Teacher told kid they were a waste of space

[ZeroFuches]

Quick question for you vipers regarding the above. Teacher accused entire class of Yr 13 of not doing their homework and asked them one by one if they had completed it. No one had done it (a past paper for context, they're almost on study leave). They all replied that he hadn't set it as homework but as revision for study leave. Teacher then shouts at one pupil, telling him he is a waste of space and that it would be better if a smarter person was breathing the air that they were breathing.

I'm tempted to email the school - although I may be biased towards this Teacher as they previously likened the suffragettes to Hamas.

Aibu?

So being a bit frustrated is sufficent justification to insult people? There have been hundreds of employment tribunals that have found the complete opposite but okay...

Also people totally can complain for their "darlings" even when they go to uni, actually. Who knows how seriously the complaint will be taken but there is no law against it.

However it's irrelevant in this context because the OP was considering suggesting her child complained themselves, not doing so on their behalf. Which if you'd have taken a minute to read the full thread, or even just the OPs updates rather than being so keen to spew "snowflake" vitriol towards teenagers, you'd have known.

I read the full thread thanks
No snowflake here
Perhaps if you read @pinotnow s comments from a teacher who ‘gets it’, you’ll get it too.

Now I see why so many teachers leave the profession.

OP telling her kid to complain is no different really.

They are old enough and I’m assuming clever enough ( Alevels ) to think for themselves.

Agree Pinots post is very enlightening

Very mature.

Perhaps he hopes the same about your daughter.

I'd be very careful to find out exactly what happened.

I had a student write a letter to say she did not think she would pass her course because of my teaching. That I had refused to teach her and when she asked for help I told her I was paid the same whether she passed or not.

WHat she left out was that when I was explaining the task to the class she had a chat with her friend.

Then she asked what she had to do so I repeated what she needed to do and she had another chat with her friend.

When she asked me to repeat it for the third time I said 'no'.

That's when she told me my job was to make her pass and I said 'no, it's my job to teach, you need to listen and ask questions not talk all over me other people are getting on with the task and want to ask questions'.

So she said I shouldn't be paid if she didn't pass.

Also check that the teacher DID shout. With older teens teachers can be a bit less authoritarian and sometimes jokes happen between staff and students.

It could be exactly as your teen described. It could be different. It could be similar.

Also at year 13 surely they know what days they are given homework and if suddenly it wasn't given why didn't ano of them ask?

Thanks everyone, I appreciate all opinions.

Afew other thoughts:

The Hamas/Suffragette comment was on Women's Day in March. I was pretty appalled but since I wasn't there to hear the comment, nor the context, I urged caution.

Teacher also teaches my younger DC & likes both my DC. They have form for shouting/belittling pupils but not my DC.

To a pp, I chose my words carefully and referred to the MN collective as 'vipers' in a humorous way and as a shorthand to let you know I've been around a while and am genuinely interested in opinions. Apologies if my joke offended.

My older DC is close to their other 4 teachers & has a great relationship with them. I think the school itself and the staff are incredible. They are 17 - we're in NI & year 13 is equivalent to year 12 in England I believe, so another year of school left.

Finally, with regard to the homework. The class understood the past papers were given as a revision guide, not as a homework. I tend to believe DC because they have never received a negative behaviour point for not handing in homework until today. It's entirely possible they and their class made a mistake. Regardless, I instinctively feel that this possible misdemeanour doesn't warrant one pupil being spoken to in that way, singled out in front of the class.

Thank you everyone for your thoughts, especially the fellow teachers. I have no with to make unnecessary trouble for anyone hence garnering opinion here.

You weren't there.

Do not interfere.

Nice bit of victim blaming there

I've read pinotnow's comments. If a teacher can't do their job without insulting their students they probably should leave the profession tbh!

Again, most other jobs wouldn't accept 'I'm a bit stressed' or 'my colleagues haven't done entirely optional work,' as a good enough rationale for aggressively insulting someone, no idea why teachers should be exempt. My sister, mother and best friend are all teachers btw, I've got no illusions that it's not a hard job, but it's also not one that should be magically exempt from any possible criticism.

If the 16/17 year old (not 18) was working in McDonald's and the manager shouted at them that they were a waste of space and didn't deserve to breath the air they were breathing, they'd be entitled to complain, but because it's a teacher it's okay?

It's not remotely ok, regardless of age, in this setting because they are minors. They are not allowed to react in an adult way, the teacher has all the power & his behaviour is an abuse of it.

