Kindergarten Reality Shows

I have to admit, with my schedule this week, I haven't been up on the Alex Barton situation in FL. For those not in the know, Alex is a 5 year old kindergartner who was the unfortunate butt of a sick attempt by his TEACHER to vote a child out of the class- 'reality' TV style. The children were all told to say what they did not like about the child and the vote cane out something like 14-2 to vote him out of the classroom. Bad enough for ANY kid to suffer this kind of humiliation, but to find out that this child is in the process of being classified on the autistic spectrum and the jaw just opens even wider.

I just have so many unfinished sentences coming out of my mouth about what is so friggin wrong about this situation:

• Let's start with the probability that most of the kids in this class have never even SEEN a reality TV show, let alone understand the concept, so have these kids mimic the best(?) that society...
• Yea let's hold Simon up as a role model for our kindergartners, brutal honesty is going to instill...
• Since these kids have no idea of the reality show format, what does this prepare the kids for, the 'realities' of grammar school and middle school? Better to get them prepared early for...
• If this teacher had a beef with the child about...about...ANYTHING, it's best she left out the administrators and parents and took it to the court of public opinion...
• Let's change this to the same situation, except in the teachers lounge where all the teachers got to critique Wendy Portillo and vote HER out the school. Even with a fully functioning adult with a full understanding of parody and comic relief, this sort of demeaning behavior would hurt like hell and would probably meet with the dismissal of some of her...
• And the school and police found nothing WRONG with this? They "concluded the matter did not meet the criteria for emotional child abuse", yea right, he'll just bounce back from...
• I guess Mrs Portillo didn't have enough time the night before for a lesson plan...but had time for Survivor, Dancing With the Stars, Idol and the host of other shows that are part of the real America...

Folks, bullying from KIDS should not be tolerated. Thankfully, it is being treated more and more with the seriousness it deserves. Most of us carry the emotional scarring of those days through our entire lives. To let a teacher do this to a 5 year old boy and just shrug our shoulders is just...just...dispicable