I'm an MCPS elementary school teacher...AMA

[Anonymous]

Hi Op, on the girls versus boys behavior issue. My son (5th grade) who is a very well behaved kid according to his teachers regularly tells me how unfair he thinks the teachers and in particular the teacher’s aides are, always being harsh on boys and very nice to girls.

He says “they never say anything when the girls say mean things, create drama, tattle tell etc..but boys get punished even when they just say - i am done I don’t want to deal with the girls group they are just too mean-. It is not fair. Teachers just prefer girls”.

I can actually see why thishappens. Boys are louder, take space, are annoying and that’s the key disruptive behavior to tackle. I get it and I try to explain that to my son. I have my son and my girl’s friends at home regularly and know the difference.

BUT, my question to you is : do you get the sense that boys generally tend to feel like they are indeed less favored by the teachers in school (fairly or unfairly)? It is a current political trope, and not one I want to believe. But it is a recurring complaint from my son (who again is a straight A student with no discipline issue himself, he comments on what he sees). Not sure if this is generalized or not

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you truly feel about the horrible behaviors that are now being left in the classroom?

And the complete failure of modern parenting.

Many parents do a good job.

Sounds to me like she is saying only the girl parents do. 🙄

Hmm if the only kids with behavior problems are boys that seems like it could indicate a broader issue with how schools serve boys, rather than a situation where parents parent their girls perfectly fine yet fail outright at parenting boys

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is you reading specialist helpful for lesson planning and WIN time planning? Is there someone to help with math?

OP here

Our reading specialist is a phenomenal resource! Love her. She helps with CKLA planning and FIT/WIN time planning.
Yes! Our staff development teacher helps us plan for math. She is also amazing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi Op, on the girls versus boys behavior issue. My son (5th grade) who is a very well behaved kid according to his teachers regularly tells me how unfair he thinks the teachers and in particular the teacher’s aides are, always being harsh on boys and very nice to girls.

He says “they never say anything when the girls say mean things, create drama, tattle tell etc..but boys get punished even when they just say - i am done I don’t want to deal with the girls group they are just too mean-. It is not fair. Teachers just prefer girls”.

I can actually see why thishappens. Boys are louder, take space, are annoying and that’s the key disruptive behavior to tackle. I get it and I try to explain that to my son. I have my son and my girl’s friends at home regularly and know the difference.

BUT, my question to you is : do you get the sense that boys generally tend to feel like they are indeed less favored by the teachers in school (fairly or unfairly)? It is a current political trope, and not one I want to believe. But it is a recurring complaint from my son (who again is a straight A student with no discipline issue himself, he comments on what he sees). Not sure if this is generalized or not

OP here...I am SO sad to hear that your child feels that way!! I never want my students to feel as if I favor any of them over others.

I personally have not gotten that sense that boys feel like I favor girls at all from my class. I just recently (last Friday actually) heard from a teacher that some boys did mention feeling they were treated unfairly in a different grade level.

My personal style is....I don't tolerate bullshit from anyone. I think my students know and appreciate this. However, I'm not sure all the teachers in my school operate as I do. We are all unique and have our different styles. Especially the paras/teacher's aides...they are wonderful humans but do not necessarily have the child development and classroom management training that classroom teachers do.

This is a very important topic though and one I would consider sharing with the teacher and even with admin. Your son's voice matters. I may bring this up to my school's admin bc we are a deeply reflective school. We could discuss this topic in depth at a future staff meeting and do some professional development on it. Thank you for bringing this to my attention!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's insane. I cannot believe what kids can get away with. Serious behavior issues have no consequences. 99 percent of the behavior issues I see are boys. Constant and blatant disrespect to teachers and fellow students. Clearly their parents do not follow up about their behavior at home....no parenting or consequences. Many hire au pairs and nannies so their kids never actually are parented. The kids are entitled shits at the age of 9. Imagine when they're in high school. I cringe.

