People Are Furious About This Teacher Grabbing an Autistic Student’s Mic During Performance
We hate to do this to you ahead of a weekend, but here is a video that has already broken thousands of hearts, courtesy of Fox 5 New York:
In a Facebook video they decided to title, “Mean Teacher,” you can see a woman approach the stage during what appears to be a children’s Thanksgiving pageant and take the microphone away just as the last kid leans in to say his lines, causing him to start crying. According to Fox 5, the incident took place in West Virginia. On the Fox 5 NY Facebook page alone, the video has over 4.6 million views and 53,000 shares. All of the top comments out of the 22,000 on the post say that the woman should lose her job at the school.
Clicking on the article linked in the post, news consumers learn that the story somehow gets worse. The child is autistic. His job was to end the performance with, “Gobble, gobble!”
The incident has also been featured on The Talk and Ellen Degeneres‘ website. The little boy’s mother, Amanda Riddle, has been leading the charge on Facebook since posting the original video on Tuesday. She has launched a group to support her son and a hashtag, #TeamGobbleGobble.
Harrison County Schools Superintendent Dr. Mark Manchin said that the teacher feels “very bad” and then stated this to Fox 5:
It’s a mistake that was made. There was no malice. This teacher, as all of our teachers, truly care about these young boys and girls. The program was over, at least as I understand, and the teacher had taken the microphone.
On Facebook, Riddle has expressed anger that the teacher will likely face no consequences for snatching the microphone and making her child cry.
[image: screengrab]
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