A crushed boy walked with his head bowed towards his house from his school. He didn’t want his parents to see the tears in his eyes. But they could see that the 7-year-old had been crying and pleaded with him to tell them what had happened. The child reluctantly got a piece of paper out from his school bag. He handed it to his parents and it would hold all the answers they were looking for. Kamdyn was always just a normal kid. He never strived to get amazing grades but he would stay out of trouble nonetheless. He wasn’t hyperactive and he didn’t spend all his time watching TV and playing video games. His parents were caught off-guard when he came home devastated. They read the note he had given them and his father stirred with a frown. As he kept reading the test paper his face became more flush with anger.
Kamdyn was a student at Valley View Elementary School for a number of years. There had never been any issues with him at the school but everything changed when he walked into the school as a 2nd grader. His teacher was Alyssa and one day he arrived home with some “feedback” from her. At the school, Alyssa had already gained a reputation and seemingly picked on Kamdyn before anyone else. The boy’s joy started to wain as the constant criticism impacted his self-esteem. He didn’t ever let anyone know that it had such an impact. Confidence and self-esteem are the most affected when someone is given criticism. Now imagine a teacher giving such negative feedback to a child who’s trying his best? Being a good mentor reflects on the children as well since you are a role model. Chris felt like Alyssa wasn’t practicing this way of teaching when she was in the classroom with his child. How could she think her comments were actually helping?
Chris can’t be blamed for his anger and frustration towards the teacher. The comments on his child’s paper were just discouraging. They didn’t only affect his confidence but they were also unprofessional. No parent wants to see their child hurt.
The comment on the maths test was: “Absolutely pathetic! He answered 13 in 3 minutes! Sad!” Now this made Chris angry. It was bullying and there was nothing constructive about these comments, not even in the slightest. The problem was that this comment was not the first that this teacher had left Kamdyn, and it was the straw that broke the camels back. For Chris, it was the last straw and he intended to do something about it.
He took insult from how the messages were right from the beginning of the year. It was time to confront this nasty teacher.
It’s the go-to action that a lot of people take – posting a worry or thought on social media. A lot of the time is because we can get so close to the issues that we can’t see them clearly anymore. Chris wanted an opinion on this situation. What he wasn’t expecting was to have such a large impact. Chris began by just stating the facts along with a picture of his son holding up the offending test paper. He was sure that everyone would agree with him.
Chris was absolutely amazed at how the post took on a life of its own, racking up thousands of reactions, comments, and shares. It seemed that a lot of people felt really passionately about what happens in the classroom. How children and treated and what skills a teacher should have.
He felt significantly better that his gut instinct was right and he hadn’t been overreacting at all. Almost everyone disapproved of the harsh words that the teacher left on the piece of paper.
“You don’t write that on anybody’s paper, let alone a little 7-year-old, second grader’s paper. It said on the top of it that he answered only 13 of them in 3 minutes and that it was absolutely pathetic with a sad face”. “It broke my heart,” Chris said as he spoke to more and more papers and TV stations.He was still absolutely furious about the whole ordeal. “I believe what you wrote on his paper was extremely unprofessional and just very rude and she messaged me back and said she was sorry I felt that way,” he explained. Everyone agreed that the teacher had indeed done something wrong, but should she be fired for it? It seemed a very harsh punishment for something that a firm talking to could change. The school felt like she only had to be reprimanded for what she did. They thought that it was too much to fire her for this. Teachers, parents, and other adults are those who mold these little kids into what they’re going to be in the future. The school decided to look further into the matter and make sure justice is served.