The Community Speaks
How Much Authority Should They Have?
Well, the community has spoken. Last week’s Question to the Community, “How much authority should teachers have, and when do they take it too far?” has been answered and the responses were overwhelming. Many of you felt like teachers don’t have enough authority or power and that is why classrooms can be chaotic at times. A lot of our responders felt like students don’t give their teachers enough respect and that is a major part of the problem. Students refuse to listen to their teachers and if the teacher stands up for themselves or starts handing out detentions, the students will tell their parents that they didn’t do anything wrong and their teacher just has it out for them.
This doesn’t mean the teacher is bullying or mistreating a kid just because you don’t like them, however, it creates a grey area for parents, students, and teachers alike. How do you know when a kid is really being mistreated or deserves the punishment. Maybe if students respected their teachers a little more and respected their authority there wouldn’t be as many problems in the classroom, Here are what a couple of our readers said about last week’s question,
“I think Teachers should be able to defend themselves against kids who pose a threat: Kid’s that push or hit them at middle or high school level.
I believe that teachers should be able to spank kids in elementary school just like parents open hand on the buttocks. I agree with the PBIS But I do think that there need to be exceptions were children are expelled and suspended.”
“How about giving an unruly child I hour of detention and the child cannot attend school until both the child and one of their parents complete that one-hour detention. Then double the time on every offense following it.”
A teacher shouldn’t be allowed to physically lay hands on a child in my opinion, however, they should have the right to hand out detentions and suspensions as they see fit. However, if parents feel like their kids are being treated unfairly they should have the right to have their kid switched into another class without the school making a big deal out of it, as long as there is reasonable cause. Ultimately the community decided that teachers should actually have more authority and power than they currently do. Rather you agree or not there is a compromise that can be made that empowers our teachers and help them be successful in their classrooms, but also protects our children and keeps their best interest in mind.
Keep an eye out for next week’s paper when we print our new Question to the Community, as always you can email your responses to [email protected] if you have a suggestion for our community question feel free to send it in.
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