Please understand that in no way am I trying to make light of Cory's injury or to tease David.

There once was a little girl named Jenny.

 

One day, in Jenny's Grade 2 classroom, the children were getting very unruly and were not listening to their teacher, the kindly Mrs. Johnston. After several attempts to calm the children down, Mrs. Johnston became so frustrated that she yelled

"SHUT UP!" 

 

The shock of the totally out-of-character outburst from Mrs. Johnston caused Tommy, who had been standing on his chair, to fall off and hurt his arm. Steven let out a yelp, which caused the other kids to turn around and look at him in amusement. The children, however, calmed down, Tommy's arm was attended to, and everyone got back to the business of learning.

 

That afternoon, Jenny went home and told her mom that Mrs. Johnston had yelled at the children to shut up. Jenny's mom was horrified. She did not feel that this was appropriate behaviour for a teacher, and she was going to let Mrs. Johnston know exactly what she felt, because no child of hers should ever have to hear such foul language! And because she is a concerned parent, she was going to make sure that the other parents were also aware that this had happened.

 

But rather than phone Mrs. Johnston to explain that this was not acceptable behaviour in Jenny's mom's eyes, she wrote a letter. And as she was writing it, she realized that this was a perfect opportunity to REALLY GET BACK at Mrs. Johnston. You see, Jenny's mom was still hurting from the fact that Mrs. Johnston had not called Jenny's mom and ask her to volunteer to help around the classroom with the Autumn Festival Day and the Halloween party.

 

So she wrote a letter that said that Mrs. Johnston had yelled "SHUT UP" at the kids and this had caused Tommy to fall down and hurt himself and that all the kids had ridiculed Steven because he had yelped.

 

And she didn't bother to talk to any of the other kids, or their parents, or Mrs. Johnston, for reasons of her own.

 

She photocopied many copies of the letter and proceeded to mail them to all the parents of the children in Jenny's classroom, and to Mrs. Johnston and the Principal. And then she realized that this unacceptable behaviour should be made aware of by the School Board and even the Minister of Education. And maybe some random people who's children do not attend Mrs. Johnston's class should be made aware of this as well! So she sent out many letters and waited to hear back from the other parents, who surely must be as outraged as she was. She signed the letter "A concerned parent of a child in Mrs. Johnston's class" and included her post office box number, which she opened that morning specifically for this purpose.

 

She waited and waited, but didn't get any response back from the parents.

 

In the mean time, Tommy's parents called Mrs. Johnston to inform her of their concern. Mrs. Johnston had been feeling really bad because she realized that, although her intentions were good, she could have approached the situation in a different manner. Mrs. Johnston apologized and Tommy's parents were satisfied.

 

However, Jenny's mom was not. And then someone contacted the National Inquirer and sent them a copy of her letter. The National Inquirer felt that this was news worthy because verbal abuse of children by their teachers is a hot topic at this time. But in order to conduct good reporting practices, the National Inquirer decided they should get both sides of the story. So they found someone to provide them with all the parent's names and phone numbers. The National Inquirer reporter felt it was his duty to provide the parents the opportunity to "defend" themselves, as the reporter put it when he made a few calls.

 

The deadline for copy to go to print was in 8 hours, however, so the National Inquirer reporter was only able to talk to the one parent who was willing to talk to him at the time. The parent provided the "Rules of Proper Conduct for Teachers”, which the National Inquirer felt would made excellent copy, since it was short and concise. The National Inquirer reporter had little else to report, and there was a time crunch, so the reporter copied several words from Jenny's mom's letter and used them in his story. His story wouldn't be substantiated, but, whatever, news is news. And let's face it, he figures the story is sensational, like news should be!

 

And then the paper hits the stands! Now, the parents realize that the media has been given their private addresses. And some of the the parents are talking about the Privacy Act and suing someone. Holy #%&*! This has gotten way out of hand! What to do, what to do!?

 

And how does this all end?

 

I guess we will have to wait to find out.  

 

Heather