Teacher threw away my DDs bracelet and I'm cross about it - should I complain?

[conniedescending]

Title says it all really, she forgot to take her bracelet off yesterday and the teacher saw it and chucked it in the bin!!She only told me on the way to school this morning and teacher wasn't there to have a word with (was in a meeting apparently)

so should I ask her today or just seethe quietly?

yay, so pleased your DD got it back connie.
I just hope to god that some of the teachers who have commented on here don't ever teach my children.

Arrrggghhh!!!! You people seem determined to misunderstand me.

The OP's daughter broke a school rule. She knew she had broken a school rule. She had the offending item confiscated. She faced the consequences of her actions. The teacher did not break the law. She merely confiscated an inappropriate item of jewellery. The item was returned in due course.

Of course children should be taught to stand up in the face of injustice. But in the OP's case the child knew she had been in the wrong. There had even been a mention about the rule in assembly, so presumably it was not the first time she had been told this rule. This poor teacher has been pilloried here as a thief and a bully without some of you even considering just what a juggling act the first week back is with a large class of boisterous youngsters.

I just hope some of you who object to discipline in the classroom remember your words when your children complain about being bullied by their peers or their inability to get any work done because school rules are constantly being flouted. I wish you could meet some of my students who have gone from E grades to A grades simply because they are in classes where no nonsense is tolerated and they are allowed to get on with learning. And I wish you could walk a mile in my shoes, spend a week realising how much time is taken up dealing with parents who ring up and complain every time their child complains about being disciplined for not letting their classmates learn.

I wouldn't have a problem with the teachers who have commented on here teaching my children.

If one of my boys plagiarises someone else's work and attempts to pass it off as their own, despite the class being warned about the consequences, then I will back the teacher up when they carry out those consequences - be that no marks or no marks plus a public binning of the work to rub it in. If they don't like the consequences, they shouldn't have tried to pass off plagiarised work as their own.

Obviously the punishments/consequences have to be stated in advance, proportionate to the misdeed and consistant, and teachers should be able to take into account the individual circumstances of their pupils.

For example, ds1's school had a strict uniform policy that included no trainers/skate shoes. However, when he came home from school missing one shoe because another boy had taken it for a joke and ds1 couldn't find it, the school accepted that I couldn't replace the shoes overnight and that I wanted to wait a day or two to see if the shoe turned up, and he was allowed to wear non-regulation shoes.

According to the OP post I copied at 14:27:59 today, the teacher confirmed to the mother that she had thrown the bracelet away. Why would she say that if she only wanted to confid=scate it, the mum would have understood confiscation as she did mention earlier,.Have you actually read her posts?

Not to sure about confiscation, does it exist?

slug - the teacher threw the bracelet in the bin. She also admitted to the OP that she had thrown it in the bin. She then retrieved it from the bin and handed it back (via the TA). Did the teacher always intend to retrieve the bracelet after her "hoax" or did she do it because the parent had pulled her up on it? I don't know, but either way this is twatty behaviour.

Of course I hope my children will have "a teacher who keeps order in the class and makes their students face up to the consequences of their actions." What I'm hoping to avoid is a teacher who is clearly incapable of consistent and appropriate discipline, or indeed one who sympathises with such behaviour.

I shall now for the first time in my MNing life myself from a thread, and go and bang my head against a brick wall as a preferable form of amusement.

And Slug could you please remember that I specifically said that I do not object to discipline in the classroom. And that it was the throwing in the bin that I objected to. All right, she retrieved it, but only when reminded to do so by an adult; I don't for a moment suppose that she would have done so otherwise. Which means it would have been thrown away. So it seems to me like in this case teacher is overstepping the rules.

Like MadamAnt said, it's consistent and appropriate discipline we want to see in the classroom.

I am glad the OP's DD got it back.

I am a very strict parent, but NEVER make a threat that I cannot see through or one that is inappropriate in severity to the deed of the wrongdoer.

If I was the OP I would still see the head about this. The teacher, despite being calm at the time, obviously overreacted by throwing it in the bin and then confirming this to the parent.

Banned/confiscated objects at DD's school have to retrieved from the head's office, that discourages repeat offenders!

tbh i think throwing a child's bracelet in the bin sounds like flaky behaviour from a teacher who was in control of neither her temper nor her class.

Yes, basically what one would like to see is clearly defined rules which are adhered to by both teachers and pupils. Discipline dammit!

