A Pseudo Victory for the Bullies

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Americans, bullying, communication, Mothers, schools, teachers

Once again, I’m afraid I am not posting the advertised topic from last week’s post. I’m afraid that you will have to wait until next week for that. As many of my followers already know, if there is a miscarriage of justice anywhere in the world to do with bullying, I will post about it. The latest occurrence happened in Florida where an eleven year old girl was suspended for filming a teacher who was bullying another pupil as detailed in the story below.

Home / Citizen Journalism / Florida School Suspends 11-year-old Girl for Video Recording Teacher Threatening to Hurt Other Student (Updated)

Florida School Suspends 11-year-old Girl for Video Recording Teacher Threatening to Hurt Other Student (Updated)

Posted by: Carlos Miller in Citizen Journalism, Know Your Rights!, Media Matters, PINAC News, Transparency, WiretappingMarch 30, 2015 64 Comments 12,173 Views

An 11-year-old Florida girl was suspended from school after she recorded her fifth-grade teacher threatening and bullying other students.

The evidence Brianna Cooper recorded was enough to get the teacher fired from Samuel Gaines Academy in Fort Pierce, about two hours north of Miami.

But administrators say it was also enough to earn the student a five-day suspension.

After all, they claim, the teacher, had an expectation of privacy in the classroom.

But how much privacy can a public school teacher expect in a large class filled with students, most of them carrying smart phones?

Also, even before the advent of smartphones, students have long tape recorded classroom lectures by simply placing their recorders on their desks, rarely bothering to ask the teacher for permission to record.

In fact, most teachers should be pleased that students are using recorders in order to retain as much information as possible.

Furthermore, if the school was anything like the schools I attended decades ago, there should be an intercom system between the class and the main office, allowing administrators to listen in at any given time, further mooting the expectation of privacy argument.

And finally, in this day and age where most public schools are using surveillance video cameras throughout school property, can one seriously expect to have an expectation of privacy in school anywhere outside a bathroom or locker room?

In this case, the teacher, whose name has not been released, threatened a student by saying, “I will drop you,” in front of several other students, so their argument that this was a private conversation is laughable.

Samuel Gaines Academy is part of the St. Lucie Public School District where officials refused to comment to the media because it is “an ongoing investigation.”

But considering they already fired the teacher and suspended the student, their ongoing investigation is nothing more than an excuse to shun the media in the hopes it goes away because we can bet they’re not investigating the principal for abusing her authority.

However, Cooper’s family has already retained an attorney, according to WSVN, so it is likely a lawsuit will be filed to settle the case in court.

And that’s a good thing considering the Florida wiretapping law is outdated, written decades before the introduction of smartphones.

Meanwhile, the teacher will likely be hired at another school where she will likely continue her bullying ways.

According to WPTV:

In the recording, Cooper says you hear the teacher say, “Don’t let size fool you. I will drop you….You don’t know me, that’s all I’m saying. So, don’t give me no look.”

Cooper said the teacher had been mean to students before. She says she took the video to prove it.

“Do you think that they would actually believe a student over a teacher?” Cooper asked.

Cooper played more of the recording, where she says the teacher also said, “You’re the biggest kid in 5th grade and you’re acting like the smallest one…. I wonder what your mom looks like.”

“You don’t speak to children, let alone students like that,” said Cooper’s mother, Cassie Faulkner.

Cooper says she gave the recording to a teacher. Then, she says she was called to the principal’s office and suspended.

Faulkner says the school told her recording the audio without the teacher knowing is against the law.

“I’ve never had anybody tell me you cannot record,” said Cooper

“She thought she was doing a good thing. She’s 11-years-old. She doesn’t know the law,” Faulkner said.

She worries her daughter’s suspension sends the wrong message to other students.

“It’s pretty much saying to students if you think something is wrong, don’t try and do anything about it,” Faulkner said.

Faulkner says she is also worried because Cooper is suspended during days students are prepping for the Florida Standards Assessment.

It is obvious school administrators are trying to send a message to students that they better not dare record the bullying tactics of teachers, which is why it’s important for Cooper’s lawyer to send a message back to the school that there is no expectation of privacy in a public school classroom.