I cringe at this comment, OP. Contrary to the narrative that we are just constantly giving our kids screens instead of parenting (or using ::gasp:: child care), parents today spend more time than ever engaging with our kids - playing with them, helping with homework, etc. Parental stress is a known public health issue. Parents are not okay and bashing them for using child care is really low.

You have no idea what goes on in their homes or why they are behaving in such an entitled way, but it strikes me you are relying solely on parents to address discipline issues at school. That's really hard for a couple of reasons, the main one being that consequences work best when they are in the setting where they occurred. Certainly, if a child behaves disrespectfully, their parents should punish them too, but the total lack of consequences at school is a real problem. On top of that, a common theme among parents at my kid's school is that we get very little information about our children from the teachers, and certainly not sufficient timely information to implement consequences at home for behavior during the school day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is you reading specialist helpful for lesson planning and WIN time planning? Is there someone to help with math?

OP here

Our reading specialist is a phenomenal resource! Love her. She helps with CKLA planning and FIT/WIN time planning.
Yes! Our staff development teacher helps us plan for math. She is also amazing.

What does your school do during FIT/WIN time for kids who do not need intervention? Is it mostly busywork/computers or is there any real enrichment available for kids who are above-level (and if so, how often do they get it and how does that work)? Does Central Office have any rules/requirements around this or send out any materials to support it (besides the 3rd-5th grade ELA enrichment stuff) or is it mostly left up to the schools or teachers to decide what they want to do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a question for OP. Do you think this culture of teachers bashing "parents" online is helpful? Do you think it changes behavior? Do you think it inspires sympathy for people in your profession? Do you think it makes you look good?

DP here, but also a teacher.

For every one post where a teacher is “bashing” a parent, there are easily 20 in which posters are tearing apart teachers.

And what often passes for “bashing” is a comment regarding what may/may not be happening at home. And as a teacher, I can tell you we often hear what happens at home. Out of the mouth of babes…

There are more parents than teachers and only a tiny minority of either group posts on DCUM and a tiny minority of them bashes the other group as a group. Using the other group as an excuse for talking sh&t about all teachers or parents is a.lame excuse and just makes you look worse.

As for what you hear from kids, if you are attributing that to "parents" as a group, that is going to piss people off and not going engender much sympathy. Because it's a dumb a petty thing to do.

Your first paragraph makes little sense, so I can’t comment on it much. But you do realize teachers are also parents, correct? And that our children also have teachers? We are just able to see situations from multiple angles because we experience them from multiple angles.

As for what we hear, it’s simple fact. You may not like that, but it is. We are often considerably gracious and understanding toward parents, too. When a student says something to us, we are able to remember the source. Do you do the same when your child says something about their teacher? Because according to all the evidence on this site, teachers become the enemy pretty quickly.

You could make the same statement but change "teachers" to "parents". If I were to take what I see on DCUM at face value I'd get the impression teachers have a culture of blaming parents for all the problems they see in schools. When your colleagues constantly echo your opinions they start to feel like facts.

I have an enormous amount of respect for my kid's teachers and fully recognize I could not do that job and if I tried, I would be terrible at it. My kid has some special needs and I have been blown away by how they have just known intuitively how to support her. I feel extremely lucky to be in a school district that is able to attract and retain these experienced professionals. From what I can tell, most of my friends feel the same. However, there are systemic issues in the schools that we cannot control and can be extremely frustrating. And there is a total lack of acknowledgement of the stress that most parents are under these days, something that is a known public health problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's insane. I cannot believe what kids can get away with. Serious behavior issues have no consequences. 99 percent of the behavior issues I see are boys. Constant and blatant disrespect to teachers and fellow students. Clearly their parents do not follow up about their behavior at home....no parenting or consequences. Many hire au pairs and nannies so their kids never actually are parented. The kids are entitled shits at the age of 9. Imagine when they're in high school. I cringe.

