I hate my son's teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Years ago a parent blamed me because her 4th grade daughter was not one of the "popular kids" in her classroom.
This was in an American school overseas. This particular family was from Bethesda.
Being in my early 20's I was first confused at this allegation. We then had to meet in the principal's office. I learned that the student did not appreciate me speaking French with the francophone kids during lunch. The mom continued to say that all the boys liked one of the French girls. She also said had I not been playing favorites, her daughter would have been popular with the boys too.
I looked at her and flatly told her that instead of blaming me, she should put her overweight kid on a diet.
Needless to say my principal was quite upset with me. The mom pulled the girl out of the school (there was only one 4th grade class) and went back to Bethesda.
The one thing I learned from this bizarre incident was to make sure not to show any kind of favoritism to any student.

DAMN that's not cool. Was this story supposed to make you look like a not terrible person?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you ever look at your child and then head for the mirror?

probably not, eh?

+1 Just looking at OP's post it is pretty easy to see which two people are the problem in this triangle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Years ago a parent blamed me because her 4th grade daughter was not one of the "popular kids" in her classroom.
This was in an American school overseas. This particular family was from Bethesda.
Being in my early 20's I was first confused at this allegation. We then had to meet in the principal's office. I learned that the student did not appreciate me speaking French with the francophone kids during lunch. The mom continued to say that all the boys liked one of the French girls. She also said had I not been playing favorites, her daughter would have been popular with the boys too.
I looked at her and flatly told her that instead of blaming me, she should put her overweight kid on a diet.
Needless to say my principal was quite upset with me. The mom pulled the girl out of the school (there was only one 4th grade class) and went back to Bethesda.
The one thing I learned from this bizarre incident was to make sure not to show any kind of favoritism to any student.

DAMN that's not cool. Was this story supposed to make you look like a not terrible person?

Should she have said that? Of course not. Did she say it in front of the kid? No.

Should the grown adult parent have called a meeting to whine repeatedly about how it's the teacher's fault that her kid is not "one of the popular girls?" Of course not. How asinine and pathetic on the part of the mother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please spell out what makes a teacher awful. --a teacher who wants to know

For my son in k, beyond the lack of warm fuzzies for little kids entering a gigantic overcrowded ES, yelling at kids for whom english was not their first language, slamming desks, when a little boy new to the school from a foreign country had an accident she pointed and said, "what is that smell?," and told me, the parent volunteer, to take him to the nurse (the pointing and belittling was the problem, not me taking him to the nurse)

Same teacher on back to school night (obviously my son is not in k now) told us that she carpooled with another teacher and on days she wasn't driving, she slept on the way home because she was so exhausted from spending the day with our children. Also that she couldn't wait to get back to ______, her home state where she wasn't able to get a job, so she came to MC.

[Anonymous]

Some teachers are just giant bitches, though. My son's 2nd grade teacher disliked him because she viewed him as an oversensitive crybaby (which was true). During the 2nd grade year, I was diagnosed with cancer and let the teacher know that my son was likely to be more emotional and be struggling a bit with my diagnosis and treatment. The teacher just became meaner and less sympathetic toward my kid. A few years earlier, the same teacher told me that it was my DD's fault for being bullied. The "cool kids" thought my DD was annoying and the problem was not that the "cool kids" were excluding and mocking my DD, but rather that my DD was an annoying child.

9/12 of my kids' teachers were great. 2/12 were okay. But the 1 bad one was terrible. I still don't understand why she went into teaching when she clearly hates most children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had a teacher I didn't like at a private. She had a preferences for girls (I have a boy), often treating the boys poorly. Ha! She just had a baby boy.

HA! Now that's funny!

The sad reality though is that I'm seeing more and more female educators who dislike boys. I'm not sure what their problem is with boys. Maybe because they have poor relationships with their fathers, were teased by boys, rejected by boys in high or in college. It's like they have penis envy or something. I find teachers like this scary and destructive. Thousands of boys get misdiagnosed and labeled with problems that they don't even have due to male hating staff at their school. I honestly believe that there is a growing push to emasculate and to psychologically castrate boys in many schools.

Amen.

I actually think elementary schools are more biased toward boys than girls!

For example: we have flexible seating and tables and bouncy chairs because boys are more wiggly. Girls usually enjoy having separate desks with space where they can put pencil cases, books and personal belongings.