Unless, of course, a teacher takes a student to a corner of a classroom for a one-on-one conversation in a hushed tone, making an obvious effort to keep that conversation between themselves, rather than yelling threats to a student in front of the entire class while using the grammatically incorrect double negative “don’t give me no look.”

Not only did the teacher deserve to be fired, but the school’s principal, Traci Wilke, who regularly post photos from inside the classrooms toTwitter, further destroying her expectation of privacy argument, should be fired as well for suspending the student in what is an obvious attempt at intimidation.

Call the school at (772) 462-8888 and the school district at (772) 429-3600. Or you can contact the district through a contact form on its website.

The school district’s Facebook page is also filled with photos of students from inside classrooms making one wonder if they obtained permission from parents to post these photos considering they have such an expectation of privacy while in school.

UPDATE: The student’s suspension was lifted today, according to WPTV,which spoke to the girl’s mother.

It’s me again! As a teacher myself, I will be the first to say that the teacher’s actions were totally unprofessional and the school acted rightly in firing that teacher. Even if the bullied pupil was being disrespectful to the teacher, threatening to “drop” the pupil wasn’t the right way to go about it.  However, the fact that the teacher was fired doesn’t justify the suspension of the girl who filmed the bullying. She was doing what she thought was the right thing and the privacy of the teacher claim was a load of horse manure.

Schools are not closed door institutions. What goes on inside them is not a matter of secrecy but in the public interest. Any bullying that goes on in a school should be brought to light and dealt with and if the incident leaves egg on the face of the school so be it. Hopefully, that will encourage the school to act more forcefully in the future. If I had those things in place at the time, my junior high school days would have been a little more bearable.

Next post: With Friends Like These

To buy He Was Weird, go to: http://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1427794588&sr=8-1&keywords=he+was+weird

 

Why Am I So Quiet?

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academic achievement, Americans, anxiety, Asperger's Syndrome, Autism, bullying, communication, confusion, D.A.M.P., Family Guy, Great Britain, He Was Weird, relationships, schools, stereotypes, teachers

This question has been asked of me for more than fifty years now and after that many years of reflecting on it, I am finally going to answer that question myself. I will do this by first looking at some of the reasons put forward by others. The first one put forward by my mother and I will say from the beginning that there is definitely truth in it. When my parents split when I was five, we lived with my grandparents. My grandfather was from a different time who firmly believed that children should be seen an not heard and he applied that philosophy towards me. He wasn’t harsh or cruel or anything like that, he just had the idea that children should remain quiet. As with people who have Asperger’s Syndrome, I took grandfather’s belief literally and kept quiet, at least around him. While it could be pointed out that my grandfather passed away when I was 22, having that theory instilled in me at such a young age still had its effects many years later.

An off shoot to my grandfather’s philosophy was the belief that you should only say something if its worth hearing about. Children were even more to blame in this respect. My grandfather never retorted “I couldn’t care less” if I spoke about things that didn’t pertain to the situation or if it was about me exclusively. In fact, during my three years of hell, many of the other children didn’t want to hear anything I had to say and would react threateningly if I said anything. Bullies would always use this on me, threatening to use violence if I didn’t keep quiet. That experience alone was enough to make me fearful of speaking.

Let me be the first to acknowledge that I have spoken in the past without thinking about it properly. Sure, we all have done it but it seems that with me that my slip of the tongue broke through what was socially acceptable or was the wrong thing to say at the wrong time and I ended up getting in trouble for it. The result of this was that I came to the conclusion that everything I said was going to be wrong so it was best not to say anything at all.

One interesting finding from all this was when I was in college. I took a course in interpersonal communication and while I was criticized by fellow students and my professor for being too quiet, they were also amazed that when I did offer something to the group, it was very key to whatever the discussion was about. I know that this was from having instilled in me in my youth that I shouldn’t talk unless I have something worth contributing. Therefore, in class discussions back then, what I said was almost always beneficial to the discussion. So, maybe that was a positive.

