Teacher Suspended For Twitter Discipline: “I Am not a B%tch or a Whore”

Do you remember the days when children were held responsible for their actions?  When they reaped what they sowed?  When the punishment was set to fit the transgression? Discipline is not supposed to be fun or painless – it is meant to correct poor behavior and that can’t always be done with hugs, positive thoughts, and lollypops.

Well, those days are over, and not just in America.  A Mexican teacher has been suspended after using Twitter to teach a lesson to a kid who used the social media site in an abusive fashion.

Idalia Hernandez Ramos posted an eight minute video that shows her telling the classroom of the obscene Twitter posts that two of their classmates had made about her. (You can find the Spanish language video HERE)

At first, it looks like a typical classroom scene, with students attentively listening as human resources teacher Idalia Hernandez Ramos presents the day’s lesson.

For several minutes, Hernandez asks one student to stand up read a statement about social media out loud, then peppers her with questions about how harmful it can be and how people can be prosecuted for what they’ve posted.

The student mentions possible problems with cyberbullying.

“And the destruction of the image of another person?” Hernandez asks.

The student nods vigorously.

That’s when Hernandez confronts her.

“Knowing that, could you tell me why you wrote this?” she says, handing the student a phone.

A long, tense silence follows. The student then admits being the author of the tweet, saying that she was “upset.”

Growing visibly emotional, Hernandez tells the student that she’s also “very upset.” She then points to several other students recording the incident on cell phone cameras and tablets and demands an apology.

“My family saw it (the tweet) and now you’re going to apologize in front of these cameras,” Hernandez says.

“I made a mistake,” the student says in a barely audible voice. “The teacher didn’t deserve being called those things.”

A fellow student who apparently shared the comments is also chastised by the teacher, who calls them both “cowards” in front of the whole classroom. Hernandez then repeated the words used against her — b*tch and whore — in front of the shocked group of students.

“Listen to me well: I will not allow anyone to call me that, especially a young brat like you and you,” Hernandez says. (source)

Perhaps if we lived in a society where children were disciplined in a manner that truly made an impression, we would not live in a society where gangs roam the streets, taking potshots at kids walking to school.  Maybe we’d live in a world where young adults pulled up their pants and got a job after school instead of hanging out on the street corner with their jeans defying the laws of gravity, harassing passersby with rude comments.  Potentially,  kids who were the recipients of consequences to their actions would learn to be better people than they were the day before, and would be returned to the road to productivity, instead of becoming hoodlums, drain on society, or outright violent criminals.

Unfortunately, those who believe in teaching a firm lesson to instill good values are the ones who suffer.

Mrs. Hernandez has been removed from the classroom while Mexican federal education authorities determine her fate, a process which could take up to 4 months.