AboutPatricia Ireland-Williams Expertise I am a retired K-12 Public School Principal (8 years as a teacher and counselor) and 23 years as an administrator. I can help parents with questions about how the system works, provide ideas on how to solve school issues or assist teachers in coping with the plethera of stressors they face.
Experience I am currently an educational consultant and have served on the State of Arizona Solutions Team.
Expert: Patricia Ireland-Williams Date: 11/9/2007 Subject: Was this the best way to handle the situation?
Question I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness (I'm an adult now.) In kindergarten (public school), a camera crew came into our classroom to film one of those "Mrs. Filbudget's class says Happy Thanksgiving!" clips that you see around this time of year.
The teacher knew I wasn't supposed to be participating in anything like that, but at first tried to insist that I had to participate with everyone else. When I still refused, she made me hide under a desk for the entire time that the camera crew was there filming. It was a static shot, so really all I had to do was just stand or sit out of the way. Even the TV crew was like, "Why is that child under a table?"
Am I just being overly sensitive, or was the teacher being insensitive, or worse? This has bothered me ever since.
Answer Katie,
I have never dealt with a situation like this one specifically but have dealt with parents who wanted their children to be excluded from Halloween parties and/or sex education classes or cultural diversity classes. In that case, it was the responsibility of the parent to inform us that they desired exclusion and they also were to either take the child home during the activity or allow us to assign the child to another classroom for the period of time in question. Again, this was always pre arranged.
It is amazing that as a kindergarten student you were alert and aware of the fact that your family did not wish for you to be filmed. Good job! You should be proud of yourself for being so assertive at such a young age. I imagine that if this was not previously arranged by your parents, the teacher came up with the idea of hiding you from the camera crew....under a table....I certainly could have found a better place than that.
I wish you and your family had spoken to the teacher about this issue when it occurred........perhaps the humiliating feelings would not be with you at this point.
Take care and forgive the teacher's indescretion.......
