Educational Negligence, Child Abuse, Educational Malpractice and Supervision - Case Study Example

Running head: LEGISLATIVE FRAMEWORK: EDUCATIONAL NEGLIGENCE, CHILD ABUSE, EDUCATIONAL MALPRACTICE AND SUPERVISION Working with a Legislative Framework Name Institution Outline THESIS: Working with the specified legislative framework in any institution is a number one when dealing with legal or disciplinary issues. I. Introduction A general overview defining a legal framework II. Scenario - A scenario that will be used as an for the assessment III. Assessment - The legal issues arising from the scenario and their critical assessment IV. Action and Reaction from the educational leader involved. Legislative Framework: Educational negligence, child abuse, educational malpractice and supervision To start with, we can define a legislative framework as a platform basis in which laws defining a particular body, organization, individuals or company work by. It usually acts as guidance whenever matters concerning certain conflicts that concern the law usually come up. In our case, we are going to concentrate on legislatures specifically based on educational negligence, child abuse, educational supervision and educational malpractice. This, as we see, aligns us to the line of academic circles, so as to maintain the relevance in this assessment where we shall describe a particular scenario in an academic sphere, assess some of its legal issues with respect to several legislative frameworks alongside their bibliography and lastly, action that should be taken by the educational leader or rather the response taken by the educational leader. Working with the specified legislative framework in any institution is a number one when dealing with legal or disciplinary issues. Case Study: A Scenario in High school A scenario is hereby presented where concepts of educational negligence, child abuse, educational malpractice and supervision will be contained. A group of students in high school is found breaking a school rule by smoking in the confines of the school compound. the punishment of such grave mistakes are well defined in the punishment framework of the school are well laid down, but in this case, the teacher who finds them, lets call him Mr. Shah, takes it his own responsibility to punish these students in a way he deem fits. He takes the group of students and gives them hard manual labour in his residence that is also in the confines of the school as part of a project of the school to host its teachers in the school compound.; the manual work include gardening, slashing, fence pruning and other household chores such as washing of clothes and utensils. With the cowardice of this group of students to oppose this move due to the fear of a harsher punishment from the administration, they proceed and do this punishment. The teacher’s irresponsibility makes him abandon the students carrying out the punishment alone and due to lack of supervision; they go on smoking in the confines of Mr. Shah’s compound. Mr. Shah, has been recently separated from his wife and in the course of these students doing the punishment, the estranged wife comes back in Mr. Shah’s house while Mr. Shah is present and a bitter argument leading to a fight that the students witness ensues. The bitter wife ends up hurling insults at the students before leaving. In anger too, the teacher, Mr. Shah, adds more punishment to the students by giving them more chores and other harder gardening work. All this happens without the knowledge of the higher administrative powers of the school. In the course of his rounds around the school, the headmaster comes across the group of about six students in Mr. Shah’s compound with the absence of Mr. Shah. With more inquisitions from the students, the head teacher finds out what happened since the beginning until the time he found the students at their particular designated areas of punishment. Due to Mr. Shah’s absence at the scene, the head teacher takes the students along him to the administrative offices and calls the regions educational officer for more guidance on that issue. He does this due to the fear of such actions that were done by Mr. Shah leading to graver reactions if it leaks out to the higher educational hierarchy. Assessment: Legal issues arising from scenario Assessing the model scenario described above, we conclude that a lot of negligence has been assumed by Mr. Shah from the time he found the group of students smoking in the school compound, through his administering of the punishment in his residential place, the argument including his wife and the abandonment of the students, or rather the lack of supervision of the students as they carry out the p[punishment leading into more misbehaviour of the students. Starting with the actual assessment before going to the legal issues, here are the loopholes that were in the whole process of Mr. Shah and the students. First of all, Mr. Shah’s first step would have been to report the situation to the higher authority. This would have been to the deputy head who in most cases handles the indiscipline cases of the students. Rather, the disciplinarian would also have been an important person to relay this information regarding the misconduct of the students. This would have led to the required hierarchical order while dealing with the students who were of course on the wrong side of the school rules. Another mistake that was done by the teacher was the designation of the punishment in his own residential area instead of around the school compound. to add on, he also abandons the students as they carry out the punishment, leaving them with no supervision thus giving them more room to do have more mischief. This is exhibited by the students going ahead to smoke in the teachers absence. Another mistake done by the teacher is the argument and fight that ensued with the presence of the students in his compound with the separated wife. Worse still, the students were involved in the ruckus by the wife insulting them and the teacher adding them more manual work as a result of anger. From this assessment context, we find concepts of educational negligence, supervision, child abuse and educational malpractice encompassed in it. Educational negligence can be defined as the carelessness of some teachers