Connie- glad your dd got it back

SLug, you seem to be of the opinion that 'wrongdoing' should be punished by people with 'authority' with however much capricious cruelty they feel like inflicting. However tempting it is to stupid people to think that random brutality is a good way of enforcing 'discipline', it has never been shown to work effectively or longterm. Fair and reasonable sanctions for wrongdoing may well be respected; the destruction of a small child's property for a very minor offence is neither fair nor reasonable, and an authority figure who thinks this sort of bullying (abuse of the weak by the strong) is either acceptable or remotely ethical is not an authority figure who deserves support or respect.

Hey, I understand you, Slug , although unfortunately I am the evil incarnate on this thread. Oh dear, what a pity.

And what a storm in a teacup. The article was returned, so it didn't end up in the bin after all!

But scienceteacher, it's only a storm in a teacup because the item was eventually returned and the circumstances of it's return invite speculation about what really happened. If I was the OP, I too would be very dubious about this teacher who seems to think it is OK to either throw the child's property away or to make both her and her mother believe that she has done so.

Isn't principal important? If I thought that my dd would learn that teachers are always right for no other reason than that they are teachers regardless of what her own judgement might tell her I would be very worried. This was, of course, a trivial matter - an inexpensive bracelet - but there is a principal involved which is that the teacher had no authority to dispose of the item. It's my guess that the TA retreived the item from the bin because she, too, thought that the teacher had overstepped the mark.

Are you trying to say that just because the OP's dd broke one minor rule that nothing that is done in the cause of punishment could be unreasonable?

Scienceteacher: I think you have displayed on more than one thread that you are very much in favour of the abuse of the powerless by the powerful. Not evil incarnate, just a twerp, like all bullies.

principle

Sorry

and you are a paragon of virtue, solidgold - not!

Eww

I cannot understand why anyone would want to defend a teacher like the one the OP describes, who just doesn't sound like a sensible woman.

She either broke the rules and threw the bracelet in the bin, or she lied to a parent and pretended she'd thrown the bracelet in the bin when she hadn't.

Either way, her behaviour can't be described as professional or grown up.

Slug - you seem determined to misunderstand most of the people on this thread. Everyone (including the OP) says that yes the child broke the rules and the bracelet should have been confiscated - either for a day or a week or whatever and maybe the child should have been told that her mother would be given the bracelet. All that is fine. And if the rule was broken again then a further punishment would be in order. However throwing a SEVEN year old's bracelet in the bin was out of line. Even if it was given back later.

All the teacher has done in this case is to show the child that she doesn't mean what she says. She says she will throw it in the bin but I got it back so I can do that again, it won't matter. What sort of lesson is that?

Everyone agrees that rules and discipline are necessary. And that obv starts in junior school. No-one has disagreed with that. And as parents we would all expect our childrens' teachers to discipline them and we would expect our children to respect their teachers and peers. And yes I agree that this needs to start when a child is young. But not draconian measure for a 7 year old please.

Plagiarising of work by secondary students is a completely different matter and one not even for this thread.

Slug: "The teacher did not break the law. She merely confiscated an inappropriate item of jewellery. The item was returned in due course."

But she said she had thrown it in the bin. She pretended then to have broken the law? I can't think why you are defending her: this is not the sort of behaviour we want from our teachers, our children's role-models, is it? If a parent posted on here 'my DD continually flouts my rules about using her DS Lite, is a good way of disciplining her to pretend to have thrown it away and then give it back later?' wouldn't you say no, that was poor, mendacious and inconsistent parenting?

Scienceteacher, I can't think why you're defending this woman's actions either, as she is a fellow member of your profession who acted, probably out of temper, in an ill-judged way. That you see nothing wrong with it is frankly scary. No-one on this thread, I think, denies that the child flouted a rule and should have been reprimanded in a suitable way. But that the teacher is so out of control of the class and her own judgement to act in this manner is not good, not good at all.

SLug and Scienceteacher are probably the sort of teachers who routinely give spiteful and disproportionate punishments and then have to back down on them, so their students become even more badly behaved because they know these teachers are loons with warped ideas of right and wrong.

You couldn't be more wrong, sg.

Pretty typical, eh?

I don't think personal attacks will help either side see the other's point of view solidgold.

when i was at school my parents wouldn't have dreamt of complaining to a teacher about how they did their job.

and neither would i.