- Sep 12, 2009
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by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Your Black World
Jennifer O’Brien, a teacher in Paterson, New Jersey is in serious trouble after some remarks she made about her first graders on Facebook. The teacher, who’d grown frustrated with her class, went to Facebook to state that some of her students were “future criminals.” The bulk of O’Brien’s students are black and hispanic.
During her peculiar Facebook post, O’Brien stated that she’d just spent another day in the “blackboard jungle.” She then went on to say “I’m not a teacher, I’m a warden for future criminals.”
Later in the day, O’Brien went back to Facebook to ask why her first graders couldn’t be put into a scared straight program, which allows young people to meet real prison inmates. “They had a scared straight program in school — why couldn’t i bring 1st graders?” she said.
O’Brien’s comments got back to the school board, who suspended her immediately. This week, she appeared before a government school inquisition, who asked her about the situation. That’s when O’Brien told an administrative judge that she wrote the post because six or seven students kept disrupting her lessons and interrupting the children who wanted to learn.
O’Brien claims that one boy hit her, another one hit a child in the class, and that she had filed several disciplinary reports to the principal.
“I was speaking out of frustration to their behavior, just that build up of ‘I don’t know what else to do,’ and I’m actually scared for their futures, for some of them,” O’Brien said. “If you’re hitting your teacher at 6 or 7 years old, that’s not a good path.”
Read more:
http://yourblackworld.com/2011/08/30/dr-boyce-teacher-refers-to-first-graders-as-future-criminals/
Jennifer O’Brien, a teacher in Paterson, New Jersey is in serious trouble after some remarks she made about her first graders on Facebook. The teacher, who’d grown frustrated with her class, went to Facebook to state that some of her students were “future criminals.” The bulk of O’Brien’s students are black and hispanic.
During her peculiar Facebook post, O’Brien stated that she’d just spent another day in the “blackboard jungle.” She then went on to say “I’m not a teacher, I’m a warden for future criminals.”
Later in the day, O’Brien went back to Facebook to ask why her first graders couldn’t be put into a scared straight program, which allows young people to meet real prison inmates. “They had a scared straight program in school — why couldn’t i bring 1st graders?” she said.
O’Brien’s comments got back to the school board, who suspended her immediately. This week, she appeared before a government school inquisition, who asked her about the situation. That’s when O’Brien told an administrative judge that she wrote the post because six or seven students kept disrupting her lessons and interrupting the children who wanted to learn.
O’Brien claims that one boy hit her, another one hit a child in the class, and that she had filed several disciplinary reports to the principal.
“I was speaking out of frustration to their behavior, just that build up of ‘I don’t know what else to do,’ and I’m actually scared for their futures, for some of them,” O’Brien said. “If you’re hitting your teacher at 6 or 7 years old, that’s not a good path.”
Read more:
http://yourblackworld.com/2011/08/30/dr-boyce-teacher-refers-to-first-graders-as-future-criminals/