Classroom rules have gotten lax. They have gotten louder with more free movement, but girls typically are good at focusing and being quiet, so this favors boys’ learning style.

As to the poster above, lol. Maybe in prior generations, but my child’s school is VERY laidback. Think about our parents generation when boys were smacked with rulers! Or grabbed by the ear. Now classrooms are made for boys.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a lawyer. If my clients don't like my services, they can fire me and hire a new lawyer. They don't have to discuss it with me. They can call me or send me a note or just go hire someone else and the new lawyer can contact me. When my child is having a bad year in school because her teacher has 0 classroom control skills or repeatedly tells students to "shut up" or ridicules them openly in class or forgets to keep a record grades and gives kids zeroes instead of admitting that she lost a stack of tests, I can't fire that teacher and go find a new one. My kid is stuck for a school year. There are LOADS of bad lawyers. LOADS of them. Statistically, there are probably fewer bad teachers than there are bad lawyers, but lawyers are much easier to get rid off and they don't have as high an impact on kids.

It's a lot easier to switch teachers than you think. I have a senior in high school and we've done it approximately three times during her 12 years. I'm not about to sacrifice her education and put her with lousy teacher. Parents do have options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My children had some teachers who loved them and some, not so much. Teachers are people, too.

is true, it's not a love connection every year between the teacher and the student. And that is okay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Been there. Don't wast time. Have him moved to another class IMMEDIATELY

For those who had their child moved to another class, how did you go about this? I have tried communicating with my son's teacher (he had her last year too) about the things that concern me and she is dismissive, condescending, and unresponsive. In 1.5 years I have only expressed my unhappiness with three major issues, one of which was an untreated injury that happened on her watch. I haven't gone barking to her about the small stuff and I have never gone above her head to the administration. She did something recently that was just over the top and once again blew me off. Now I am thinking of taking it up the chain, though I am nervous about this. (Honestly, I am unhappy with school for other reasons, too, but that's for another thread.) How do you request a new teacher mid-year? How was this received?

I've always been pretty directed to the point. Email the principal saying that you're requesting a new teacher and list off the reasons why.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As kids gets softer, teachers seem meaner. I don't mean that teachers should be mean but what many kids today consider mean is over the top. With kids believe they should never experience any negative emotion, never be held responsible, be allowed to set their own expectations, and be treated as though they are special - the world around them seems mean. We see that on here - normal child behavior is called bullying, anything that is said that isn't inspiring is mean. if someone disagrees, they are mean. If they say anything that isn't nice, even if it is true it is mean and bullying. Not inviting every child to a birthday party is mean. etc..

The definition of mean has changed a great deal over time. In the past children were expected to be respectful and to see teachers as authority figures who were allowed to set expectations for them. That is now gone.

Adversity build resilience. Now adversity is a bad word, and resilience is vanishing. Kids are growing up to be a 'nation of wimps', with ever increasing mental health problems in early adulthood because they can't handle the pressure or expectations of life. They think the world around them is mean and unfair and they crumble.

There are many students in the US I think high expectations equals mean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a lawyer. If my clients don't like my services, they can fire me and hire a new lawyer. They don't have to discuss it with me. They can call me or send me a note or just go hire someone else and the new lawyer can contact me. When my child is having a bad year in school because her teacher has 0 classroom control skills or repeatedly tells students to "shut up" or ridicules them openly in class or forgets to keep a record grades and gives kids zeroes instead of admitting that she lost a stack of tests, I can't fire that teacher and go find a new one. My kid is stuck for a school year. There are LOADS of bad lawyers. LOADS of them. Statistically, there are probably fewer bad teachers than there are bad lawyers, but lawyers are much easier to get rid off and they don't have as high an impact on kids.

It's a lot easier to switch teachers than you think. I have a senior in high school and we've done it approximately three times during her 12 years. I'm not about to sacrifice her education and put her with lousy teacher. Parents do have options.

Trophy-participation parent detected. Keeping your child in a bubble wrap instead of dealing and learning to deal with adversity. College should be fun!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a lawyer. If my clients don't like my services, they can fire me and hire a new lawyer. They don't have to discuss it with me. They can call me or send me a note or just go hire someone else and the new lawyer can contact me. When my child is having a bad year in school because her teacher has 0 classroom control skills or repeatedly tells students to "shut up" or ridicules them openly in class or forgets to keep a record grades and gives kids zeroes instead of admitting that she lost a stack of tests, I can't fire that teacher and go find a new one. My kid is stuck for a school year. There are LOADS of bad lawyers. LOADS of them. Statistically, there are probably fewer bad teachers than there are bad lawyers, but lawyers are much easier to get rid off and they don't have as high an impact on kids.

