Thread: Father Puts Wire On Son With Autism, Records Verbal Abuse From Teacher

Eh, there's a massive grey area here. In the cases cited here, yes, these teachers are clearly out of line. That is blatant and obvious. On the flip side is the fact that far too many teachers are pushed to their absolute limits by a society that feels their children should be coddled. They're over worked, understaffed, their pay doesn't reflect the importance of their work, schools are underfunded (or idiots are allowed to use the funding on things that can bankrupt the district), and they have to take legitimate abuse from kids. I've got many friends who are teachers and have been seriously threatened by their students. On one hand you can say "they're just kids" but on the other hand these "kids" (assuming we're talking about high school) are at most 4 years away from being able to kill for their nation. Because of my birth date, I started my senior year at 18.

On the light side of things we talked in class, we laughed, we slept, we joked, passed notes, and cracked wise. To us, we were just enjoying being around friends. To our teachers we were legitimately making their lives more difficult. We were making their jobs more difficult, and that's on the light side of the "bullshit teachers have to deal with" spectrum. I was present when 6'2 250 lb "kids" with hormones and ego both raging out of control openly threatened teachers that weighed half of that.

My point here is that the anti-bully issue is a fickle issue. While a fully coherent adult taking pot shots at a physically or emotionally disabled student is absurd and abhorrent, teachers in general don't have enough leeway to punish students. Their hands are tied by a society that wants to tell their rotten children that no one has the right to punish them. They want the child to believe they're special, but can't fathom why the kid thinks they can get away with whatever they want.

So where's the line? Where does a teacher berating a kid for acting out in class turn to bullying? When does it go from completely justified for the benefit of that kid and the rest trying to pay attention to being over the line and unacceptable?