Educators at Schools and Day Care Centers Share One Role

Educators Have One Job to Do

If school is a form of child care, then so be it. Let's care for our children -- while there's a pandemic going on, during National Bullying Prevention Month, and always.

The Differences Between School and Daycare

New York Times opinion writer Bryce Covert describes the historical dichotomy between school and daycare. There was a time, she tells us, when moms needed to work, and daycare centers provided a relatively safe place for children who were too young to be planted inside of a classroom. Younger children needed a closer and more constant eye on them than a classroom teacher could be expected to provide.

Society made the assumption that going to school was a privilege for older kids, and that the best gift we could afford any child was an opportunity to have a seat in the classroom. An education was the path to a coveted factory job or to achieving the American Dream, depending on the neighborhood. Daycare was only supposed to be a placeholder until kids grew old enough to attend their local school where they could join their tribe, practice their social skills, and learn the importance of standardized testing and fitting in.

Where the Education System Falls Short

However, Alicia P.Q.Wittmeyer, Culture Editor of the New York Times, points out that our state-run education system didn't work so well even before the pandemic. Classes were held during only some of the hours that parents were at work. School holidays didn't necessarily coincide with grownups' vacation days. When school wasn't in session but duty called, parents had to make other child care arrangements or let their children figure out how to fend for themselves. 

Latchkey kids seemed better off than children who lived with food insecurity. At least, their parents or guardians had jobs. They were doing their best to take care of their families. They could figure out how to disentangle their children from the unwanted influences of the outside world at another time. Besides, free-range kids would learn independence, courage, and resilience. They'd probably be just fine. 

The system sort of worked. For some kids. Sometimes. 

Covert and Wittmeyer are both correct. Child care and classrooms at school have historically served two different purposes. But, really, they are supposed to share one priority: ensuring that the children in their care are safe and secure.

An Educator's Primary Responsibility

Once daycare providers and teachers have made sure that every child feels accepted and nurtured, they can move onto more ethereal goals: they can keep them intellectually challenged; provide them with opportunities to express themselves creatively; give them chances to set and accomplish goals with other team members; and, perhaps, let them explore vocational options.

But the most important role that any adult plays in a child's life is to provide them with unconditional acceptance and a sense of belonging. Educators have to care. They have to be the soft place to land.

Whether children are old enough to flourish independently in a classroom or still young enough to require constant supervision, they need adults in their environment who will protect kids from harm. 

These adults are charged with preventing danger before it happens. They are supposed to place themselves between a potential abuser and any intended target. They are supposed to let every child in their care know that rules are in place to keep everyone safe, and that only behaviors that fall into the prescribed range will be acceptable. 

They are supposed to stop aggressive, troubled children from wrecking their peers. They are responsible for preventing bullies from derailing lives. 

Teachers of children in all age groups will, first and foremost, recognize when their charges -- even those who haven't yet learned how to ask for help -- are in trouble. They will intervene even in situations that feel scary, unpredictable, or overwhelming. They will put the well-being of students first -- ahead of their own goals, issues, worries, and hopes.

Whether they work in a daycare center or a school -- in an affluent or working-class community -- educators will recognize that their primary responsibility is to ensure that parents and guardians pick up the same children at the close of the day as they dropped off at the beginning -- and that aggression, hostility, and bullying play no role in breaking the spirit of any young person whose welfare is their responsibility.

Let's expect educators at daycare centers and school to understand what they're really getting paid to do. And let's hope they can do it. 

The pandemic will change the way educators work. But it shouldn't persuade them that their true role has changed.

If Even Adults Aren't Safe From Bullying, How Can We Expect Children to Cope?

Bullying Can Happen to Anyone

If even high-profile adults aren't safe from bullying, how can we hope to protect our children?

Thirty-eight-year-old Gisele Barreto Fetterman is married to Pennsylvania's Lt. Gov. John Fetterman. She recently went to the local supermarket unaccompanied by her security detail. Another shopper recognized her as Fetterman's wife and hurled a racial epithet at her both inside the store and, later, when she was getting into her vehicle. According to Fetterman, the stranger said, "You don’t belong here. No one wants you here." 

The incident was caught on video.

