[scrubcedar]

Btmj, I was taught the same thing about teachers. It got me assaulted by one teacher for no other reason than he was having a bad day. I hadn't even raised my voice. The bruises on my chest took weeks to fade. It got me emotionally tortured by another ( just so you don't think that this is an exaggeration, she admitted to another teacher she was attempting to "break" me so she could "remold" me.). Keep in mind, I wasn't any sort of discipline problem, and was an A-B student in mostly advanced classes.

My own experience taught me that sort of attitude is dangerous, I certainly wasn't going to put my children in the same vulnerable place. What I found when I started looking hard at my children's teachers that they were simply not in the same class as the great majority of the ones who taught me. They would have eaten this generation of teachers alive and whole.

The abusive and incompetent teachers I dealt with were isolated from their peers and held in great contempt by them. The people who rescued me from these jerks were the other teachers who voluntarily turned them in, then stood by me.

I found good teachers like this in my children's lives as well, but to my disappointment they were the hounded minority.

As for the teachers who now want the unquestioned authority that teachers used to have, I have one word for you, NO!

This authority they had allowed abuse to occur in the dark where no one would listen to the victim.

If you're concerned about the lack of respect in your classroom I have similarly harsh words for you, if you want respect, it's still readily available to you, the difference being now you have to earn it. Those good teachers I talked about that my kids had? They were all treated very respectfully by their students. I volunteered in those classrooms and saw first hand.

There was a complete lack of respect displayed here, by the teacher. To ask a student to change how he was dressed, when he was not out of compliance with the school dress code, and was in fact endorsing the Bill of Rights included in our Constitution (the phrase on the shirt was"protect your rights" with a symbol that clearly pointed to the second amendment.) was very clearly and completely disrespectful of the students rights. The gathered students then followed the teachers lead and learned the lesson he was teaching by his actions.
Treating others disrespectfully is okay as long as you feel strongly about what you're doing and you have the authority (or in the students case numbers) to get away with it was the lesson that teacher was teaching. The students then demonstrated they had learned this lesson to the teacher involved immediately.
A bad lesson taught, the same bad lesson learned, and in fact convincingly demonstrated. A black eye for our school system.