I cringe at this comment, OP. Contrary to the narrative that we are just constantly giving our kids screens instead of parenting (or using ::gasp:: child care), parents today spend more time than ever engaging with our kids - playing with them, helping with homework, etc. Parental stress is a known public health issue. Parents are not okay and bashing them for using child care is really low.

You have no idea what goes on in their homes or why they are behaving in such an entitled way, but it strikes me you are relying solely on parents to address discipline issues at school. That's really hard for a couple of reasons, the main one being that consequences work best when they are in the setting where they occurred. Certainly, if a child behaves disrespectfully, their parents should punish them too, but the total lack of consequences at school is a real problem. On top of that, a common theme among parents at my kid's school is that we get very little information about our children from the teachers, and certainly not sufficient timely information to implement consequences at home for behavior during the school day.

OP here...

This was not directed only at parents. I should have been more clear. MCPS is largely to blame. I agree consequences should happen in school. Unfortunately my hands are tied with what consequences I am allowed to give. Same with our admin. I think students should lose privileges at school (ex: not go on a field trip. Not be allowed to participate in SGA. Not be a patrol. Not be allowed to attend fun after school activities like talent shows, etc.) Parents would freak out and raise hell if we had any consequences like that...which is frustrating and enabling. If you don't give them a meaningful consequence, the behaviors just continue.

Parents should take away privileges at home for repeated behaviors in school.
I know why the kids behave in entitled ways....they see entitled behaviors modeled for them by their parents. Parents are responsible for their child and their behavior. Full stop.
If my own child is an entitled shit...that is on me. Accept responsibility!

I don't have problems with parents using childcare, I am sharing an observation that many times the kids that have nannies and au pairs (or have parents that otherwise care more about their careers than parenting), are the ones I am emailing home about for behavior. Hard truth.

Also...many others here have posted about screens and judging parents for using them. I'm not one of them. I am a parent and a teacher. I hear you about parental stress loud and clear. I do have my own theories about children using social media at this age and having unlimited access to YouTube...but I won't go into it.

Not getting timely information about your child's behavior is concerning. I would talk to your school about that. I email parents the same day...usually right when the behavior happens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a question for OP. Do you think this culture of teachers bashing "parents" online is helpful? Do you think it changes behavior? Do you think it inspires sympathy for people in your profession? Do you think it makes you look good?

DP here, but also a teacher.

For every one post where a teacher is “bashing” a parent, there are easily 20 in which posters are tearing apart teachers.

And what often passes for “bashing” is a comment regarding what may/may not be happening at home. And as a teacher, I can tell you we often hear what happens at home. Out of the mouth of babes…

There are more parents than teachers and only a tiny minority of either group posts on DCUM and a tiny minority of them bashes the other group as a group. Using the other group as an excuse for talking sh&t about all teachers or parents is a.lame excuse and just makes you look worse.

As for what you hear from kids, if you are attributing that to "parents" as a group, that is going to piss people off and not going engender much sympathy. Because it's a dumb a petty thing to do.

Your first paragraph makes little sense, so I can’t comment on it much. But you do realize teachers are also parents, correct? And that our children also have teachers? We are just able to see situations from multiple angles because we experience them from multiple angles.

As for what we hear, it’s simple fact. You may not like that, but it is. We are often considerably gracious and understanding toward parents, too. When a student says something to us, we are able to remember the source. Do you do the same when your child says something about their teacher? Because according to all the evidence on this site, teachers become the enemy pretty quickly.

You could make the same statement but change "teachers" to "parents". If I were to take what I see on DCUM at face value I'd get the impression teachers have a culture of blaming parents for all the problems they see in schools. When your colleagues constantly echo your opinions they start to feel like facts.

I have an enormous amount of respect for my kid's teachers and fully recognize I could not do that job and if I tried, I would be terrible at it. My kid has some special needs and I have been blown away by how they have just known intuitively how to support her. I feel extremely lucky to be in a school district that is able to attract and retain these experienced professionals. From what I can tell, most of my friends feel the same. However, there are systemic issues in the schools that we cannot control and can be extremely frustrating. And there is a total lack of acknowledgement of the stress that most parents are under these days, something that is a known public health problem.