Bullying and Hatred Have Become Normalized

Ms. Fetterman, who emigrated from Brazil when she was 7 years old, experienced flashbacks of the rejection and fear she lived with for so many years as an undocumented immigrant (she became a proud U.S. citizen in 2009). She didn't need to be told that some of her fellow Americans were racist and hateful, but she was horrified that some people aren't even trying to hide it anymore. Bullying and hatred somehow have become normalized.

Racist behavior is, unfortunately, positively reinforced by some elected officials these days. And maybe some adults have the resilience to handle it. 

If we have been the target of ugly words before, we can probably survive hearing them again. While Ms. Fetterman was likely re-traumatized and hurt, she was able to tell her story to the Washington Post. 

She didn't try to hide the incident. She didn't internalize it. She didn't cower in the corner, feeling ashamed and powerless, the way many children would.

Presumably, members of the public who hear Ms. Fetterman's story will react with empathy and outrage. She will undoubtedly receive the support she needs to recover from the unprovoked attack and reclaim her power. Adults have gained enough life experience to know how important it is to use their voice to deal with bullies and mitigate the harm they cause.

Bullying Hits Children Even Harder

But children may be even more vulnerable than adults to hurtful words, because they haven't had time to develop the tools that are required for dealing with bullies. Kids may not know their self-worth doesn't depend on what others have to say about them.

Perhaps because they have so little experience, peers' acceptance matters more than it does for adults. Children may be at a complete loss to respond appropriately to name-calling and the suggestion that they have no value. 

They may feel too ashamed to ask anyone for help and, as a result, they may suffer a permanent loss of self-esteem. They may forever lose their sense of safety and belonging.  

Even many adults may lack the skills that are required to confront bullies. Yet schools claim that that zero tolerance policy protects kids adequately from harm. I would suggest that isn't enough. There's too much hatred in the world for a few rules committed to pieces of paper and a handful of good intentions to adequately keep children safe from racism, hatred, and bullying. If an adult can't even feel welcome in a supermarket, how is a child supposed to feel comfortable at school?

Why Is It So Difficult to Fire a Public School Educator?

Educators Must Meet Certain Standards

Although educators shouldn't be fired for harmless infractions, they must meet certain standards. If they occasionally have a bad day or lose their cool once in awhile, that shouldn't mean the end of their careers. We're all human, and we're all dealing with stress right now. 

However, we should at least hold educators to the standards we would expect of anyone who interacts with the public. We should require them to care about people without discrimination. 

Neither their unions nor tenure should render their jobs untouchable under all circumstances. 

To retain the privilege of teaching children, educators should be willing to demonstrate that they know the difference between right and wrong; that they understand the value of science and history; and that they appreciate the difference between reality and fantasy. 

Educators must understand that "alternative facts" is a synonym for "lies." 

Why Principal William Latson Was Fired

The Palm Beach County School Board made the right decision when they terminated the employment of school principal William Latson for "ethical misconduct and failure to carry out job responsibilities."  

Here's what happened. A parent asked Latson how his school would teach students about the Holocaust. His response was: "I can't say the Holocaust is a factual, historical event because I am not in a position to do so as a district employee." 

Actually, Latson was in a position to say the Holocaust actually happened. He was an educated, literate adult who would have had ample opportunity to hear the voices of Holocaust survivors through their own writing or video testimony. He had surely read books or seen documentaries about the Holocaust, unless he was living under a rock.  

He may have believed there were good people on both sides. If so, then he was unequivocally unfit to be the principal of a public school. 

Therefore, 5 of the 7 school board members made what would seem to have been the obvious and fair decision. They kicked Principal Latson to the curb in April 2018. 

Good riddance. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. Right? You would think so.

But He's Back

Yet he's back. On October 7, 2020, the Palm Beach County School Board voted 4 to 3 to reinstate him. 

This, after an administrative law judge decided in August 2020 that Latson had not been proven to have "engaged in misconduct in office, incompetence, or gross insubordination." Do you think it can't get any worse? Try this. That judge also awarded Latson back pay.

At a time when children are stressed and scared, and may be struggling with food insecurity, deprivation, and feelings of helplessness, we are supposed to be doing everything possible to offer them our support and compassion. Rehiring a school principal who will not acknowledge the murder of six million human beings and respect that reality is non-negotiable is unacceptable. 

