Curious to know what other people think of this situation as I am not sure how I feel about it. It’s not a hypothetical scenario; this really happened. Premise is as follows:

A primary school teacher (year five/six) has a difficult pupil who is showing signs of being manipulative and deceitful. One of his patterns of behaviour is to take items from other pupils, most commonly school books, and hide them in the classroom. He doesn’t take them for himself, he just hides them. On discovering this, the teacher decides to teach him a lesson by replicating his behaviour, for example, she takes his favourite football shirt, which he wears for PE, and hides it so that he can’t find it when he needs it.

So how would you feel if you found out that this was the teaching approach being taken in your child’s primary school? I know this person and I personally feel very uncomfortable about how they handled the situation. But I had a difficult time at primary school so I may be over reacting/over sensitive about it.

I think that’s a good way of teaching the wee cherub a valuable lesson.

Was this the teachers first course of action or had they previously tried explaining to them that they shouldn’t be doing it?

Seems the wrong way to handle this imo. Encourages similar retribution for wrongdoing that could escalate into something very bad.

We complain that teachers don’t put much effort into childrens discipline. Teachers have to worry about which way they fart these days in case they upset parents who should be doing the discipline thing themselves but are too busy on STW and Candy Crush to bother.

What was the result of this act? Did it work? Did the kid stop his games?

Lets just hope the same kid doesn’t go through a biting phase….

Not sure Doosuk

Did they also take his pudding away?

The correct course of action would be to withhold pudding.

Edit:Damn beaten to it!

I’m tempted to think this is a good idea. Given how teachers seem to have their hands tied so much of the time, it seems a good way of teaching the child empathy.

I accept the child in question my have other/deeper issues but learning empathy is useful and why not spare a thought for the victims. You might have had difficulties at school and behaved like this, but I might have had difficulties at school because of people bahaving like that.

(I know how you enjoy an opposing view in a thread

Question;

Is the child doing this ‘deliberately’ or it’s a symptom of some other underlying/congenital issue?

Sounds like what the teacher did was a good lesson. I’d be surprised if it will go down well with the management though.

I think it at least partly depends on the disposition and attitude of the teacher towards doing it. Did s/he do it out of a genuine belief that it would help the kid understand the implications of his own actions? Or did s/he do it out of vindictiveness towards ‘the little shit’?

It’s all a matter of the spirit of the approach.

Is the child doing this ‘deliberately’ or it’s a symptom of some other underlying/congenital issue?

Seems they were; it was one example of a wider pattern of behaviour that most likely was representative of a bigger problem. The teacher concerned cited trying to teach the concept of emapathy (which I agree is a good thing) but as they recouted the story to me, the overwhelming emotion they conveyed was one of spite. That’s why it felt problematic to me. It was almost as if they enjoyed doing it.

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Or did s/he do it out of vindictiveness towards ‘the little shit’?

Yes quite – see above.

I’d be tempted to trust the teacher’s judgement.

He/she has spent time with the difficult child and should have an understanding of approaches to the situation that have a better chance of success (stopping the child’s behaviour) and is attempting to solve the issue that way. Perhaps the alternative – calling the kid’s behaviour out in front of the class or the head teacher – would involve a greater degree of shaming and may stop this particular behaviour sooner but would have an adverse effect on the kid’s future behaviour. How much support can the teacher expect from the kid’s parent/guardian?

I’d think I’d be comfortable with this, whether my kid was the perpetrator or not, providing it didn’t prove too disruptive for the class as a whole. Give the teacher the chance to solve the issue creatively.

It might teach the child a lesson, but it sets a bad precedent for teachers, or anyone for that matter, using the same form of behaviour as way of tackling the offending child. It suggests that the teacher has lost authority/respect.

Not sure why the teacher is having to sort out the problems that the parents should have done.
The child has experienced the receiving end with no harm done and will hopefully now see the consequences of their actions.

Bike Holiday in term time now booked for her.

It’s all a matter of the spirit of the approach.

+1 IMO.

Although it may run the risk of legitimising the behaviour if a role model is seen doing it, or the role model loses legitimacy for seeming to be a hypocrite.

If it was followed by a proper chat ‘I did this so you could experience it for yourself’ etc then a lesson may be learnt. If not it may have just seen like victimisation (which may well be a continuation of what’s happening at home and would therefore risk driving up his anger towards authority).

Certainly if you try to give adults a taste of their own medicine it tends to go badly!

Not a lot of information in the OP.

Have the parents discussed the ‘manipulative & deceitful’ behaviour previously with the school?
Are the parents even aware of this behaviour?
How often does the child display this kind of behaviour?
What steps have the parents taken to deal with behaviour?
Does this behaviour disrupt other children in the classroom?

Or is it the all teachers fault? I think that the teacher handled the situation ok’ish but maybe the parents should teach their child that stealing is wrong before a teacher has to.

Is there a chance that the teacher was blowing off steam while telling you the story? If they feel the need to vent (and who could blame them) then the attitude of the story wouldn’t necessarily match what was happening in the classroom

P.S. pudding

I think that’s a good way of teaching the wee cherub a valuable lesson.

I don’t. Speaking from experience, I don’t think it teaches the right lesson. The kid is being told not to do it, and suddenly the teacher is doing it. A lot of young kids would not understand the lesson taught in those terms, I suspect.

Tempting as it is, I don’t think the ‘oh, now I understand that I was upsetting people’ epiphany is necessarily going to break through the ‘you moved my stuff!’ anger. There’s a real risk of simply validating the behaviour when you are annoyed and want to get at someone.

