Public Outrage Teacher Lifts Boy By The Face

It was upsetting to see the Kindergarten teacher, Barb Williams, loose control when she lifted her 6 year old student up by the shirt.  The video was definitely disturbing.   I'm always in awe about how quickly people want to tar and feather a teacher the minute they feel she has stepped over the line.  I just wish they would put the same passion into demanding their legislators make education a priority.

When you have classrooms over crowded due to budget cuts.  When you have teachers being asked to do more and more with less.  You are creating an environment where people can snap.  I don't think anyone knows how hard a job teaching really is.   My gosh, there isn't a parent alive who hasn't "lost" it at one time or another and that's without having 33 children.  Have you ever lost your child in a mall because you looked away for an instant?  Then when you find them your  adrenaline is pumping and you grab your kid and start yelling "don't you EVER run off like that again".

Now, imagine you are responsible for the safety of 33 children and one disappears.  

I DO NOT condone what Ms. Williams did but part of me can understand why.  Classrooms are bulging with students and teachers are getting no additional assistance to handle the increase in students.  

I know my daughter's kindergarten classroom is bursting at the seams.  I don't know how she ends the day with her senses still intact.  Her class is a mix of special needs children with everything from Oppositional Defiance Disorder to Cerebral Palsy.  It is a mainstream class but she gets no additional help to manage the special needs of some of her students.  

A classroom designed to hold 22 students yet packed with 33.  That's a recipe for disaster.  

Instead of always attacking the teacher I just wish people would put the same passion into demanding more from their legislators when it comes to funding education.