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 last June . But New York teacher claims the exercise was meant to stop the bullying . Luciano, 40, has launched court action to get her teaching licence back .