Hope this may be helpful!
Can't believe this child's claim hasn't been taken seriously.
I had watched as a sixth grader was ready to take a test and was being mistreated in this same way. The teacher told him to "shut up" or she would fail him like last time. The child then said "f off" Miss. I was stunned, and flabbergasted by a child so young being reactive this way. I have learned that there is a definite interaction between teacher and child, and although child may have some dysfunction, it is non-the-less useless/pointless and even harming to reply in these fashions. In any case the teacher threw him out and he failed another test.
I pondered this issue for a few weeks, while I watched this teacher smiling, and being 'nice' to other teachers. While at the same time continuing to have demeaning tones around the children, and not smiling, not once did I see her smile. But the smiles were on with the kids, when they had open house at the school.
Calling the school board, I must say, would probably be as useless as that child having posted here (but a formal complaint would probably be necessary in any case). You can try
rating teachers at
http://us.ratemyteachers.com/ for schools in the United States, or at
http://canada.ratemyteachers.com/ for Canadian schools.
Ask your parents and other students in your school to Advocate National databases for yearly evaluations: "Computer databases linked to the ministries or/and governments could sort most of the information. This would allow some form of evaluation of schools, teachers, and pedagogy, from the perspective of parent, child, and teacher and could also permit a National Evaluation of sorts. Evaluations will be much more realistic, ‘heard from the horse’s mouth’ so to say, with timely representations, and on a larger sample of students. These chart representations could allow for more targeted immediate interventions, both with school personnel and students, which will allow for suppleness/malleability needed throughout the year regarding the availability of the professionals needed for interventions. (
http://www.geocities.com/npfsac/schools_human_rights.html)
In addition I would think about contacting the Human Rights Commission for investigations on how these complaints are being investigated.
Are schools functioning as a source for continued problems in a child's life?
a “child breaks [a] rule, the school may react by punishing him according to their regulations. There is then the possibility that certain teachers in the school will remember the child for having broken that rule. This may change the teachers’ perceptions of the child and therefore cause them to treat him differently from the other children, leading him to “get a name for himself”. This, new less tolerant behavior from the teachers may lead to the child purposely rebelling against them. The family may also be brought into the equation, either by the child complaining about the situation at home or by the school feeling it necessary to bring it to the parents’ attention. Depending on their opinions of the rule and the school, the family may choose to take a side in the matter. Which side they take will influence the view of the school and child towards them…” “We can envisage a situation where the child has taken on the mantle of being ‘difficult’ or ‘bad’. This role is then reinforced by the changed perceptions and assumptions of the school and maybe the family. This is explained through general systems theory by the concept of homeostasis. In labeling one child as ‘bad’, the school is able to hold that child up as an example to the rest of ‘how not to behave thus enabling them to maintain the status quo.” (Counseling in Schools, by Robert Bor, Jo Ebner-Landy, Shiela Gil, Chris Brace 2002, p.23)
From the book; “
Teacher Quality”, Lance T. Izumi & Williamson M. Evers, 2002:
"The cumulative and residual effects of teachers on the academic progress of students are huge. (p.18) Students unfortunate enough to encounter two or more ineffective teachers in sequence show measurably retarded growth. (p.22)
In the extreme, fifth-grade students experiencing highly ineffective teachers in grades three through five scored about 50 percentile points below their peers of comparable previous achievement who were fortunate enough to experience highly effective teachers for those same grades.(6) (Jordan, Mendro, and Weerasinghe, “Teacher Effects”; William L. Sanders and June C. Rivers, “Cumulative and Residual Effects of Teachers on Future Student Academic Achievement: Research Progress Report: (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Value-Added Research and Assessment Center, 1996))
A teacher’s effect on student achievement is measurable at least four years after students have left the tutelage of that teacher.(7) (June C. Rivers-Sanders, “The Impact of Teacher Effect on Student math Competency Achievement” (Ed.D. diss., University of Tennessee, 1999); Sanders and Rivers, Cumulative and Residual Effects of Teachers.)
When a student has experienced an ineffective teacher or a series of ineffective teachers there is little evidence of a compensatory effect provided by experiencing more effective ones in later years.( (Sanders and Rivers, Cumulative and Residual Effects of Teachers)
Regardless of ethnicity, children of similar previous achievement levels tend to respond similarly to an individual teacher.(9) (Sanders and Rivers, Cumulative and Residual Effects of Teachers) "
