Teacher is a jerk

[Anonymous]

My upper school son has a teacher who is just a complete jerk. Constantly sarcastic, rude, openly calls some questions dumb questions, etc. The thing that I can’t figure out is that he is very highly regarded at the school my admin and many other students/parents but it is not a good fit whatsoever for my son. Do I bother going to the school to complain or just tell my kid to keep his head down and tough it out?

[Anonymous]

Something similar happened to my DS. Some people loved a particular teacher who joked a lot, and I think had more of a locker room style. My nerdy son hated it. He felt teased. We had lots of discussions about how there are lots of senses of humor, and lots of types of people in the world. You’ll have lots of types of bosses and you just have to adjust to them sometimes. By middle school, I think it’s on the student to deal with it, even if the teacher annoys them or has a style they don’t like. My DS was also on the immature side and would have loved to have nurturing, organized teachers forever but had to learn teachers come in many shapes and sizes.

[Anonymous]

Your son is presumably in high school, so why not encourage him to go speak to his advisor or dean to ask if it's possible to transfer to a class taught by a different teacher. If he's stuck in that class, then he's just going to have to learn to deal with it. It's a good life lesson- sometimes you have to just figure out how to deal with people who you don't jive with and find difficult. Mommy going to complain isn't going to help (unless it was a situation where the teacher was being abusive, which from your post does not sound like the case- it sounds like his style/personality work for some but not your son).

[Anonymous]

Which school ?

[Anonymous]

We have a senior in private school and have had some bad teachers. This is not a reason to ask for a reassignment and you know this - that is why you are here. Some people are jerks. As long as your kid is learning and he isn’t being bullied by the teacher, you need to deal with it.

[Anonymous]

Oh we had that problem at a private. My oldest son basically said that this teacher was abusive. I was so happy when he left. Now that my boys are done with the school, the abusive teacher is back! I just can't imagine what the school was thinking by hiring this guy back again.