Thread by @webdevMason

WSJ coming in hot with "if you don't let bad teachers mistreat your children, how will they learn to deal with challenges?" wsj.com/articles/when-…

My extremely basic take is that no, it is not good to abuse children a lil bit.

"In life, we’re going to have to deal with all kinds of people, and children need to know that."

No, actually. You don't have to keep dating Vaguely Abusive Boyfriend. You don't have to keep working for Pushy Boss. And you don't have to train your kids to be doormats.

In life, you get to choose who and what you'll put up with for your own reasons. I suspect that a lot of people feel trapped with jerks because when they were children, we trapped them with jerks and gave them the idea that this was somehow the right thing to do.

This parent watched a teacher repeatedly call her child a terrible person, in front of her, even *after* he'd burst into tears, and promptly removed him from the situation because Holy. Fucking. Shit.

WSJ: "Well, that may be a bit extreme. What message are you sending?"

FWIW, the school I observed at for a full year had *extremely* high behavioral expectations for the kids. But everyone on staff went to great pains to indicate that they thought those kids, each & every one, were already great and capable of further greatness. Because it's true.

And still, those kids struggled, and they felt pain, and they encountered challenges that caused them to fight between hesitancy and action. Because that's the battle for all of us, and we don't need to be unloved to learn how to fight it.