I’m mad.
No.
I’m infuriated.
As I have grown older and wiser, and taken the advice from many peers, they have often suggested “to wait 24 hours before responding”.
Cool Down.
Sleep on it.
Chew on it.
Wait.
Breath.
In this case, 24 hours will not change the red I see, or the shame I feel, about an adult BULLY in any school.
This principal is 100% Bull Snake.
This is uncalled for and inexcusable.
Period.
What am I so infuriated about?
Read the story first and see if your blood will boil like mine before I comment further.
Story Eight
“My daughter’s school awarded the students who completed the M-STEP (Michigan’s state test) with ice cream sundaes today. My daughter was the only one in her school who refused the test. Soooo… she sat in her class and cried while the other kids ate. She was most hurt by her principal (who explicitly let her know she could NOT have a sundae) and her teacher who coughed out, “don’t give N#% a napkin” to the little girl who passed them out.”
As of 9:30 p.m. Pacific Time, June 4th, 317 comments have been posted to this mother’s story.
Here are four selected comments to give a small taste of the outrage:
1) “What?!? These brainwashed educators are seriously in the wrong career, if tests are more important than a child’s social and emotional well being in their brain, then they need to leave the field. Blindly following those in control is a serious issue in education right now.”
2) “This is abuse!”
3) “This happened to my daughter last year in 5th grade. She was the only one in her entire GRADE who was excluded. She sat for 2 hours alone outside and watched her classmates eat hotdogs and Popsicles and drink Gatorade and play games. I cried for a week straight knowing that my actions caused my daughter to be hurt but I finally realized it wasn’t me who was to blame. It was our rotten admins who are nothing but bullies!”
4) “That’s beyond disgraceful! Every school employee involved in that debacle should be immediately fired! Good teachers and admins would NEVER do that to a child.”
Final Comments
It has been 6 hours since I first read this mother’s frustration and heartache for her daughter.
I’m still infuriated.
My blood is still boiling.
The sad part regarding this story out of Michigan is knowing other children are suffering the same treatment. What is it about some schools treating children with dignity who opt out of the reptilian, invalid tests… and others who have educators acting like snakes?
Bull Snakes.
Bullies!
The little girl in this story is in 3rd grade. 3rd Grade! She is 8 or 9 years old. She sat and watched her classmates making sundaes, eating them, smiling, happy and she was made to sit and watch.
And shamed.
“You’re a bad little girl. You didn’t take the state test. We’ll show you.”
Hmmmm… did this school offer an ice cream party to the children who turned in all of their homework for the year? Did this school offer an ice cream party to the children showing growth in math or reading in their classroom work? Did this school offer an ice cream party to children who wrote a story or a top notch book report? Did this school offer ice cream sundaes to the children who attended school all year and worked hard?
No.
Hmmmm… for what reason, then, do the children in this school get an ice cream sundae party?
For taking a test.
A Test.
The other 179 days of school don’t matter.
The test does.
This is putrid. Each time I read the story, I can smell the rot.
The love affair the politicians and other powers that be have with this testing obsession… are directly responsible for creating venomous environments for our children. It is sad how some educators, trained to inspire children, are becoming snakes themselves.
Bullying Snakes.
Take Action
Please write the superintendent of Saginaw Public Schools, and let her know this little girl deserves better. I have included the contact information below:
Chester F. Miller Elementary School Facebook Page
Contact this school
2020 Brockway Street
Saginaw, MI 48602
Chester F. Miller Elementary School Website
Phone: (989) 399-4850
Fax: (989) 399-4855
The Superintendent of Saginaw Public Schools:
She says:
“Know that we are committed to being ‘all in’ for our students and we hope that you are as well.”
Dear Dr. Peatross,
I’m “all in” for this little girl. I hope you make this right. This little girl deserves a sundae in your office and an apology to her family. I also hope you consider next steps for how principals in your school district are allowed to treat children. This principal publically bullied this little girl in front of her teacher and her peers. As an educator, I am appalled and ashamed by this behavior.
Passionately Submitted,
RAZ ON FIRE
Join: OPT OUT OF THE STATE TEST: The National Movement
IGNITE! ... Fire is Catching 
A principal at Denny International Middle School in Seattle forbade students who opted out of the SBAC this spring to attend a school carnival a week ago today. Unacceptable! Great write up about it here, with fantastic information in the comment section, too:
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Thank you for sending the story. Dora Taylor does such an amazing job writing the truth. I have it saved in my files. The Bullies must be exposed.
