Student Question | Have You Ever Been Humiliated by a Teacher? How Did it Affect You?

What is your reaction to this video? Do you think this little girl was humiliated? Have you ever been in the same position? How did it affect you?

The video, which was recorded surreptitiously by an assistant teacher in the fall of 2014, was published by The New York Times this month along with a related article about Success Academy, a New York City charter school network.

Thousands of readers commented, Success Academy held a defiant news conference, and two of our Student Council members suggested it as a topic for discussion on our blog.

Read more below, then consider the questions our Student Council members pose about whether this kind of teaching encourages or discourages learning.

In the Feb. 12 article “At Success Academy School, a Stumble in Math and a Teacher’s Anger on Video,” Kate Taylor writes:

… The teacher in the video, Charlotte Dial, works at a Success Academy charter school in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. She has been considered so effective that the network promoted her last year to being a model teacher, who helps train her colleagues.

After sending the girl out of the circle and having another child demonstrate how to solve the problem, Ms. Dial again chastises her, saying, “You’re confusing everybody.” She then proclaims herself “very upset and very disappointed.”

The video was recorded surreptitiously in the fall of 2014 by an assistant teacher who was concerned by what she described as Ms. Dial’s daily harsh treatment of the children. The assistant teacher, who insisted on anonymity because she feared endangering future job prospects, shared the video with The New York Times after she left Success in November.

After being shown the video last month, Ann Powell, a Success spokeswoman, described its contents as shocking and said Ms. Dial had been suspended pending an investigation. But a week and a half later, Ms. Dial returned to her classroom and her role as an exemplar within the network.

Success’s own training materials, provided by the network’s leader, Eva S. Moskowitz, say that teachers should never yell at children, “use a sarcastic, frustrated tone,” “give consequences intended to shame children,” or “speak to a child in a way they wouldn’t in front of the child’s parents.”

Ms. Moskowitz dismissed the video as an anomaly. A group of parents gathered by the Cobble Hill school’s principal defended Ms. Dial and said the video did not reflect their experience of the school.

But interviews with 20 current and former Success teachers suggest that while Ms. Dial’s behavior might be extreme, much of it is not uncommon within the network.

In a Feb. 25 follow-up article, “Mother of Girl Berated in Video Assails Success Academy’s Response,” Ms. Taylor writes:

Nadya Miranda thought she had found a safe haven for her daughter: a Success Academy charter school in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, where she hoped her daughter would get a good education and be put on a path to college.

Then she saw the video.

… When the video was published by The New York Times this month, Success Academy held a defiant news conference. The network’s founder, Eva S. Moskowitz, defended the teacher, Charlotte Dial, saying that she had apologized “in real time” to her students, and accused The Times of bias. A teacher suggested that the newspaper did not believe that black and Hispanic children could be academically successful. Two parents stood up to say that they did not need The Times to tell them what was happening in their children’s schools.

Ms. Miranda, however, tells a different story.

In two lengthy interviews, she said that she did not know what was happening in her daughter’s classroom before she saw the video. She said that she was so upset by what she saw — and by the network’s rush to rally around Ms. Dial, while showing little concern for her daughter or other students — that she took the girl out of the school in late January.

Ms. Miranda said that while Ms. Dial had apologized to her, the teacher had never apologized to her daughter. She said that a public relations specialist for Success drafted an email for her, asking The Times not to publish the video, and that at a meeting Ms. Moskowitz held at the school on Jan. 20, Ms. Moskowitz asked the parents to support Ms. Dial and to defend the school to the paper. Ms. Miranda said that when she stood up, identified herself and objected that Ms. Moskowitz was asking parents to support the teacher without even showing them the video, Ms. Moskowitz cut her off.

Students: Read these articles, then answer the questions below, many of which were posed by the Student Council members Aleena Ismail and Jihyun Youn:

— What is your reaction to this video? Do you side more with Times commenters who call it “child abuse” or those who think it’s no big deal and say we should “stop coddling children” because it’s a “tough world out there”? Why?

— How far do you want your teachers to push you to succeed academically? What type of encouragement do you think is most effective and appropriate in a classroom setting?

— Is it possible to hold students to high standards without being aggressive? What do you think is the right balance between authority and support in teacher-student relationships?

— Do you think society’s emphasis on test scores as a demonstration of intelligence and success has affected the way your teachers teach? Is that a bad thing?

— Does humiliation sometimes motivate students to achieve?

— Have you ever been humiliated by a teacher? How did you feel? What effect did it have on you?

— Have you had teachers who motivated you to achieve without scaring or humiliating you? What did they do?

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Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. All comments are moderated by Learning Network staff members, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

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