teacher who did this, the administrative officials who permit it, and the nurse that condones it are all victims of abuse themselves, I'd guess. So what can be done?

[Sir Charles]

Wow -- I wish I were licensed to practice law in Florida. OMFG.

And if it had been my kid -- I can't imagine what I might have done. But the investigation afterward might have involved dental records.

[Stephen]

NealB,

I confess to being unsure of your point. Are you suggesting that they would be justified in their deplorable treatment of Alex Barton if they all had been abused?

There is a difference between the understanding that abuse begets abuse, and the idea that being a victim of abuse somehow justifies abusive actions. John Wayne Gacy was abused by his father. Should he have not been imprisoned?

[Joe Klein's conscience]

I just want to know what major malfunction that teacher had in her life that she thought this was okay. Can't the D.A.'s office file a complaint with the school board? The state? Those people shouldn't be allowed teacher, or running a school. This is another one of those stories that makes me think this country is going to hell in a hand basket.

[Scott K]

Sheesh. I dated a woman for awhile that had three children, two of whom were diagnosed with autism. Due to my stunning charm and captivating personality, I eventually had the opportunity to meet and spend time with her kids. The two autistic children had completely different approaches to people-- one was rather aloof and somewhat difficult to engage, though I could tell that he was not trying to be rude... it helps that I share similar habits sometimes due to my distaste for stupid people. ;-) The other was quite social, but seemed to have an attention span that was the opposite of ADD-- once she fixated on something, it took awhile to let go. That did have advantages-- she was only 7 years old but was able to have functional conversations in sign language with me after just an hour or two of sitting with me-- but it could get, ahem, a little bit annoying when it was Time To Move On and she refused to do so.

Anyways, I can imagine how horrific it would be to be in such a situation, already being aware that you are not necessarily conforming to the same range of activity as most other people, and then getting publicly called out for it. I don't think that I would wind up in jail if this was my kid, but the teacher would wish that I had done something like that. There are much more effective ways of punishment... I shall point out that physical violence pretty much fits this mold as well: There is no relation of the "punishment" to the infraction and no restoration that can happen as a result of the punishment. But it can be quite nice to fantasize as a rhetorical tool.

[Joshua Whalen]

The National Lawyers Guild maintains a website with a national guide to member attorneys. Their track record overall is way better than the ACLU, they're far less elitist, and they cost less. I hope someone will forward that info to the parents. There's plenty of evidence establishing at this point that psychological abuse is every bit as harmful as physical abuse. I hope they sue.

[low-tech cyclist]

Isn't this the sort of thing that the Maoists used to do to people who didn't sufficiently toe the party line?

While I don't see anything here that a D.A. could prosecute, that teacher should lose her job over this.

Beyond that, it's hard to say who knew what. Is it unusual for kids to be sent to the nurse's office as a sanction? If not, and if the nurse is only expected to look after them, and not informed of or expected to ask why a kid has been sent there, then this has nothing to do with her.

And if that's the case, it may well be that the principal didn't know anything about what happened to Alex after he left the principal's office, until the parents confronted him.

But if the principal and the school district officials aren't outraged at the idea that this sort of thing could happen in one of their classrooms, then something's wrong with them. If they verify that this happened, and they don't fire that teacher's ass, I'd be extremely upset if I were a parent - any parent - in that school district. Because if a teacher did something like that to my kid, I'd want them to take it pretty damned seriously. So I'd be extremely pissed if they tried to sweep this one under the rug.

[litbrit]

When I lived in Barbados, I attended a Catholic Convent school. Some of the nun/teachers went overboard with the shaming thing, and I was regularly called out to stand up, while the rest of the class remained seated, while they told me off for talking during class, or questioning a teacher, or--and this was a good one--for questioning an actual line from the Bible, one that said women were to walk behind men and cover their heads. Sister Carmel said it was because women made men to be leaders, and women to follow behind.

I raised my hand: "If women are not as good as men, then why do I have better marks (grades) than anyone else in the class, even all the boys?" I asked.

I was told to stand, and sternly reminded that God did not like little girls who talked back to grownups, and that God was certainly very angry with me now, and why would anyone want to be friends with a child that God was angry with. The other children all murmured in agreement. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me.

Another time, a fellow classmate, Mary, who was black, was brought to the front of the class and asked to show her homework notebook. She had not turned in homework for a couple of weeks, and when Sister had spoken to her mother about it, her mother said, "But her notebook didn't show that she'd had any assignments!" So Sister was now telling Mary that she must admit she was a liar and a bad girl, and Mary instead stood there silently, shaking her head. "Admit you are a bad girl, and that you lied to your mother and to God!"

Mary stood firm, saying nothing. "Put out your hands, then!" shouted the nun. Mary did. The nun then whacked her knuckles--hard--with a ruler, several times. Mary did not flinch, and she still said nothing. But enormous tears of pain and shame rolled down her face as she heard, over and over, that she was a liar and a bad girl and that God did not love liars.

And I sat there, with my stomach in knots, a helpless nine-year-old girl myself, wanting so badly to stand up and say STOP! but being equally motivated by terror to remain silent as Mary was shamed and punished in front of us all.

I have never forgotten that scene, or forgiven myself for not standing up and saying something. If I could go back in time and do so, I would. I can clearly picture the eerie glow of Mary's yellow gingham school uniform, starched and pressed by her mother, in the bright sun that poured through the window; I can see her long, bony dark hands trembling as the nun smacked them over and over and shouted in her face. I am still ashamed that I did nothing to help her--that none of us had the courage to rally to her side. I can't forgive myself for that, even though I was only nine, and really, realistically, what could I have done?

