Howler: I respect your point that we do not have all of the information, and all of the information is second-hand at best. This is why I began my first response to this thread with two disclaimers: "My interpretation of the story as told is the teacher owes your son an apology." That phrase contains a tacit admission that the information is passing through two filters that can change the result... how the information is being presented to me, and how I am interpreting it myself.
I also understand that teachers are under a lot of stress, and I understand that there may be a history between this student and teacher that affected her emotions in this situation.
However, the key counter-argument to everything you've said is this: the child immediately acknowledged his error, and apologized. That is the exact opposite of disrespecting a teacher. The notion that he might be threatening to harm her or usurp her classroom authority at that stage is inconsistent with this detail of the story.
As for your comment that it would be absurd (note you're using the same kind of loaded language you accuse me of here) to have a calm one-to-one conversation during class, the teacher is equipped with a simple remedy for this: "See me after class." But it seems that she did just the opposite, because as we're told, she continued the confrontation longer than was necessary... because again, the child has already accepted responsibility and apologized. She made the decision to continue after that. She made the poorly-conceived argument to drive home her point. And then she decided to interpret his correction as a challenge to her authority, so that's all on her.
The "competing needs" argument goes right out the window at this point, because the teacher gives in to her need to express her anger, at the expense of every student in the room. While she is continuing the confrontation, nobody is learning. Again, the simple way to meet all the competing needs would have been, "See me after class." If he decides he wants to continue the argument at that point... office referral.
Ultimately, I'm coming from a position that adults are expected to maintain a higher standard of behavior than we expect from our children. In this story, as it has been related to us, the child behaved better than the teacher did, and that's a shame on her. If you do not share this expectation, then we'll just have to agree to disagree.
So yes, when I see an adult's emotions overcoming their reason, I will label that "irrational." When I see a child exhibiting better social grace than the adult (especially when the child has a medical diagnosis related to social difficulties), I observe that the adult's behavior is "immature." When said adult is doing so from a position of authority, I recognize that as "abuse of power." And since the result is an unnecessary verbal assault in front of his peers, I would describe him as a "victim."
As far as a teacher only having as much authority as the students are willing to convey... I'd say this display is unlikely to help in that regard, and is quite likely to hurt.
All of this is, as I said, my opinion, based on the little information presented. Feel free to disagree.