in exercising their duty of teaching the students or putting students in a situation in which they will not gain academically. In this case, we find the students missing their classes due to the punishment given to them by the teacher. From the legislative that guides the teachers’ duties, rights and responsibilities towards teachers, this goes against the legal mandate that guarantee students have complete access to education fully by attending to all the classes provide. This exhibits educational negligence on the teacher’s part as it is the teachers’ obligation to ensure that all students take their classes and the students’ rights to attend to all classes without missing any in order to achieve the goal of school going. Otherwise, school going would loose its connotation. In one of the referenced books, a law defining educational negligence is clearly outlined (Fulbrook, 2005). It states that it is a duty or rather, the obligation of a teacher to ensure that the students get enough education through attending classes and going through the entire teaching curriculum. This arises from a basis of school age-old declarations that helped in ensuring that the student shall get what he/she deserves. In our scenario, we clearly see that the students are being denied that chance to attend classes and thus missing out on a lot of content in class that would have enabled them to cover the curriculum efficiently. We thus find this as a great educational negligence by the teacher in ensuring that the students get their right of getting complete education by attending classes. Instead, the time for the classes fins the students working on punishment prescribed to them by Mr. Shah even without going through the hierarchical order in executing the particular punishment. Another book that basically describes the law framework in three levels of education, that is, primary, secondary and tertiary (Lockhart, 1995). On a chapter of the book talking about the legal framework on the teaching profession, it is clearly outlined that one of the key obligation of the teacher is to ensure full attendance of the students in the class. It also carries some probable consequences that the teacher who goes against this can suffer if he/she does not ensure this happens. Another concept of the legal framework that we find being ignored in this scenario is educational malpractice. Educational malpractice can be described as the exposition of bad behaviour or general misconduct by a teacher or any other staff member in a way that the student is vulnerable to such. Such actions may lead to the student being affected psychologically or rather mentally. In our scenario, the act where Mr. Shah gets into a fight and argument with his separated wife is a good example in which students can encounter educational malpractice. The teacher’s bad side or misconduct is laid before his students. It even results in the involvement of the students into the argument where the estranged wife throws a few insults to the witnessing students. Such can inflict mental/psychological problems to the students (Strouse, 2006). Serious educational malpractice like this can result to the presentation of a case in court due the violation of the students’ constitutional rights. It is even worse in this case where the students are succumbed to insults from the wife of the teacher. This can thus result into a jail term by the victimizer, in this case being Mr. Shah. In some circumstances, educational malpractice can result to the complete demotion of a teaching staff. This would although be determined by the intensity or weight of the educational malpractice displayed by the particular teacher in that particular scenario. Supervision is another key concept that we find missing in the described scenario. This is despite the well laid obligations of the teacher (Stones, 1984). Teachers have the obligation tying them to providing very adequate instructions and supervision to students. In retrospect, it is also the students right to get adequate supervision from the teachers. It is also noted that a teacher would rather give inadequate instructions than supervision. This clearly demonstrates how supervision is far too important for the students, where the teacher must ensure to provide in full, this being not an exception. The student also has the right to complain on whether he/she is receiving adequate or not adequate supervision from a particular teacher. In our scenario, we see Mr. Shah ignores this plea and abandons the students on their own as they carry out the punishment that he has given them. This leads to more mischief by the students (Sullivan, 2004). The legal framework in academic circles as seen thus encourages the maximum supervision of students to the uttermost. This is due to the maximum or optimum results that are attained by the supervision provided by the teachers. Child abuse can be described as any act that may inflict torture to a child through torture that may relate to either psychological, physical or the emotional state of that particular child. Many laws across board have been created to ensure the children’s well being in our society. The laws are just but a mirage in helping the society see how important it is to safeguard children’s rights. They are actually a mirage comparing them to the actions taken whenever there is a case in which a child’s rights have been violated. The heftiness is emphasized by the fact that here is even a ‘United Nations body, UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund)’, which ensures the rights of children are observed to the later, no matter the circumstances. In this scenario, we can find about three, if not more violations when carefully assessed. The first act of violation that we can observe from the scenario is the physical torture inflicted by the prescription of heavy manual labour of the teacher to the students. The children are also denied claim rights by the teacher. Claim rights are those rights entailing the element of obligations of someone towards the other. Thus the teacher ignores these and ends up giving the students punishment without even bothering to go to the higher administration in order for the right bureaucracy and hierarchy to be performed before the punishment is given. Heavy manual labour to