-Raz
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Sadly, not the only place where this is happening. See this story from our district: http://www.thedailymail.net/news/article_449fd7fa-ee2e-11e4-95c4-074086a2a47e.html?mode=story
This story doesn’t even cover all of what happened that day.
Incidentally, not only have administrators refused to apologize to the students involved, but they have also refused to talk to parents about the school’s policies around testing and handling refusals.
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Yes, these stories are surfacing all over our nation. Our Republic. I’m working diligently against this Reptilian Beast. Our schools are becoming Testing Dens where snakes slither and coil and zap our schools of VIGOROUS learning environments… Thank you for sharing. Write your legislators… send the stories… have the children send their stories… My thoughts are with you, Raz
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Thank you for publishing this.
I have often said, and still believe, that if the school administrators want to eliminate bullying in the schools, they had best start by looking in the mirror.
I’ll be sharing this, and I hope it spreads far and wide.
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Thank you Laurie, I appreciate you commenting. My husband says we are all on a continuum… there are early adopters, mid adopters, late adopters. For me, it took just a year to have my mindset changed. I think because I am willing to ask the hard questions and always have, it has led me to uncovering the truth. My heart aches for our schools. Everyday. Many of us are outstanding educators who truly love working with children and leading them to achieving their best. The mandates are bringing poison into our schools… where did all this start? Who started it? What was their motive? I’m not happy with what I have uncovered. I’m not happy with who is involved and how those involved are very connected and their talons (fangs) are far reaching. My best to you, Raz
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About this testing …
There is no virtue in making children so brave that they might withstand the idiocy of adults. Nor is there any virtue in lying to children so as to protect adult ridiculousness. And when adults trip over their own commandments and reason away the subtle wounding of children … then they themselves have committed a great sin.
Childhood is an extraordinary moment. It has its own sanctity because it is the maker of first memories … and we make big deals of firsts in our lives. And first memories should never be ugly. Not ever.
But what has become of us? Why have we arrived at this moment when children become fair game in an adult controversy? Instinct tells us never to place children in the middle of a muddle. But here we are … hearing unbelieving tales of adult unfairness that seem such the antithesis of what is expected from the guardians of our children.
Life is a long frustration. The great beauty of maturity is that we learn to keep our cool and to react only to the most insistent frustrations. Adults learn to separate the important from the unimportant … and it prevents us from the nasty human inclination to settle on easy scapegoats … and then to punish the weakest and most vulnerable.
Scapegoats are born of frustrations adults cannot control … and we have loads of frustration surrounding this wretched reform. But frustration is never a green light to exercise a disturbing dominance over the smallest of the small. If that is the first impulse of an adult, then they are in a queer orbit.
Children cut off from pizza parties and ice cream treats because their parents exercised their right of refusal? Little humans in little desks made to sit and stare for hours … in of all places … a school? Children confronted by some towering goliath … insisting that they revoke their parents’ own wishes? What the hell is going on here?
Where is the wisdom in gluing children to desks for hours as they squirm their way through some asinine educational gauntlet that has no real purpose other than to pay homage to some testing god? Who thought that a good idea?
This is a mess that cannot be unmessed. When will we start over … and get this straight?
Is this how children should ever be treated? Are there not school campaigns to disarm bullies … and to champion kindness? Have those champions vanished? Were those just paper heroics? Empty nonsense? I sense adult ugliness seeping through a holy firewall behind which childhood is protected. It seems too many are now comfortable liars … even with children. And worse, some have become hypocrites.
There is never an excuse to scar a child. And if you’re in the child business … that sort of action condemns you to a special sort of hell.
For children, school is a majestic cathedral. A near shrine where every minute should be crammed with as much wonder as a minute might hold. To disturb that atmosphere is to violate the inviolate,
A school has no place or space for anyone unable to plug into their memory bank for recollections of their own childhood. If one cannot stay linked with the memories of their own past, perhaps they shouldn’t be in the memory-making business at all.
When one’s memory of childhood evaporates, so does one’s empathy. And that is a signal to move on.
“Childhood is a short season.” Give it its due.
Denis Ian
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Lovely, -Raz
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