Family Guy

There was one additional thing which contributed to my unwillingness to speak. This came along in my early adult life when I came to the UK. Always trying to avoid the negative stereotypes about Americans, I found sometimes going the other extreme at times. In this case, it was the stereotype that all Americans are loudmouths. Not wanting to be tarred with such a brush made me think that it was much better to be quiet.

Anxieties are making me think that some people might read about this and conclude that I am just trying to make excuses for myself. This is not true! I have lived with myself for over half a century and the above contributors to my quietness are genuine. It has taken a long time for me to come out of my shell but I also know that I could very easily retreat back into it at any time.

Next post: With Friends Like These

To buy He Was Weird, go to: http://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427226458&sr=1-1&keywords=he+was+weird

 

 

 

The Block Between Brain and Mouth

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anxiety, Asperger's Syndrome, Autism, bullying, communication, D.A.M.P., He Was Weird, social settings, speeches

You have probably heard the phrase or at least some variation of it, “Speaking before they were thinking” or “Engage brain before opening mouth.” We’ve all done it and have heard others doing it, some people seem to have a natural tendency to speak without thinking. I raise my hand to this. However, in my case, it isn’t always me speaking without thinking. Sometimes I do think about what I’m going to say but what is formulating in my head doesn’t come out that way through my mouth. Like there is something in between the two that distorts the original message.

Some will say that this is nothing unusual and maybe they’re right but for someone who has Asperger’s type anxieties, it can be like walking through a minefield. The result is that it makes me reluctant to speak out of fear that I’m going to get it wrong. What’s worse is that there have been occasions in my life where even when I have thoroughly thought through my proposed speech and it seems fine in the brain, it doesn’t sound that way coming out of my mouth. This only makes me more reluctant to speak.

What causes things from my brain to come out of my mouth in the wrong way? It seems like there is some evil demon somewhere along the communication line from my brain to my mouth that intentionally distorts the message in order to get at me and make me sound bad.  Needless to say, people pick up on this and have used it against me, especially bullies.

One of my college professors once suggested that the way to get over my reluctance to speak would be to take a public speaking course. I can see the merits in this but for me, I can also see how it wouldn’t solve the problem fully. For one, in a public speaking course, I would normally have had ample time to research whatever I would be speaking about and that would be a great aid to my self confidence in the matter. Furthermore, I would have a more respectful audience, no one would immediately aggressively snap back any retort where I would have to hesitate to find an answer thus saving me from a load of anxiety. Most importantly, I would be reading from a script so the evil demon would be rendered powerless. Even if I had taken such a course and passed it with flying colours, I would have thought that the course was of little help because it wouldn’t have solved all my problems.

As with most things in my life, I have learned to cope with the problem through many years of painful trial and error. The demon is still there, I know he is, okay, it might be a she. It still gives me loads of anxiety in social situations but I can cope with it or at least not going into complete meltdown. Now for the shameless book association, Mark does experience this quite a lot in “He Was Weird.”

Next post: Other Reasons I’m So Quiet

To buy He Was Weird, go to: http://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426588241&sr=1-1&keywords=he+was+weird

I Just Can’t Concentrate

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Asperger's Syndrome, Attention Deficit Disorders, Autism, bullying, communication, concentration, D.A.M.P., films, He Was Weird, schools, teachers

You could call it a self fulfilling prophecy but what I posted about last week happened again in the days since. While taking a walk through the Gloucestershire countryside and taking advantage of the few nice days we in the UK get weather wise in March and listening to my MP3, my favourite song from the band WASP played. I knew it was coming and I did listen to the first two verses and with this particular song and the title is one of those that you won’t forget, just ask anyone from the PMRC. However, once again foreign thoughts began to creep into my mind and distracting my actual listening to the song. As a result, I missed the guitar solo.

WASP

This has been my problem since I can remember. I can’t concentrate for long periods of time. When I do, other thoughts invade my mind and take me away from what I am supposed to be concentrating on. Watching films or television isn’t that bad although sometimes parts of those don’t register and I have been known to miss important parts. One particular instance was the second time I watched “Crocodile Dundee I.” My wandering mind caused me to miss the part where Dundee pulls out his huge knife on the knife wielding mugger and says, “That’s a knife.” That’s my favourite part of the entire film.

