I think it's a difference, yes. The food is generally pretty healthy - I have been in the classroom enough to know that it's not crappy yogurt for breakfast every morning and that lunch and snack are usually pretty healthy (whole grains, fresh fruit and vegetables, lean proteins). I know that there are some things that my child likes more than other things, but that's how kids are. As for the TV issue, it's once a week in aftercare and I don't think it's the end of the world. Other people feel differently. Historically, there have been issues in DCPS-run aftercare with over-reliance on TV. I just don't consider "once a week for an hour" to be "over-reliance" and given that it's in aftercare, I am less concerned than if it was during class time. My issue is actually the way that these things are presented as concerns because it ends up as a "our school's values" thing from parents of 3 and 4 year olds, and then the parents of older students who don't see one movie afternoon in aftercare and some crappy yogurt to be a huge issue feel like their values are being ignored. |
| I view "entitlement" as asking for excessive or unwarranted special treatment for your own child, or taking up too much staff time. But bringing up issues that affect everyone, without blowing them out of proportion, is fair. We all have things we think are important and less important, and reasonable people can differ. So we just have to talk about it. |
| It does not seem entitled to ask for a school to have a no movies/screen time policy for early childhood, in both the regular program and the after care. Screen time for these grades just means that the school is being lazy. |
It does not seem entitled to you to tell people that they are lazy, because they are not doing their job in exactly the manner of which you approve? I don't care about one hour a week. I would care if it was every day, but I really do not think that one hour a week is a big deal. If that makes me "not an entitled EOTP gentrifier", I'm fine with that. |
Seems to me the Entitled Award goes to OP. |
I don't think you're entitled, and I don't think someone asking for no screen time is entitled. I do think a school that has screen time for little kids is being lazy. |
Hey Pp. What kind of lazy person are you? At work posting on DCUM? |
I wouldn't make a big deal about one hour a week. But there are different ways to do a job, there is cultural difference, and then there is laziness. Too much TV is laziness. Is there any acceptable way to call out laziness without being accused of entitlement? |
Yes. It begins with not suggesting that the way that someone is doing something is "lazy" or "against our values" when it is simply a policy you disagree with and you do not actually speak for the entire group. |
How does someone saying that screen time in school is lazy mean that they are speaking for a whole group? Can't they just speak for themselves? |
I was referring to the "against OUR values" part, which the father of a PK parent did say. The "our" in question was not referring to his family but to the school. The parents of older kids who didn't have a problem with the policy looked at him like he was crazy. |
+1 Also, turning on the TV is Not a "way of doing things." It's purely and simply an Out from "doing things" as a teacher. |
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Obviously he shouldn't have said that in front of others, bad judgment. But I do think that screen time policies reflect what a school culture values. This is not about screen time at home--it's about screen time at school. I have been to a bunch of Title I schools that say outright in their tours, "we do not allow movies and TV at school or in aftercare." And those that do allow it should know that there are going to be some parents who don't want that. |
I actually don't disagree with any of that at all. My own school has a screen time policy that has been problematic for some parents. I do think that there needs to be recognition on the part of the new, gentrifier parents that people do not tend to respond well when you enter a school, start saying that the way they did things before you got there is not acceptable/lazy/whatever without really knowing that much about the school other than what happens in their 3 year old's class. When you're attending a school that many would consider failing and you come in and a once-a-week movie is the thing you fixate on as a problem, the people who are worried about the educational and safety issues in the classrooms are going to see you as entitled. I am not saying that everyone behaves this way, but I have seen it. I still have no idea what the OP was talking about about fundraisers and classroom priorities. |