Teachers also don't control the systemic issues inside of schools. Go complain to the Board of Education!!

There is a total lack of acknowledgement of the stress that most teachers (also many that are teachers AND parents too) are under these days.
And the fact that we are severely underpaid.

[Anonymous]

OP if you are a parent yourself then you get it. And frankly you should state your opinions about social media and YouTube because we all need your support. The only teachers I've had problems with are the 22 year olds with pronoun pins.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's insane. I cannot believe what kids can get away with. Serious behavior issues have no consequences. 99 percent of the behavior issues I see are boys. Constant and blatant disrespect to teachers and fellow students. Clearly their parents do not follow up about their behavior at home....no parenting or consequences. Many hire au pairs and nannies so their kids never actually are parented. The kids are entitled shits at the age of 9. Imagine when they're in high school. I cringe.

I cringe at this comment, OP. Contrary to the narrative that we are just constantly giving our kids screens instead of parenting (or using ::gasp:: child care), parents today spend more time than ever engaging with our kids - playing with them, helping with homework, etc. Parental stress is a known public health issue. Parents are not okay and bashing them for using child care is really low.

You have no idea what goes on in their homes or why they are behaving in such an entitled way, but it strikes me you are relying solely on parents to address discipline issues at school. That's really hard for a couple of reasons, the main one being that consequences work best when they are in the setting where they occurred. Certainly, if a child behaves disrespectfully, their parents should punish them too, but the total lack of consequences at school is a real problem. On top of that, a common theme among parents at my kid's school is that we get very little information about our children from the teachers, and certainly not sufficient timely information to implement consequences at home for behavior during the school day.

OP here...

This was not directed only at parents. I should have been more clear. MCPS is largely to blame. I agree consequences should happen in school. Unfortunately my hands are tied with what consequences I am allowed to give. Same with our admin. I think students should lose privileges at school (ex: not go on a field trip. Not be allowed to participate in SGA. Not be a patrol. Not be allowed to attend fun after school activities like talent shows, etc.) Parents would freak out and raise hell if we had any consequences like that...which is frustrating and enabling. If you don't give them a meaningful consequence, the behaviors just continue.

Parents should take away privileges at home for repeated behaviors in school.
I know why the kids behave in entitled ways....they see entitled behaviors modeled for them by their parents. Parents are responsible for their child and their behavior. Full stop.
If my own child is an entitled shit...that is on me. Accept responsibility!

I don't have problems with parents using childcare, I am sharing an observation that many times the kids that have nannies and au pairs (or have parents that otherwise care more about their careers than parenting), are the ones I am emailing home about for behavior. Hard truth.

Also...many others here have posted about screens and judging parents for using them. I'm not one of them. I am a parent and a teacher. I hear you about parental stress loud and clear. I do have my own theories about children using social media at this age and having unlimited access to YouTube...but I won't go into it.

Not getting timely information about your child's behavior is concerning. I would talk to your school about that. I email parents the same day...usually right when the behavior happens.

What you call a "hard truth" I call a pretty obvious bias against working parents (and we all know you mean women). No, you don't know why the behavior occurs - you have an opinion about why it occurs, and the truth may include what you believe and other issues. The fact that to you, the headline is "Parents are so bad these days" that is not even worth mentioning the complete and total lack of consequences at school until you are called out, tells us everything about why you are posting here today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a question for OP. Do you think this culture of teachers bashing "parents" online is helpful? Do you think it changes behavior? Do you think it inspires sympathy for people in your profession? Do you think it makes you look good?

DP here, but also a teacher.

For every one post where a teacher is “bashing” a parent, there are easily 20 in which posters are tearing apart teachers.

