Why did the SP Times wait six days to introduce thoughtful, professional comments about understanding Ja'eisha's behavior?
"A normal tantrum would be verbal refusal to obey, to cry or scream and to do that for a brief period of time, maybe five or 10 minutes," said Patricia J. Shiflett, a St. Petersburg clinical psychologist with 20 years' experience.
This?
This was "an example of extreme fight or flight," a response in which "you either run from or you fight with what you perceive as dangerous," Shiflett said.
In "extreme fight or flight," the stress of the situation is too overwhelming for the child to manage.
"It may be the collective stress in the child's life, not just stress at the school," she said.
None of the psychologists went as far as to diagnose the girl. Ethically, they could not.
"It really is a snapshot," Pinto said. "We don't know anything about the particulars of the child, the classroom and the adults that are available to serve as resources."
Because of student confidentiality, no one, except Pinellas County Schools, knows.
That piece of information, Shiflett said, is key to understanding the best way to deal with unusually agitated children.
"It's important to evaluate the child and the stressors in the child's life, any medical problems or other reasons why the child is having this kind of reaction," she said.
And about what might have been an appropriate response from the assistant principal, Nicole Dibenedetto?
Midway through the tape, the girl makes her first and only declarative statement: "I want to go with my teacher." She was told no, that she had made the room "unsafe" for her teacher and classmates.
Weinberg said this "was an interesting moment of opportunity" for assistant principal Nicole Dibenedetto and teacher Patti Tsaousis.
"I would have liked to have thought that they would've said, "Would you like to see your teacher?' and see what she said and to try to give her successive choices where she could get what she wanted as long as we sort of staged those choices in a way that got her to calm down," he said. . . .
The idea, Weinberg said, is to get children to verbalize their feelings, rather than act out.
"If the student says something, we know that if you can take the feelings and the anger and the angst, and put those feelings and thoughts into words, rather than channel it into behavior, then you're onto something."
Why did the SP Times only excerpt the parts of the video that sensationalize the conflict between Ja'eisha, the teachers, principal and police?
Why didn't the SP Times include the beginning of the video to shed some light on the possible causes of Ja'eisha's reaction to her teacher?
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