Teachers or parents need to lead by example. So you don’t get annoyed, you don’t ‘do it back’, you don’t shout and get angry (because small kids don’t necessarily understand the difference between righteous anger and lashing out); you have to remain calm, thoughtful and sympathetic towards the kid and his/her problems.

There’s always a reason for the behaviour. No kid starts off wanting to be bad.

Pfffft. I’d be tempted to bait the quarry with a few choice items concealing loaded mousetraps.

What if s/he hits another kid? She’s not going to be able respond in kind.

The school needs to assess the child who’s doing this and establish a behviour program that covers everything. The teacher tryign to address it piecemeal isn’t going to do anything but divert the maliciousness to other areas, escalate it or just teach the child that what they are doign is the right way to punish those that have done wrong. None of these are good outcomes.

The parents need to be involved in the process and, if there is genuine concern that the kid is exhibiting what one might call ‘psychopathic’ (ie. complete lack of empathy/understandign that other kids are people too) then an ed pysch would be involved.

from what you’ve said it’s just going to start escalating now as the kid has been thrown a gauntlet.

[edit]

Not sure why the teacher is having to sort out the problems that the parents should have done

Teachers spend a large part of their professional lives dealing with children whose parents should have sorted them out.

Seems quite tame compared to what I would have received back in the day….

also…. withdrawal of pudding privileges. Obvs.

I think that despite the implied malice the teacher acted in what they belived was the best interests of the child concerned.

That not withstanding, a primary school teacher is not a pschologist and not in the position to be dealing with what they believe is a bigger issue. Imo they should be contacting a psychologist (LA should have them) and doing things properly rather than taking matters into their own hands and reacting to negative behaviours with more negativity. The teacher should know better and imo is in the wrong.

LA should have them

Free schools and academies tend not to – far easier to exclude the kid back to an LAE controlled school and let them bear the cost of dealing with the problem.

I dont think its a good plan myself. I might try it with a cock sure 15 year old but a 5 or 6 year old could get quite upset by it.

OK, at the risk of sounding like a lefty liberal, the behaviour of hiding other kids’ stuff suggests some other issue be it wanting attention or whatever rather than because the kid doesn’t understand that it’s ‘wrong’.

Hiding his stuff probably isn’t teaching anything really, just annoying and quite possibly making the problem worse as the kid eventually ends up with the view that he’s a bad kid and hence behaves in line with that.

This sounds like the first scene of a Jacobean Revenge Tragedy.
(They never end well).

Take the kid to India or China and then wonder why they are overtaking us in education regarding discipline.

Give the kid detention.

Ask other parents your child has upset to sign a petition to remove your dumb kid?

Tell your kid to stop holding up other kids by being the weakest link.

Put laxatives in pudding.

Not sure why the teacher is having to sort out the problems that the parents should have done.

Not sure that was what was being implied but the the teacher was addressing what happened in a classroom so it’s absolutely the teacher’s responsibility to address it, just like it is everyone’s collective responsibility to confront bad behaviour when you see it, child or adult.

You did a shitty thing, lad. Watch as I do a shitty thing to show you how figures in authority behave!

I don’t think it teaches the right lesson. The kid is being told not to do it, and suddenly the teacher is doing it.

I think if it’s made quite clear that it was done one time (with other more correct stuff before and after) to show the kid what it’s like then I reckon it’s valid.

But I would never claim to be an exemplary parent and certainly don’t have any professional training in dealing with kids.

I think if it’s made quite clear that it was done one time (with other more correct stuff before and after) to show the kid what it’s like then I reckon it’s valid.

There’s a big risk that the kid doesn’t understand that context though even if it’s explained.

Not sure that was what was being implied but the the teacher was addressing what happened in a classroom so it’s absolutely the teacher’s responsibility to address it, just like it is everyone’s collective responsibility to confront bad behaviour when you see it, child or adult.

It’s happened in the classroom, it’s disrupted the other pupils and the teacher has given the problem child a harmless experience of their own behaviour. The problem has been addressed. If the child continues to behave in this way take it further. I doubt the teacher went straight to this stage and would have spoken to the problem child first and with no result so next was to experience it. The problem won’t have started in the classroom and most would be traced back to the home. Taking away toys when misbehaving being interpreted by the child that someone in the class who has upset them then they take away the next best thing i.e. books because there is no toys. It’s how children at this age learn their good and bad behaviour and habits by mimicking their parents. When they come home from school they will tell you about their day and the same time be stating what other children have done mostly to judge your reaction to see if this is good or bad. You laugh at another childs bad behaviour and then wonder why your child does it the next time.

I”m not a teacher but I’ve worked in informal education/youth work for many years and I think this sounds like an awful idea.

You did a shitty thing, lad. Watch as I do a shitty thing to show you how figures in authority behave!

Exactly.

It’s how children at this age learn their good and bad behaviour and habits by mimicking their parents.

.. and their teachers …

So is it right for the manipulative child to upset another child by hiding their stuff and then fell aggrieved if it happens to them?
At least the teacher has tried to do something about the situation in an relevant manner. It wasn’t as if the teacher’s actions were out of context just merely a reflexion of the actions of the child to demonstrate empathy.

I feel uncomfortable knowing the manipulative child is causing problems that hinder / affect the teaching of the rest of the class.

SaxonRider – Member

It’s all a matter of the spirit of the approach.

Aye, this. It could be a pretty gentle “See how it feels when it’s you” lesson, or it could be pretty unpleasant. “Teach you a lesson” can have a whole other meaning.

On casual reading it certainly looks like unhelpful behaviour from the teacher.

Have you spoken to the Head/Year head about it? Are they aware? Is the teacher acting alone? How experienced is the teacher?

It may be worth approaching the Governing body if you want to escalate it?