And what often passes for “bashing” is a comment regarding what may/may not be happening at home. And as a teacher, I can tell you we often hear what happens at home. Out of the mouth of babes…

There are more parents than teachers and only a tiny minority of either group posts on DCUM and a tiny minority of them bashes the other group as a group. Using the other group as an excuse for talking sh&t about all teachers or parents is a.lame excuse and just makes you look worse.

As for what you hear from kids, if you are attributing that to "parents" as a group, that is going to piss people off and not going engender much sympathy. Because it's a dumb a petty thing to do.

Your first paragraph makes little sense, so I can’t comment on it much. But you do realize teachers are also parents, correct? And that our children also have teachers? We are just able to see situations from multiple angles because we experience them from multiple angles.

As for what we hear, it’s simple fact. You may not like that, but it is. We are often considerably gracious and understanding toward parents, too. When a student says something to us, we are able to remember the source. Do you do the same when your child says something about their teacher? Because according to all the evidence on this site, teachers become the enemy pretty quickly.

You could make the same statement but change "teachers" to "parents". If I were to take what I see on DCUM at face value I'd get the impression teachers have a culture of blaming parents for all the problems they see in schools. When your colleagues constantly echo your opinions they start to feel like facts.

I have an enormous amount of respect for my kid's teachers and fully recognize I could not do that job and if I tried, I would be terrible at it. My kid has some special needs and I have been blown away by how they have just known intuitively how to support her. I feel extremely lucky to be in a school district that is able to attract and retain these experienced professionals. From what I can tell, most of my friends feel the same. However, there are systemic issues in the schools that we cannot control and can be extremely frustrating. And there is a total lack of acknowledgement of the stress that most parents are under these days, something that is a known public health problem.

Teachers also don't control the systemic issues inside of schools. Go complain to the Board of Education!!

There is a total lack of acknowledgement of the stress that most teachers (also many that are teachers AND parents too) are under these days.
And the fact that we are severely underpaid.

No, we hear about the stress that teachers face all the time. Most of my friends and I walk on tiptoes around the teachers, we never want to offend or overstep. They have a lot of power over our kids. That's probably why you see so much complaining about teachers on DCUM - it's the only place to talk about teachers that aren't perfect saints that always behave ethically.

[Anonymous]

And fyi the "we're so underpaid" is just false, I am sorry but it is. I don't think teachers are overpaid either. I think the compensation is well in line with those for other jobs requiring similar education (but no, it's not in line with inflated tech salaries - guess what you still have a job and thousands of them don't so joke's on them)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is you reading specialist helpful for lesson planning and WIN time planning? Is there someone to help with math?

OP here

Our reading specialist is a phenomenal resource! Love her. She helps with CKLA planning and FIT/WIN time planning.
Yes! Our staff development teacher helps us plan for math. She is also amazing.

What does your school do during FIT/WIN time for kids who do not need intervention? Is it mostly busywork/computers or is there any real enrichment available for kids who are above-level (and if so, how often do they get it and how does that work)? Does Central Office have any rules/requirements around this or send out any materials to support it (besides the 3rd-5th grade ELA enrichment stuff) or is it mostly left up to the schools or teachers to decide what they want to do?

OP here...

It varies widely school to school. At my school, it is left up to the schools/teachers/grade level teams to decide what they want to do during FIT/WIN time.

There is a centrally identified "enrichment" FIT/WIN class, so students who have been identified as meeting that Central Office decided criteria go to a teacher that teaches a set curriculum that was created by the AEI office.

Students that need intervention are usually pulled out to work with someone with training on an intervention program. The rest that haven't been identified as needing intervention/enrichment are exposed to different activities that are up to us. I try to do novel studies with the kids bc they love them! I also mix up highly engaging informational and literary texts. So there is some enrichment available, but if/when/how often it happens will depend on your child's individual teacher/school.

Central Office is useless. They like to mandate things and then not provide support to make it happen.

[Anonymous]

OP here again...

Wanted to clarify. I think only the upper grades have a centrally identified enrichment class for FIT/WIN time. Not all grade levels.