A New York teacher fired after allegedly encouraging pupils to bully a 13-year-old girl by writing down her worst qualities on the blackboard has said she is the victim of a terrible 'injustice ' - and wants her job back . Madeline Luciano is said to have looked on as eighth grade pupils at PS 18 , in Manhattan , wrote words like 'ugly ' , 'annoying ' and 'phony ' on the board to describe their classmate . It only stopped when the girl started crying . Sacked : Madeline Luciano , pictured , was fired after she allegedly allowed pupils to write nasty words about one of their classmates on the board . But Ms Luciano - who was fired following an investigation - claims far from encouraging them to bully the girl , the exercise was supposed to teach them they should be kinder to each other . The 40-year-old has now launched court action against the city 's education department as she attempts to get her licence back so she can work in another school . Ms Luciano told the New York Daily News : ' I want justice . I was just trying to stop the bullying . This is insane . I don ’ t deserve this . ' The investigation into the incident , which took place last June , revealed how the girl had been targeted by bullies many times before . On this particular day , they had hidden her book bag . 'Injustice ' : Ms Luciano claims she was actually trying to teach a lesson about the evils of bullying . Ms Luciano then asked the students to write down any problems they had with the girl - and it ended with pupils shouting insults across the classroom and them being written on the board . But the teacher , who has worked for New York 's education department since 2010 , says things were never meant to go so far - and she told off the teen writing the nasty comments on the board . ' I had some very challenging eighth-grade students . I tried many different strategies to modify their behavior , ' Ms Luciano told the New York Post .
Madeline Luciano was fired after an investigation into the incident 40 . But New York teacher claims the exercise was meant to stop the bullying . Luciano , last June , has launched court action to get her teaching licence back .