That Viral Video
The media has been filled with printed accounts together with a surreptitiously made and now frequently viewed video of how a teacher at Success Academy in Brooklyn, New York, treated a first-grade student who was stumbling over a math problem. Attention has been paid to the teacher’s harsh tone of voice, her demeaning comments, her ripping of the student’s paper (and the classroom), and the overall public humiliation of the student. The video and story got so much attention from New York Times readers that the paper published a separate article on people’s reactions, which ranged from outrage to outright support. Now it appears the charter school tried to suppress release of the video to the New York Times.
From the perspective of quality teaching, there are too many teacher errors to count or recount here, and they have been noted in some detail in the coverage of this incident. We have focused on the affected student’s reaction, clearly visible on the video, particularly if one focuses on body language. When she looks up at her teacher for help, and the teacher’s response is to rip her paper, you just want to rip through the computer screen. Some have focused on the politics of the situation, given the controversies surrounding Success Academy; there have also been criticisms of the quality of the coverage.
I want to focus on something that has received much less detailed coverage, namely the reactions of three groups/parties to the teacher’s behavior: (1) the Success Academy, including a news conference led by Eva Moskowitz, the school’s founder and CEO; (2) Nadya Miranda, the affected student’s mother; and (3) the first-graders who saw and experienced the teacher’s behavior and treatment of their peer.
It is this third group whose response, regrettably, has not been addressed directly or in any depth. It is far and away, however, the most important reaction as we reflect on the wide impact of the teacher’s behavior and its broad, lasting effect. It is all about the impact of bearing witness to abusive behavior.
Success Academy Reaction
No shock here: The best defense is a good offense, and the Success Academy spent considerable time defending Charlotte Dial, the teacher in the video, and the school’s “tough” academic rigor. Dial was removed from the classroom for a short time—less than two weeks—pending an investigation after the video was released. In 2015, before this incident, Dial was promoted, appointed as a model teacher to help other teachers improve their pedagogy. You can’t even make this stuff up. In a news conference about the video, Moskowitz strikes out at the New York Times coverage, as if it were the newspaper that taught offensively. Moskowitz, with the tearful and apparently popular Dial by her side, says she will not throw the teacher under the proverbial bus.
Last time I checked, instilling fear in students and making them cry is not quality educational practice. I get the need to be tough, but humiliation and ripping a student’s paper fall well outside the norm of acceptable practice.
Nadya Miranda, the Student’s Mother
This is someone we should praise on many levels. For starters, Miranda wanted her child to attend a quality school, which is why she sought a slot at the Success Academy for her daughter. She wanted her daughter to have college aspirations. Brava. Initially, when Miranda saw the video of her child being berated, she did not want to upset the proverbial apple cart. She sought and then awaited a thoughtful resolution from the school, including an apology from Dial to her daughter. That’s following process and not leaping to conclusions. That’s recognizing the injury to a child. Another brava. When that desired quality response did not happen, Miranda withdrew her daughter from Success Academy. That is acting on your convictions and protecting your daughter and proceeding in her best interest. Yet another brava.
We lament the lack of parental involvement of minority parents. We talk a good game about how parents need to foster learning in their children and encourage progression to college. Here’s a mother who did just that.
It took courage for her to take on the “prestigious” school. But this mother, who went back to earn her own high school equivalency degree, saw the impact Dial’s behavior had on her daughter, and she acted. That’s an engaged parent in the very best sense. Miranda, not Dial, is the person who deserves to be promoted as a model. The wrong person has been honored.
The Classmates
I have now watched the video of Dial berating a first-grader for stumbling over a math problem more than a dozen times. Viewing it without sound and seeing all the students’ body language (including the girl singled out for her “error”) has been the most telling and upsetting.
In the beginning of the video, the children are all sitting in the same cross-legged position with hands folded (some tightly) in their laps. The students — ages ages and seven — are compliant, which suggests this position has been drummed into them (and the childhood urge to move drummed out). As soon as the teacher appears to be reprimanding one student, others start fidgeting and moving their hands a wee bit. The student directly next to the singled-out child completely falls out of his “required” position. As the video progresses, the children’s body language shows their discomfort. (Their faces are covered, so you cannot see their facial expressions.) If you view the video in full screen, watch the leg movement here and the hand movement there. These are small rebellions, because many of the students keep their hands knotted together almost unnaturally.
This says to me, which is no shock, that the teacher’s approach is affecting all of the students. They witnessed the teacher’s abusive (“aggressive” or “rigorous,” depending on one’s perspective) behavior. In witnessing the teacher ripping the paper, humiliating the student, directing her to move, these children also experienced abuse. Just look at Nancy Sherman’s recent work on moral injury in the context of soldiers returning from war. Make no mistake about it: People who witness abuse or horrific behavior suffer mightily.
Consider this: How can the witnessing students express their fear, concern, and empathy toward their peer? How can they truly learn if they are, in essence, frightened into compliance? The students, even in the face of their teacher’s conduct, are remarkably tame, suggesting to me that they have been drilled into position like soldiers standing before their superior. They know that if they act out, they too will be singled out.
Apparently, this is not the full video of that day in the classroom. Apparently, too, there are other videos. I would like to see them—unredacted, ideally—so that one can experience how learning, if any, occurred in this classroom. The real question is why didn’t the other parents pull their children from this Success Academy classroom?
The Future
I am, generally speaking, a glass-half-full person. I am hoping this recorded incident, as well as the reactions identified in this piece, serve as both a wake-up call and teachable moment.
To be sure, educating our students is a difficult enterprise. It is a hard profession with no shortage of daily and hourly challenges. Raising children, especially in poverty, is difficult. We can debate what is effective teaching.
But here’s what effective teaching is not: fostering fear and compliance in young students. That damages them — whether they are the direct victims or the witnesses. The kids in this video will forever remember that making a mistake leads to a reprimand. Looking up to the teacher for help leads to a torn piece of paper. Failing to answer a problem correctly leads to disproportionate teacher disappointment.
Here’s one thing we also know unequivocally: Learning involves taking risks, trying things out, and not always succeeding. It is not where you start that matters; it is where you finish. How can we teach kids to take risks when we make them robots and so afraid they cannot unfold their hands, even when stressed and hurt?
I worry about 21st-century students and their learning. I worry too about mistaking rigor and high standards for abusive, nasty behavior with a demeaning tone and a willingness to publicly humiliate. I worry even more when one sees today’s political candidates being poor role models. And I worry when teachers like the one in the video are lauded and promoted, and students like Nadya Miranda’s daughter are ostracized and forced to find a better educational opportunity where fear is not the motivator.
Bottom line: I am worried — as an educator, a parent, and a citizen.
