what was she thinking?!?!?

We realize that we're at the mercy of others when our child is in public school; we realize we have other options... those options are private school or home school. Right now, for our family - the option we utilize is in our opinion the best fit for our child's needs. We sought out the school he goes to very carefully, they're an IB school with credible teachers in his class. We made major changes in our lives in order to allow my staying home with the kids, and this change includes commuting to a school that is a 45 minute one way trip 4 times a day. We have a school option that is less then 2 miles away - but the reverse discrimination and the poor school scores are not a turn on for us. After all of the public school hoopla, after all of the 'diversity' complaints and issues - why is it that this day and time we haven't 'got it' yet as a nation? Teachers are important - this includes teachers of all kinds, parents, preschool, daycare, homeschoolers, college, church, anyone who is 'teaching' is trusted as a role model to our children. It's been a priority of mine to remember that these role models are still human and therefore will often slip up ... and today I gave up on my reasoning. A teacher told our child to 'shut up'. We're enraged. At the same time she told him to 'shut up' he returned with a disrespectful tone in talking (interesting effect huh?). HE got disciplined, WE followed through on a fitting consequence at home. In life, we're often going to be treated poorly - this does not give us an excuse to do it back. As an adult, the teacher should know that she's modeling good citizenship and good character to a student and she should do everything in her power to avoid this type of irrational and ignorant behavior. As a parent, I realize that this is what we're up against with public school. As a mom - I'm enraged and appalled. As a 31 year old adult, I wanted to go give her a piece of my mind. But I think that would be tacky, and a little ignorant.

What did I do? I called then next person in charge and calmly placed a complaint. I also explained that if she treats our child with resentment as a result of MY complaint then I will go to the next person in the chain of command. I have no reason to believe he was lying, because he was so off the cuff in mentioning it. "What did you do today?" I asked him, and he replied, " math, IB class, music, recess, before lunch I got into a little fuss with one of my classmates and Mrs. _____ told me to 'shut up' then I talked back to her and lost points, I had mexican for lunch, and then we played dodgeball outside in the afternoon when we were done with testing." We've never had this happen, and this is NOT his regular f/t teacher - it's a teacher assistant (apparently a bitter one). I don't feel we'll face this again this year; and thankfully we've made reality a part of our parenting and he understands that even grownups mess up. It still makes us frustrated that someone we're to trust to encourage, and teach our child has given this example in how to handle a situation. We have some thinking to do this summer about school in general. What we plan to think about is what will be best for our family NEXT year.