Video of NYC charter school teacher berating student sparks outrage

On Friday, a New York charter school came under fire after video emerged of a teacher berating a student for a mistake on a math problem.

On Friday, a New York charter school came under fire after video emerged of a teacher berating a student for a mistake on a math problem.

The incident took place in 2014 at the Success Academy campus in Brooklyn. The teacher, Charlotte Dial, taught first grade at the time and can be seen in the video tearing into a female student who could not explain how she did a math problem. “Go to the calm down chair and sit. There is nothing that infuriates me more, than when you don’t do what’s on your paper,” Dial can be heard saying.

“You’re confusing everybody,” Dial continued, ripping her assignment in half.

The entire tirade was captured on video secretly by an assistant teacher.

More concerning still is the fact that Dial was promoted to a “model teacher” position, where she was responsible for training her colleagues. After the video surfaced, Dial kept her position.

A former teacher and assistant principal at two academy campuses, Jessica Reid Sliwerski, suggested that the school’s response was limited because this kind of behavior was encouraged. “It’s this culture of, ‘If you’ve made them cry, you’ve succeeded in getting your point across,” Sliwerski told the Times.

Another former teacher, Carly Ginsberg, agreed with that assessment, recalling a time when a teacher made a female student cry so much that she threw up.

“It felt like I was witnessing child abuse,” Ginsberg said. “If this were my kindergarten experience, I would be traumatized.”

Dial has since released a statement saying that she is “deeply committed” to her students. “I’m sorry for my lapse in emotional control 15 months ago,” the statement read. “As I tell my scholars to do, I will learn from this mistake and be a better teacher for it.”

 

SHARE THIS ARTICLE