One of the first, and most severe cases of child abuse I witnessed as an educator came during my second year as the elementary and middle school principal. This was something I had never witnessed nor was it ever talked about by my parents growing up. I was blessed to have been surrounded with some really awesome teachers in the elementary and middle school and we were able to support each other during this troubling time. For a small, rural school, we had some really talented individuals who were able to do some really amazing things with such limited resources for our students.
We had several new students that had moved into the school district, which in turn had caused us to split classes to prevent us from exceeding class size limits. …show more content…
At first, it was almost as if I had made up the entire story with his constant questioning of me regarding the exact details. After his series of questions, Mr. Stanfield informed me that he would “see about that” when the twins got home from school. The twins were with me in my office when I contacted the father and I vividly remember both of them having this horrified look on their faces when I hung up the phone. I should have known at that time by looking at their faces that I had just made a huge mistake. Little did I know that the twins would pay for this severely?
Our small school had really began to focus on the importance of reading and it was heavily emphasized throughout the elementary and middle school, regardless of what grade you were assigned to teach. The Accelerated Reader program was and is sill to this day a supplemental program used to motivate students to read with a reward system set up for students if they achieve individual or group …show more content…
As an administrator, I always think about the student, their situation, and family background before making contact with the parents. There have been other instances in the past when dealing with children that I have specifically instructed staff members not to make the same call I did, as I know without a doubt it would be a repeat of what happened to the Stanfield twins.
Through my administrative experiences and working in a high poverty school district, I have observed that parents may not know how to effectively discipline their children, within the culture of poverty, yelling, cussing, screaming, and physical force are often the means of providing a consequence for negative behaviors.
Additionally, children within the culture of poverty display a strong sense of loyalty to their parents, regardless of how extreme the consequences or deplorable the living conditions maybe in the household. AS educators, it is difficult for us to fathom how a student(s) could be so loving and loyal towards their parents what display this style of parenting where force and abuse are the only methods of disciplining the
We had several new students that had moved into the school district, which in turn had caused us to split classes to prevent us from exceeding class size limits. …show more content…
At first, it was almost as if I had made up the entire story with his constant questioning of me regarding the exact details. After his series of questions, Mr. Stanfield informed me that he would “see about that” when the twins got home from school. The twins were with me in my office when I contacted the father and I vividly remember both of them having this horrified look on their faces when I hung up the phone. I should have known at that time by looking at their faces that I had just made a huge mistake. Little did I know that the twins would pay for this severely?
Our small school had really began to focus on the importance of reading and it was heavily emphasized throughout the elementary and middle school, regardless of what grade you were assigned to teach. The Accelerated Reader program was and is sill to this day a supplemental program used to motivate students to read with a reward system set up for students if they achieve individual or group …show more content…
As an administrator, I always think about the student, their situation, and family background before making contact with the parents. There have been other instances in the past when dealing with children that I have specifically instructed staff members not to make the same call I did, as I know without a doubt it would be a repeat of what happened to the Stanfield twins.
Through my administrative experiences and working in a high poverty school district, I have observed that parents may not know how to effectively discipline their children, within the culture of poverty, yelling, cussing, screaming, and physical force are often the means of providing a consequence for negative behaviors.
Additionally, children within the culture of poverty display a strong sense of loyalty to their parents, regardless of how extreme the consequences or deplorable the living conditions maybe in the household. AS educators, it is difficult for us to fathom how a student(s) could be so loving and loyal towards their parents what display this style of parenting where force and abuse are the only methods of disciplining the