I feel like we're stuck as a nation and that we sometimes don't care to be understanding. I feel we are often too unwilling to see both sides of an issue and recognize that even in doing that we can still hold people accountable.

This issue with the teacher at Pembroke Hall High School reveals so much about how we think as a people. How unwilling we can be sometimes to be a little more empathetic and our sometimes insatiable appetite for a particular kind of accountability that comes off as persecution.

I have lots of issues with teachers and they way in which they implement their duties. I have written and spoken about that lots of times here and in other spaces.

I think we can see and understand both sides of this particular story and still agree that the teacher was wrong and should we held accountable.

This reminds me of that video with the police woman who lost it at the station. She was recorded and the video broadcast. People were so unwilling to accept that sometimes we can reach our breaking point. They were unkind to her.

No matter how much we hold it together and respect our uniform, position or title, we will sometimes lose it because we are human before all of that responsibility. Sometimes it just takes one student being mischievous to trigger you.

Accepting this doesn't mean you are providing justification for an unacceptable behaviour. It doesn't mean you are suggesting that the teacher shouldn't be held accountable. Her voicenote explaining the situation suggests to me that sh knows what transpired was unacceptable.

I hope MOE and JTA will work together to ensure that going forward there is greater psychosocial and other support for teachers (pay isn't the only thing bothering them) and the teacher is held accountable for her actions and sentiments to the students.

I'm not sure about the legal ramifications but an apology to the students should be one of the actions taken. That is important for the healing and moving forward. Even if charged for an offence, restorative is still critical in this regard.

The education budget should make provisions to equip educators with tools and resources for dispute resolution, dealing with grief, trauma, etc, among other things. They should have therapists and counselors they can get support from when they need it.

This incident should catalyze a comprehensive intervention. We must consider mitigating these occurrences in our classrooms. This isn't the first and it won't be the last either. What are we going to do about this? I hope that it isn't one thing that happens.