In a workplace the person on the receiving end could choose how to react - walk away, tell them get fucked, whatever. As a student you can't do any of that because you will be punished & how the teacher behaved would not be taken into consideration!

Again, most other jobs wouldn't accept 'I'm a bit stressed' or 'my colleagues haven't done entirely optional work,' as a good enough rationale for aggressively insulting someone, no idea why teachers should be exempt. My sister, mother and best friend are all teachers btw, I've got no illusions that it's not a hard job, but it's also not one that should be magically exempt from any possible criticism.

We don't know that it was entirely optional and at this time of year the teacher may have planned their lesson around the past paper.

Sometimes mistakes creep in to exam papers, or questions can be ambiguous. Many moons ago there was a physics A Level paper about heating water in a kettle. That sounds simple but they paper did not specify whether this was an electric kettle or a kettle on a hob, which makes a difference the diagram and the calculations the student was supposed to produce.

A question like that and how to deal with something if it happens on Exam day relies on the students having attempted the paper.

And if you could not do your job because a group of colleagues didn't do their part some people would be rather rude.

If the entire class didn't think it was supposed to be done then at the very least the teacher clearly didn't do a good job at communicating their expectations, so it was still their fault rather than the students'.

And even if I was at fault and had made a (very minor, lets be honest) error along those lines, a manager saying to me what the teacher said to that child (and why did they just pick on one of the pupils if none of them had done the paper?) would still be completely disproportinate and unacceptable.

Why are people so keen to excuse bullying?

Unless you can honestly say if a senior manager shouted at you saying you were a waste of space and didn't deserve to breathe the air you were breathing (or witnessed them doing so to a colleague) you'd be completely fine with it and wouldn't think it worthy of mention, then nothing else is relevant, not who did the shouting, not how stressed they were, and definitely not what a hypothetical question on an optional past paper might be.

@Caerulea It's not remotely ok, regardless of age, in this setting because they are minors. They are not allowed to react in an adult way, the teacher has all the power

😂😂😂'The teacher has all the power...' you haven't been in a school recently, have you?

Husband only recently stopped being Chair of Governers after 15yrs.

But sure, pretend like bullying teens is fine.

I said in my first post that if the comment was made as reported in the OP then it was completely unacceptable. But anyone who has spent time in schools in recent years knows that the idea that kids see teachers as authority figures who hold all the power and cannot be argued with is utterly laughable. Doesn't justify comments like the one in question but does make statements like your own laughable and, well, irrelevant.

Husband only recently stopped being Chair of Governers after 15yrs.

So? What's that got to do with the price of fish? Is it meant to impress or to convey superior knowledge (failed)?

OK, his medal's in the post...😂

How much time does a chair or governors spend in the classroom?

It's normal in many households for family members to chat about their day, ime. If this had happened in a classroom any of my family had been in it would definitely have been brought up across the dinner table or similar, even if just in a 'guess what happened today' type of scenario.

Right? You have to wonder what is going on in people's homes when such disbelief is expressed at the thought of a teen chatting about the events of the day with his mum!

Children are never to be believed! Unless it's an accusation against anyone but a teacher.

Perhaps because it just seems so odd for an adult to get worked up about a class not doing homework if they had never in fact set the homework. It seems unlikely (though not impossible)

I've taught this age group, and young adults, and I think the teacher's behaviour is disgraceful. It's all very well saying that by that age they should be dealing with these things themselves, but there is such a massive power imbalance involved. It's also worth remembering that the brain is not fully developed until mid twenties. This idea that being legally an adult (or nearly there) somehow makes you able to hold your own against someone twice your age in a position authority over you is absolute nonsense and just a nice convenient excuse for bullies to get away with bad behaviour. If I spoke that to a group of twenty year olds I'd expect to get complaints from parents.

I think I would contact the Head, not to defend the pupils as such although despite being almost adults they aren’t really in a position to speak up for themselves. And even though they will soon be leaving I would still say something because it isn’t solely about those specific students. That teacher shouldn’t ever be talking to anyone that way. And my guess is that he doesn’t talk like that to his colleagues or any other adults so he is abusing his position.

Maybe it's me, but a teacher telling someone else off really would never have been a topic of conversation. I had a great relationship with my parents as a teen and we talked a lot, this no wouldn't have raised it

However desperate you are, you still can’t tell students they’re a waste of space or too stupid.

These students are not yet at university, and are still seen as children whilst in school.