Comment on How do I keep a 9 year old from constantly licking erasers and putting them in his mouth

• FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I want to highlight again that this suggestion was preceded by a lengthy checklist.

  I think you and I have a different idea of what bullying is. I remember kids picking their nose in class and eating it in elementary school. I don’t think it took an intervention from the teacher to get that to stop. Just some kids going “ewww, that’s disgusting” got the message across. This is how society corrects behavior. I wasn’t suggesting a teacher goes before class, does a Nelson Ha-Ha, “look at that loser, go beat him later and take his lunch money.” Just something like “Kevin, the other kids need to use this eraser as well and they don’t like it full of spit. Please don’t chew on it. Thanks.” It signals to the kids this is not okay and I don’t think they will go full Lord of the Flies on him - keeping in mind the preconditions I had outlined above.

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  • voracitude@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I read your checklist, and I think you missed the bus where I said “when it seems like all other options have been exhausted”. There’s absolutely no need for the “peer pressure” component, it’s unnecessary to call out a kid on front of a class like that when you could just add easily have a private conversation with the kid about it, and I suggest you think about what it means to enable bullying without actively participating in it.

    I don’t think they will go full Lord of the Flies on him

    You have no way of accurately predicting this, because it’s children we’re talking about, and they are famously agents of chaos.

    I can’t think of a single office I’ve worked where it would be considered professional to call someone out for minority problematic behaviour in front of all their colleagues, and I don’t see any reason it would be considered acceptable with children either.

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    • FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      It’s an enumeration of if-phrases. “If the parents don’t support the teacher” is just the first condition of many. And some things you may have to infer, like if the teacher had to talk to the parents and got cold shouldered, I think you can presume the teacher has already talked to the student too. I’m not gonna go as far as saying my post was immaculately written and presented. I would go as far as saying the options presented were at the bottom of the list. No support from the parents, maybe not even school leadership, cannot use bitter taste spray for insurance reasons, etc.

      If a teacher telling a kid to get their feet off the table, to stop shooting spit wads at the row in front of them, to stop rocking back their chair because they might tip over and fall - if all these situations are okay for a teacher to say out loud in front of the class: “Kevin, stop it!” - and I think they are - then telling the kid not to chew on communally shared erasers is no different. Claiming this will immediately lead to bullying or just the threat that it might do is to an extent quixotic to me. If teachers will not assert their authority ever for fear of what the chaos kids will do, they might as well pack it in then.

      Your office comparisons are insignificant here. Elementary school is a different sport entirely. There is a difference between coworkers sharing an office hierarchy and the power, responsibility, and maturity differential students/teacher, never mind the fact that offices shouldn’t employ 9yos.

      OP has weighed in against the suggestion anyway. I’ll defer to them because they know more about this case than you or I.

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      • voracitude@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        This is how society corrects behavior

        Followed by

        Your office comparisons are insignificant here

        Really? School is where we learn how to treat other people, and we learn it by example as much as being told (more than, I’d contend).

        Claiming this will immediately lead to bullying or just the threat that it might do is to an extent quixotic to me

        First off, quote where I claimed it would immediately lead to bullying (good luck). Secondly, yes, whether believe it or not a teacher engaging in this behaviour signals to the other children that it’s okay, there’s an extremely elevated chance that they will take that and run with it.

        If a teacher telling a kid to get their feet off the table, to stop shooting spit wads at the row in front of them, to stop rocking back their chair because they might tip over and fall - if all these situations are okay for a teacher to say out loud in front of the class: “Kevin, stop it!” - and I think they are - then telling the kid not to chew on communally shared erasers is no different.

        Telling, yes. They’ve already told them to stop it. Your suggestion, however, was

        I would go for gentle peer pressure. Point it out in class, do a friendly dressing down how none of the other students want to use the chewed on eraser. If he won’t stop if you say so, maybe you can get other kids to do the trick. The unwanted public attention from his peers might be enough.

        “peer pressure”, “dressing-down”, “maybe you can get other kids to do the trick”. That last one in particular. How exactly do you think the other kids would do the trick? Harass the child into stopping, yeah? Or are you gonna come out now claiming that kids are masters of nuance and they’ll be able to get him to stop without resorting to bullying? Your initial suggestion was bad, but at this point you are being absolutely ridiculous. OP “weighed in against the suggestion” with the words

        Kids at that age are ruthless, I absolutely can’t do that

        And yet you still want to act like I’m in the wrong for saying that it would open the child up to bullying. An absolutely mind-blowingly dumb argument. I sure hope you’re not responsible for children with this kind of thinking; I had a few teachers like you and I hated them for it.

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