There are many different ways in which teachers can punish their students for breaking the rules many times these punishments are deserved; however, just because a punishment is deserved doesn’t mean it is fair. This is one such incident where a teacher in Texas paddled, hit on the hands with a wooden stick, a student after the student was said to be misbehaving. The student’s mother claims that, “a teacher informed her that he had paddled the kindergartner during class for misbehaving with another student” (NBCNY). The school district where this occurred allows “paddling” as long as the parents have consented to it; however, in this case the student’s parent had not consented to this. This means that what the teacher did was not only immoral but also against the rules. By choosing to break the rules when disciplining this student, the teacher showed that he has no regard for the established norms and was willing to go against them just because he could. His behavior put him in a situation where he had most if not all of the control. He had control over the school administration and the student’s parent because by disregarding the rules he demonstrated that he did not respect their authority in this situation. Mostly he had control over the student because at such a young age they were not able to fight back against the teacher for fear of retaliation or simply because they did not know what was going on. The use of physical punishment made what could’ve been a normal interaction into an abuse of power because even if the student had been misbehaving and a punishment was fair it still did not excuse an adult, especially one in a position of authority, using violence against a child left in their care.
Hamza Khokhar
School is a place where a person spends most of the time of life after home. If teachers start to punish a child since their childhood this ruins their whole life. Although, punishment can be verbally or physically but still it sounds horrific. In this case, a kindergartener can hardly express his/her feeling. So, when they are treated this way that behavior gets imprinted on their minds because this is their age of learning.Keeping aside the issue of consent kids aren’t strong enough to bare the pain. They should be treated gently and with care and if not, this can result into further violence causing domestic violence etc, and this is because they were treated this way. This behavior might be ignored by some but ultimately the culmination can last for generations.
Elviris Rodriguez
A part of this paragraph that is effective is evidence, both the introduction of it and its use. The introduction of the evidence is effective because it connects it to the topic sentence and gives the reader a bit of background about what the paragraph is about and what the evidence will be saying. The evidence itself is effective because it is a direct quote which makes the evidence more impactful since the words come directly from the student’s mother. The sentence after the evidence is also effective since it serves as a bit of background into the issue and as sort of set up for the rest of the paragraph but it belongs after the quote because it is not full analysis but rather clarification on the quote that goes before the analysis.
Sumaiyah Ali
In order to effectively present evidence to support your claim, you must adequately analyze and interpret the given information. Elviris presented a strong example to prove her thesis and followed up on it by giving her own interpretation on the situation. Elviris explains how the teacher disregards the rules set in place and abuses his power. An interesting point Elviris makes is how by doing so, the teacher takes control of not only the student by paddling them, but of the administration as well for disregarding their rules and also the parents by not taking heed of their lack of consent to the paddling.
The first sentence seems fragmented and looks like a run-on. Overall, the paragraph follows a straight forward structure and seems organized. The example of power play is presented right after the first sentence. It can be more direct, but the example was straight to the point. The case of authority was clearly presented and why it was a case of authority was also present. Maybe you can give more specifics on the example you used such as the year so readers can relate it to 2016 and this will further convince your readers when presenting your point about the power play of teachers and students.
This paragraph was similar in a way to my group’s blog post because our paragraph also had an educational example. An idea is presented in the first sentence and then supported by an example right after. There seems to be many small grammar mistakes and it may confuse others by getting in the way of the point you’re trying to make. There seems to be a small problem in our education system with the way that the small minority of teachers teach. In all my life and experience as a student, I have yet to see a student be a victim of domestic violence and it amazes me that this actually happens.
I like how Elviris organized her paragraph. It doesn’t over quote as that’s something that we studied for class and I can see her opinions that are based on the facts of the example being presented. This paragraph talks about the different forms that child abuse can take. This is a good example of a person with an imbalance that has a job working with children. I would love to know what happened with this teacher after this incident, especially being in country that says we are not allowed to hit our children but allows a brute for an educator to strike a small child with a paddle.
Karia Hill
I agree this paragraph is very well organized and well developed. It starts with an enticing topic sentence and later backed up by an example. One major aspect why this paragraph is effective is the example given and said straight to the point. In the paragraph, it describes how punishments are deserved but not always deserved. Although there are many great educators that teach with a passion, there are also some that are just horrible and ruin it for the majority.
Alisha Alex
The body paragraph includes a lot of evidence and analysis of the topic. It’s very easy to spot out the topic of the paragraph and also predict what the thesis of the essay is. The writer also included a cited source in the paragraph which gives more creditable. The paragraph is written in analytical way, the writer explains about paddling and then goes in depth about how it is demonstrates the teacher’s authority over the student. I do agree that the first sentence may be a little too long. However, the writer does a great job at narrowing her topic from the relationship between teachers and students to one form of authority which is paddling. The paragraph overall is very organized and detailed.
Wenne Zheng
Elviris, Sumaiya, Hamza,
You all comment on the topic, and two comment on the evidence (one is simply responding to the topic). You were all to comment on different aspects of the paragraph, for an effective analysis. The topic of the paragraph is a very good one, and it is, in fact, a paragraph topic. This is discussing a small aspect (paddling) of the larger thesis, and the author discusses various details and her reaction (interpretation) of the incident. The last sentences could be condensed, but overall, this is a nicely done body paragraph!
Grade for the group’s comments: 9/10