children is a heavy legal mistake and with the presentation of such a case, there is a high probability or a guarantee that the offender will either serve a jail term, pay a hefty fine or do both. This is a measure to reduce such cases in the society and especially in schools that are of late quite rampant (Byrgen, 2005). An element of psychological affliction is also quite evident. By the fact that the students have not been taken through the disciplinary framework in the school system, there is a psychological torment that keeps them wondering about the next step the administration is going to take. This leaves them quite unsettled. A review on a chapter in Byrgen book highlighting the right of a child against psychological torment inhibits any person from putting any child through the same. This is specifically because as the child grows, there is a high probability that the child may grow with the same affecting him/her her entire life. This might in turn affect his/her prospective behaviour. The violation of this right therefore carries a penalty with it. The last right that we see being infringed in the scenario is that of emotional distress. This is exhibited where the wife to Mr. Shah, now separated with the husband, hurls insults towards the children. With the complete surety that the students were not even included in the argument, it is a plain violation that they encounter. Such content from such adults might put an emotional strain on the children. Profanities included in the argument might also corrupt the children’s mind at their development stages (Covell and Howe, 2005). Such a violation can be termed as that of exposing children to inappropriate content and might carry a heavy consequence that might include a jail term, fine or both. This is due to the recent reforms on the legal framework that have emerged to ensure that children are actually the first priority in the society (Alston, Parker, and Seymour, 1992). Course of Action as an Educational Leader In any system, there is usually a legal bureaucracy that is fulfilled when a loophole is experienced. In this case, it is an educational system. So before the matter would arrive to the educational leader, it should have first been taken to the disciplinary master. After this, Mr. Shah, in this case the teacher who found the student offenders wash his hands off the matter as he has handed it over to a higher authority. It would then be the disciplinarian’s responsibility to see the next course of action depending on the credence of the offence. In this case, such a violation would be considered as the consumption of drugs within the schools confine, a very heavy mistake in an academic institution, especially in such that has majority being minors, making the next step to be that of presenting the matter to the head teacher. From here, the step of forwarding the case to the educational officer would come next. With an entrance of the educational leader in the scenario, the situation takes a complete turn. This does not however mean that a protocol should not be followed.(Steps for developing a proactive institutional discipline, G. Colvin, Corwin Press, 2004) First, the leader needs to consult a legal framework that carries the steps in going through such a process lest moiré grave matters arise in the course. A counseling session should first be organized by the educational leader to counsel the minors on the danger of starting to take drugs at an early stage. This will help them see the essence of making such an activity a school ‘crime’. It will also help in the discharge of the feel of guilt from the students by making them understand the mistake that they really did. Counseling would also encompass the inclusion of the children’s parents in the scenario. The next scenario would be to discuss the course of punishment that the minors would undertake. This would encompass the discipline committee of the school, the educational leader and maybe the Governors’ board of the school. Lastly, a conducive punishment that would fit the mistake of the offenders would then be prescribed. However, the punishment should be one that helps in building the students behaviour and morale other than that that would make the go deeper into an abyss of more trouble such as deeper exploitation of drugs that would then completely spoil the minors’ lives. The punishment should also be that that would ensure that there is no violation of the minors rights such as the ones that appeared in the above given scenario. Such would contradict the campaign that has been put up for a long time that encompasses a legal framework advocating for children’s rights all through the world. As for the teacher that desecrated the students rights of child abuse, educational negligence, supervision and educational malpractice described above, a separate action is to be taken. The educational leader should take the teacher responsible for the mess and the legal framework for taking legal actions against this offender should be taken. It may include a case in court that would mean a jail term, fine or both. The educational leader should also take this case towards the employers of the teacher. They would then decide on the course of action to be taken that would include extradition, demotion or even lowering the grade of work. This would be a lesson to all others that would maybe have the probability of doing such a thing that is so unprofessional. References Fulbrook, J. (2005). Outdoor Activities, Negligence and the Law. Ardsley: Transnational Publisher. Strouse, C. (2006). Legal education Malpractice. Bloomington: Trafford Publishing Lockhart, S. L. (1995). Educational Malpractice: A Pathfinder. New York: Hein Publishers. Sullivan, S. (2004). Supervision That Improves Teaching: Strategies and Techniques, 2nd ed. California: Corwin Press. Byrgen, F. (2005). Treatment of Child and Adult Survivors (Child Abuse: A Multidisciplinary Survey). New Jersey: Garland Publishing. Covell, K. and Howe, B. (2009). Children, Families and Violence. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Alston, P., Parker, S. and Seymour, J. (1992). Children, Rights and the Law. South Cotswolds Clarendon Press. Stones, E. (1984). Supervision in Teacher Education: A Counseling and Pedagogical Approach. Boston: Methuen. Read More