When teachers do this sort of thing, they not only shame--and irreparably harm--the tender soul of the wayward child herself, they also hurt the innocents who witness the event, or even participate in it, because they, too, are blameless. They are children, not fully-formed grownups making a choice to remain silent about, or be complicit in, the act of hurting a fellow child. Children, for the love of God! Children!

I am weeping as I write this.

[Scott K]

God was certainly very angry with me now

I've always wondered if the version of God in some quarters has some sort of massive insecurity complex. Why else would He care about what mere mortals think?

Anyways, I do hope that Catholic schools these days are better. I am grateful that I didn't go through anything like that when I was younger-- oh, there were a couple of times that I got myself in trouble, but the talking-to/punishment was tastefully dealt with outside the classroom.

[Sir Charles]

l-t c,

The first thing that leapt to mind when I read this was also some sort of Maoist, Cultural Revolution era exercise -- self-criticism and "speak bitterness" sessions and the like. How creepy.

And D.,

The inexplicable sadism carried on in the name of the Church seems to have been a defining feature of much religious education -- once again people who seem puzzingly unfamiliar with the Gospels celbrating the life of the saviour they claim to worship.

[Sara Anderson]

Did the teacher train an eagle to eat the kid's liver every day?

[litbrit]

Sara! We've all been missing you.

[yoyo]

Obliviousness to emotional pain is just rampant. Like how to explain why mental illness should be treated and treatments funded, people will explain "more importantly, it costs 67$ billion to the GDP!"

[Rob_in_Hawaii]

A nun in the 3rd grade back in Washington, DC forced me into a similar shaming ritual. I had come in from recess with my shirt tail out. She said I was a pig and forced me to stand in front of the class and apologize for being a pig. Then she said that no one else wanted a "piggy" around, so she banished me from her class.

She then had me go to all the other 3rd grade classrooms and stand in front of those classes and ask them if they would accept a "piggy" in their room. It was only in the third class I was forced to humiliate myself in front of that a teacher stepped in and put an end to my ordeal. The nun grudgingly took me back and took her wrath out on me for the rest of the year.

On sober reflection as an adult I can see the whole thing for what it was: child abuse. The only "lesson" I learned was that grown-ups could be assholes. That was 48 years ago and the memory still smarts.

[mike stanton]

Christschool has done a masterful job of compiling draft letters of complaint to the authorities and the media over at Thinking in Metaphors. Anyone who wants to use them please let Christschool know and also forward copies to ASAN who are trying to coordinate responses.

[ShortWoman]

None of those officials have any business being employed in a school.

[Stephen]

Rob, litbrit, and all those who have suffered at the hands of emotionally impaired adults in positions of authority.

My heart goes out to all of you. My 3rd grade teacher would throw erasers when she was mad, and my 6th grade teacher once choked a student in class - a friend and I stayed after school to tell the principal. She wasn't fired, but she was no longer allowed to displine any students; she had to send us to another teacher with an explanation of what happened.

I'm sure the fact that she had a signed portrait of Ronald Reagan at the front of the class, which she used to address directly, had nothing at all to do with her psychoses.

But clearly I was fortunate.

mike stanton,

Thank you very much for that info. It looks like the Bartons will be getting some top-notch help in this, which is no less than they deserve.

[Crissa]

Ugh.

[lastcrazyhorn]

I just got wind of an email from Melissa Barton, Alex's mother. She said that the thing to do here is to contact:

Office of Governor Charlie Crist
State of Florida
The Capitol
400 S. Monroe St.
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001

Citizen Services Hotline: (850) 488-4441
Executive Office of the Governor Switchboard: (850) 488-7146
[Office hours are 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time]

Fax: (850) 487-0801

For individuals with hearing loss or speech disability:
1-850-922-7795 (TTY)
OR
711 (Florida Telecommunication Relay)

ASAN - Autistic Self Advocacy Network has also issued a statement on this. In particular, I highlight this section:

Please be polite yet firm in your comments, pointing out the unacceptability of such actions when aimed at any student, as well as the need for this school to adopt policies to prevent this from happening in the future. This is an opportunity to drive home the message that we will not stand by while one of our own is abused. We ask that you please cc: info@autisticadvocacy.org in your e-mails to the school district so we can keep track of the strength and sources of this response. Remember: abusive messages hurt our cause - please be respectful in your comments.

[Beth/Mom2TwoVikings]

If anyone is interested in doing a little something for Alex, Barbara Curtis, published writer and blogger, is leading a "card shower" for Alex to tell him that indeed he IS special.

http://www.mommylife.net/archives/2008/05/alex_is_special.html

[Flyboy]

When I lived in a small town in Washington State, my daughter brought home an interesting story from her sixth grade class. The teacher caught a student throwing trash on the floor, and made him kneel on the floor, with his head in a trash can. The next day, the boy's father came to class, forced the teacher's arm behind his back, and made him kneel by the trash can, while shoving his head in. There were no repercussions for either the teacher or the father, but it never happened again! Can anyone honestly say the father was out of bounds?

[Stephen]

Flyboy, no, the father was definitely not out of bounds. Perhaps the teacher, principal and nurse need to be put in front of a group of people who will then enumerate their many flaws, which can then be published in the paper. Ex-lovers, parents of autistic children and some of the readers of this blog would really need to be there.

[BillK]

http://www.slate.com/id/2192480/entry/0/

[BillK]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/30/earlyshow/living/parenting/main4140155.shtml

http://www.momlogic.com/2008/05/teachers_from_hell.php

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2008/may/30/michael-goforth-st-lucie-schools-hits-keep-comingg/

[aspiemom]

There is only one reason to take a child to Florida ~ Disneyworld !