Where Do You Draw the Line?

Yes, judges and school boards must be fair to all of us -- educators, parents, and students. Giving people the benefit of the doubt is reasonable. But where do you draw the line? 

I'd draw it here. Fact and fiction are not open to interpretation. They are immutable, and you do not allow an adult who doesn't know the difference between the two anywhere near impressionable children. It shouldn't be this difficult to fire a public school educator.

When Zoom Classes Reveal Teachers Bullying Young Students During a Pandemic

Bullying Teachers Are Nothing New

Fans of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House book series may remember the teacher, Eliza Jane Wilder. When Laura eventually marries E. J.'s younger brother, they become sisters-in-law (and, presumably, they learn to tolerate one another). But, in her childhood, Laura struggles with the fact that Miss Wilder is terrible at classroom management.  Laura and her sister, Carrie, bear the brunt of Miss Wilder's abuse. 

Laura complains to her parents about the abuse, but her Ma and Pa advise her -- I'm paraphrasing, of course -- to suck it up. Children must respect their elders, they tell her. Also, Laura must be grateful for the opportunity to attend school so that, one day, the burden of sending her disabled sister to college can be offloaded onto her shoulders. 

Young Laura tries to stand up to the bullying teacher, but what can she do? She lacks the life experience and the adult support that she'd need to push back. It's a one-room classroom, so there is no school principal. And her parents can't go inside the classroom, so they can't see what's happening.  

Remote Learning Spills Secrets in Virtual Classrooms

But imagine if Ma and Pa could have been seen the abuse for themselves. What if they could have watched everything that was happening in real time?  

That's an opportunity that some parents and caregivers now have, thanks to remote learning. Adults are craning their necks to glimpse the screen during video classes, and some of them are honestly shocked and horrified by what they're seeing. 

Teachers are human. There are great educators who see teaching as a vocation. They view nurturing the children in their care as a privilege. 

Others see the kids in their care as burdens. They apparently pursued a teaching career because it seemed marginally better than flipping burgers for living. They teach grudgingly and, sometimes, they blame the students for their unhappiness. They are wholly unsuited to the job. 

When they held absolute power within the private fiefdoms of their real-world classrooms, teachers could lord it over their students with impunity. No other adults actually knew what went on in those classrooms. Children could complain about teachers who were bullies, but their parents and guardians most likely told their kids to obey their teachers unquestioningly, just as Ma and Pa Ingalls did back in the nineteenth century.

But things have changed in some school districts because of the pandemic. Remote learning is now providing adults with a peek at the relationship between their children and their educators. In some cases, the parents and caregivers are shocked. They are watching teachers behave badly, and they're unprepared to deal with it. 

A recent Slate's Care and Feeding column includes a plea for help by one parent whose young Catholic school student is being verbally and emotionally abused by an overly strict (and, undoubtedly, tremendously stressed-out) teacher. The teacher threatens to punish the children for acting like children; uses sarcasm to express herself; and blames the kids for her job dissatisfaction. The students are miserable.

How Should Parents Handle Bullying by Teachers?

How is a parent supposed to handle a bullying teacher once she has seen and heard the abuse for herself? If the mother intervenes, or if takes her case to the school principal, it could make things even worse. The teacher could seek revenge against the child. 

Also, to what extent should the teacher have the right to her autonomy? Haven't teachers always been entitled to choose how to educate and discipline their students? 

Are parents supposed to let teachers do their jobs without interference? 

If Ma and Pa Ingalls had been able to watch Miss Wilder oppress young Laura and Carrie (who struggled to survive one disaster after another on the prairie), perhaps they would have organized a town posse. Maybe they would have yanked E. J. out of the classroom permanently, even if it meant leaving the town without a full-time teacher.  

And even if that meant having to explain to their daughters that authority figures weren't always right.

At least, that would have demonstrated their belief that teachers should be doing something -- anything -- other than raising another generation of young people who believe abuse is normal; that it's wrong to confront abusers; that they are fundamentally powerless; that they probably deserve to be bullied; and that they should expect to be mistreated by authority figures for the rest of their lives.

Would Ma and Pa Ingalls have taken the power away from the bullying teacher and given it back to their daughters? 

Will today's parents do that? Or will they look the other way while the people in authority abuse their children?