It's a lot easier to switch teachers than you think. I have a senior in high school and we've done it approximately three times during her 12 years. I'm not about to sacrifice her education and put her with lousy teacher. Parents do have options.

Trophy-participation parent detected. Keeping your child in a bubble wrap instead of dealing and learning to deal with adversity. College should be fun!

Ah yes, college, a place notorious for your inability to choose courses and faculty!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Been there. Don't wast time. Have him moved to another class IMMEDIATELY

For those who had their child moved to another class, how did you go about this? I have tried communicating with my son's teacher (he had her last year too) about the things that concern me and she is dismissive, condescending, and unresponsive. In 1.5 years I have only expressed my unhappiness with three major issues, one of which was an untreated injury that happened on her watch. I haven't gone barking to her about the small stuff and I have never gone above her head to the administration. She did something recently that was just over the top and once again blew me off. Now I am thinking of taking it up the chain, though I am nervous about this. (Honestly, I am unhappy with school for other reasons, too, but that's for another thread.) How do you request a new teacher mid-year? How was this received?

I've always been pretty directed to the point. Email the principal saying that you're requesting a new teacher and list off the reasons why.

But what if the principal hates your kid too? That was my kid. He had an LD that she did not want to recognize and she was rotten to him. He is a successful hs now, but looking back, those days were just awful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Years ago a parent blamed me because her 4th grade daughter was not one of the "popular kids" in her classroom.
This was in an American school overseas. This particular family was from Bethesda.
Being in my early 20's I was first confused at this allegation. We then had to meet in the principal's office. I learned that the student did not appreciate me speaking French with the francophone kids during lunch. The mom continued to say that all the boys liked one of the French girls. She also said had I not been playing favorites, her daughter would have been popular with the boys too.
I looked at her and flatly told her that instead of blaming me, she should put her overweight kid on a diet.
Needless to say my principal was quite upset with me. The mom pulled the girl out of the school (there was only one 4th grade class) and went back to Bethesda.
The one thing I learned from this bizarre incident was to make sure not to show any kind of favoritism to any student.

DAMN that's not cool. Was this story supposed to make you look like a not terrible person?

Should she have said that? Of course not. Did she say it in front of the kid? No.

Should the grown adult parent have called a meeting to whine repeatedly about how it's the teacher's fault that her kid is not "one of the popular girls?" Of course not. How asinine and pathetic on the part of the mother.

NP, the problem I see is that she is admitting that she was showing favoritism to particular students, and its bizarre that she needed this experience to learn to not do that. It still sounds like, the lesson for her was to not get caught while doing so. I am sure the parent overreacted but OP sounds like a crappy teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Years ago a parent blamed me because her 4th grade daughter was not one of the "popular kids" in her classroom.
This was in an American school overseas. This particular family was from Bethesda.
Being in my early 20's I was first confused at this allegation. We then had to meet in the principal's office. I learned that the student did not appreciate me speaking French with the francophone kids during lunch. The mom continued to say that all the boys liked one of the French girls. She also said had I not been playing favorites, her daughter would have been popular with the boys too.
I looked at her and flatly told her that instead of blaming me, she should put her overweight kid on a diet.
Needless to say my principal was quite upset with me. The mom pulled the girl out of the school (there was only one 4th grade class) and went back to Bethesda.
The one thing I learned from this bizarre incident was to make sure not to show any kind of favoritism to any student.

DAMN that's not cool. Was this story supposed to make you look like a not terrible person?

Should she have said that? Of course not. Did she say it in front of the kid? No.

Should the grown adult parent have called a meeting to whine repeatedly about how it's the teacher's fault that her kid is not "one of the popular girls?" Of course not. How asinine and pathetic on the part of the mother.

Yeah I'm not going to fully believe the story of anyone who says these kinds of things. If she's this shitty in her OWN retelling of the story, I'm perfectly willing to believe that she was behaving badly IRL.

NP, the problem I see is that she is admitting that she was showing favoritism to particular students, and its bizarre that she needed this experience to learn to not do that. It still sounds like, the lesson for her was to not get caught while doing so. I am sure the parent overreacted but OP sounds like a crappy teacher.