Independent School Teacher Pet Peeve Thread

[Anonymous]

Another pet peeve: parents who complain about "crushing homework burdens" while having their child devote 4-6 hours to practicing his/her sport on weekdays (school team practice; commute to club team practice; club team practice; commute from club team practice home).

Related homework pet peeve: Parents complaining about said "crushing homework burden" because child goes to bed at 2 am after "working" for six hours in room with time breakdown as follows:
2 hours homework
2 hours video gaming
1 hour facebook messaging/texting on phone
1 hour on Youtube

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These last few posts are helpful and moving the discussion forward. I've got a few points to toss in:

1. Most DC private schools are not selecting on academic ability in the lower schools. So the "top" privates are in fact widely varied in the children they serve, with kids ranging from the 70th (and even lower) percentile and up. The bulk of kids in the lower schools of these schools are clustered around the 80th percentile, from the data I have seen administrators share. (Please correct me if you have knowledge otherwise; I'd be genuinely interested). I am not measuring by WPSSI scores here, which can be unreliable and skew by parent coaching, but on Olsat/ERB/etc results.

2. By high school, these schools are selecting heavily on academic ability and are heavily tracked.

3. A curriculum that serves the 80th percentile well is way too easy and slow for kids with IQs of 130ish and up (98%+ percentile)

4. Thus in discussing "gifted" kids needs in the classroom, I think most parents are complaining about lower and early middle school, where teachers in all the big DC privates are asked to teach the same course to kids with a wide range of abilities.

5. I totally agree with the teacher who said that kids in these schools with IQs in the 95-99th percentile are not uncommon.

6. But I totally disagree with her/him that those children are currently adequately served by DCs private schools. They are, for the most part, seriously underchallenged until they hit high school. That's a lot of years of being bored at school.

Please tell me you're a parent and not a teacher. Because you really don't know what you're talking about re curriculum and challenge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For kids on the extreme ends of the spectrum-- either profound learning disabilities or profoundly gifted-- not every independent school is going to meet their needs. For example, a child who is nonverbal, or reading at a 2nd grade level, is not going to succeed in my classroom. I don't have a parapro or teaching partner; I don't have a resource room. A parent of such a child would undoubtedly be counseled to look into a different program.

Huh? Why would there be a nonverbal child in a mainstream private school classroom? Or a child who can barely read in middle school? As the parent of a child with a developmental disability I find this example absurd and a little insulting. To compare a nonverbal child with a profoundly gifted child? Seriously, this is ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You still haven't answered the question. What would you do if you found one if these kids in your classroom?

Probably a lot of us (the busy, devoted teachers of your children) don't read DCUM because there is not much here for us and some depressing threads never die. I have a lot to say on how I address the needs of highly gifted children. Rather than shooting off a few lines here (on a thread meant for teacher pet peeves, not gifted education), I'd like to do the question justice and write something more thorough outside of this thread and then link to it within the next day or two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These last few posts are helpful and moving the discussion forward. I've got a few points to toss in:

1. Most DC private schools are not selecting on academic ability in the lower schools. So the "top" privates are in fact widely varied in the children they serve, with kids ranging from the 70th (and even lower) percentile and up. The bulk of kids in the lower schools of these schools are clustered around the 80th percentile, from the data I have seen administrators share. (Please correct me if you have knowledge otherwise; I'd be genuinely interested). I am not measuring by WPSSI scores here, which can be unreliable and skew by parent coaching, but on Olsat/ERB/etc results.

2. By high school, these schools are selecting heavily on academic ability and are heavily tracked.

3. A curriculum that serves the 80th percentile well is way too easy and slow for kids with IQs of 130ish and up (98%+ percentile)

4. Thus in discussing "gifted" kids needs in the classroom, I think most parents are complaining about lower and early middle school, where teachers in all the big DC privates are asked to teach the same course to kids with a wide range of abilities.

5. I totally agree with the teacher who said that kids in these schools with IQs in the 95-99th percentile are not uncommon.

6. But I totally disagree with her/him that those children are currently adequately served by DCs private schools. They are, for the most part, seriously underchallenged until they hit high school. That's a lot of years of being bored at school.

Please tell me you're a parent and not a teacher. Because you really don't know what you're talking about re curriculum and challenge.

So, that's not really a helpful and productive response. If you disagree with one or more of the points above, please explain why. Then we can learn from each other. If you just say "you really don't know what you're talking about", that doesn't actually offer a counterpoint or anything to discuss. Its just a random insult.

[Anonymous]

Really, what is with you people who keep posting on gifted issues? This is a teacher pet peeve thread. I suppose the demands for information on teaching of the gifted are relevant in that they illustrate a particular brand of parental interaction that is a pet peeve.

[Anonymous]

Pet peeve (at a school with a dress code): stinky unwashed wet wool blazers that smell like wet dog on rainy days! (Plea to parents--get that blazer dry cleaned once a quarter! Buy a back-up blazer at a consignment store.). Please sink the stink!

[Anonymous]

Non dress code pet peeve: upper school girls wearing super short skirts and exposing major cleavage, often paired with high boots for what is the classic "Pretty Woman" workin' girl look. Yikes.

Additional unisex school clothes pet peeve: boys and girls wearing pajama tops and/or bottoms to school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Really, what is with you people who keep posting on gifted issues? This is a teacher pet peeve thread. I suppose the demands for information on teaching of the gifted are relevant in that they illustrate a particular brand of parental interaction that is a pet peeve.

It's a sidetrack of a sidetrack. The original teacher pet peeve was about parents who think their 95% kid deserves different treatment from the rest of the class - which is probably mostly other 95% kids. One parent turned this into a perceived attack on 99.999% kids. It took us a while to sort out this derailment, but I think we're done now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Non dress code pet peeve: upper school girls wearing super short skirts and exposing major cleavage, often paired with high boots for what is the classic "Pretty Woman" workin' girl look. Yikes.

Additional unisex school clothes pet peeve: boys and girls wearing pajama tops and/or bottoms to school.

With the wrong kind of boots, it's more like Jersey Shore.

[Anonymous]

Technology Pet Peeve: The idea (sometimes emanating from parents, sometimes from admin who haven't taught) that somehow handing every kid a laptop will automatically make them a high achiever, and conversely that teaching without having all the kids on laptops is substandard.

[Anonymous]

#? Parents who chat on their phone in carpool line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For kids on the extreme ends of the spectrum-- either profound learning disabilities or profoundly gifted-- not every independent school is going to meet their needs. For example, a child who is nonverbal, or reading at a 2nd grade level, is not going to succeed in my classroom. I don't have a parapro or teaching partner; I don't have a resource room. A parent of such a child would undoubtedly be counseled to look into a different program.

Huh? Why would there be a nonverbal child in a mainstream private school classroom? Or a child who can barely read in middle school? As the parent of a child with a developmental disability I find this example absurd and a little insulting. To compare a nonverbal child with a profoundly gifted child? Seriously, this is ridiculous.

The point is, there wouldn't be. I don't see why you're so insulted. Calm down, lady.

[Anonymous]

Well presumably that PP's point was that a profoundly gifted kid might well be enrolled in a local private. So one kind of outlier (developmental disability) is addressed through exclusion. Is the same approach taken to the kid at the other end of the spectrum (giftedness) or does the school handle that child's situation differently?

[Anonymous]

Derailment alert, Derailment alert! Smiley face emoticon, if I knew how to do it.