That’s a knife

Obviously, often times the consequences of this problem have been disasterous. Some teachers during my school days made my life hell  on account of this as did many other people. The generic line my mother got from many teachers during parent/teacher conferences was “He doesn’t pay attention.” However, many of those teachers went the wrong way in dealing with the problem. The most famous method was to tease me over it. All that did was make me feel humiliated in front of my classmates. I have already stated the knock on effect that had in my series of posts about teachers encouraging bullying. The teacher who influenced my creation of the Miss Erichetti character in “He Was Weird” was the worst for this and it is also why she suggested putting me in the box. Isolating me only made the concentration problems worse. There were other teachers too, like my French teacher in my junior year at high school and seventh grade was pure hell, although the bullying had a lot to do with that.

All of this is more evidence to my supposition that I have DAMP. There is clearly a deficiency with my attention span. Now to head off the counter claim that it couldn’t have been that bad on account of my academic achievements, yes, it’s true that I have gone on to achieve many things in spite of my poor attention span. But imagine what I could have done without this problem. For one, writing essays and lesson plans would not have taken nearly as long nor would I have seen them as such a chore. I would have been able to get things done a lot quicker and I wouldn’t have had so much grief from teachers like Miss Erichetti. Furthermore, many people wouldn’t have gotten the impression that I was ignoring them. To those people, I say that I am genuinely sorry but I also hope they understand that it wasn’t all my fault.

Next post: Communication Problems with Speaking

To buy He Was Weird, go to: http://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1425986433&sr=1-1&keywords=he+was+weird

It’s Not That I Can’t Hear You

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anxiety, Asperger's Syndrome, Autism, communication, D.A.M.P., hearing, social settings, teachers

Throughout my entire life, people have been frustrated on account of me, believing that I don’t hear them and call into question my hearing ability. Let me say that my hearing’s fine, in spite of over three decades of listening to hard rock and heavy metal music. The problem is not with my ears, it lies with my brain. After all these years, I am convinced there is some sort of block or loose connection in the wires that lead from my eardrums to my brain.

One problem with my brain is that during my waking hours, it very rarely shuts off. In many instances, I find it distracting, especially if I’m driving along in the car and a song I really like plays on the CD player. I have to concentrate really hard on the song, otherwise, some random thought will enter into my mind and I will miss the song. I hear the song, but it doesn’t really register. It’s the same with interpersonal communication. Often times, I know that the person is talking to me but because some other thought is occupying my mind at the time, I don’t register what has been said. Sometimes, the result is that the person gets upset because they are telling me something that might be important and it hasn’t gotten through. I have had these problems in the past with friends, work colleagues, teachers, girl friends and family.

My first thought is to apologise to all of these people, which I do but in doing so, I hope that these people will realise that I wasn’t simply ignoring them or being plain ignorant. I am interested in what people are saying and am doing my best to listen. However, I now know that I can’t concentrate for ultra long periods of time and that the best setting is one to one with no outside distractions like TV.

I have also come to the conclusion that this problem is too a symptom of Asperger’s Syndrome and DAMP and further cements my belief that I have both of these. One source calls it a phantom of the brain but for me, this hits the nail right on the head. There is a phantom inside my brain that stops information from getting there or does the opposite and allows too much to get through at once causing an overload in my head. Either way, the results haven’t always been pleasant.

Book link: I don’t really go into this in “He Was Weird.” It gets touched on. For instance, Mark’s fifth grade teacher uses it for an excuse to put him in the box. In sixth grade, Mr Fluyt explains to Mark’s mother about her son’s problems in concentrating and how he can sometimes miss the point of a lesson. His lack of concentration is a frustration for teachers  and a point of amusement for bullies.

I believe that I am not alone in suffering with this. If fellow sufferers read this, I would love to hear your thoughts. If you don’t but know someone like me, I hope you will be more understanding in the future.

Next post: Concentration

To buy He Was Weird: http://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1425404373&sr=1-1&keywords=he+was+weird