What do you think of nit picky teachers? 6th grade

[Anonymous]

As a teacher, this thread was mostly encouraging. It often feels like the vast majority of my parents are as self-centered and one dimensional as OP, and the amount of understanding and common sense here is really uplifting

[Anonymous]

Hasn't anyone watched The Karate Kid? You have to learn to paint the fence, sand the floors, wax the cars before you learn to fight. So much of what is actually taught in early schooling is how to meet certain expectations throughout your lifetime. Yes, some kids will be brilliant disruptors who never have to show up at an office on time and do the thankless grunt work for a taskmaster who has in turn already put in their own time. But the vast, vast majority of us have to play the game. While we're born ready to absorb and apply subject matter knowledge, discipline is a learned skill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would drive me nuts also, honestly. People who FOLLOW DIRECTIONS are going to turn into adults who are stuck in middle management and follow processes and procedures without thinking and doing better to make things more efficient.

But yes, help him highlight directions and think through the steps for now.

Or people who keep jobs because they complete tasks assigned to them in the way they are directed to.

Or they learn when it is ok to deviate from the directions, normally when talking to other people about their ideas. But at least there is some acknowledgement that they know that they were suppose to do X.

And as an adult you understand the consequences for deviating from the rules can be losing your job. As a kid, the consequence is a bad grade. It is up to OP to determine if she is going to teach her kid to complete all the steps, so he has a better chance at success, or complain about a part of the assignment that the kid thinks is silly.

OP here. Obviously we are working on helping my kid follow the directions.

However, I am allowed to privately think these rules are silly and don't actually measure the content he has been learning.

I'm never going to agree about the coloring border thing.

You don't have to agree with it but he still has to do it.

I think using 10 point font instead of 11 or 12 point font when there is enough white space is stupid but if I use 12 point font I get called out on it when I brief. Those are the rules. I want my customer to focus on my words and not be upset about font size so I use the font size that I am told to use. Is it stupid? Yup but it is what it is.

Your son was given a direction, he didn't follow it, he was docked. It was stupid. You can even say "Yeah, I don't get why you needed to color a border but that is what the teacher told you to do. Next time draw a border of snakes or sharks or Pokemon or what ever he likes. If you don't, you will lose points on the project."

Part of life is learning to pick your battles.

And it sounds like you are more frustrated and working hard to help your child. Keep fighting the good fight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hasn't anyone watched The Karate Kid? You have to learn to paint the fence, sand the floors, wax the cars before you learn to fight. So much of what is actually taught in early schooling is how to meet certain expectations throughout your lifetime. Yes, some kids will be brilliant disruptors who never have to show up at an office on time and do the thankless grunt work for a taskmaster who has in turn already put in their own time. But the vast, vast majority of us have to play the game. While we're born ready to absorb and apply subject matter knowledge, discipline is a learned skill.

Left hand.. right hand... left hand.. right hand.
I just love that movie.
I'm with you, PP. And, OP, once your special snowflake arrives at his first workplace, he'll quickly figure out coloring should be done just so and this is not up for a debate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm surprised at how many people are dismissing the importance of following directions and actually doing what was assigned, even at work.

If I give an employee a task with specific instructions, it's because I need it that way. Maybe I need a specific font, or maybe even a specific border, because your task is one small part of a bigger presentation and I don't have time to be fixing everyone's borders and fonts.

And if I ask you to prepare a presentation on XYZ, I'm not going to be happy if you give me a presentation about ABC,
no matter how amazing it is and how much brilliance it showed. I asked you to demonstrate XYZ.

Especially in the case of the Spanish test, the child did *not* demonstrate knowledge that was asked. If OP's kid wrote that Buenos Dias means good day, it does *not* demonstrate that he knows when or how to use the phrase, which it sounds like was what was being evaluated.

This is the thing though. Doesn't knowing that Buenos Dias means "good morning" in English indicate that you know it is a greeting and not a farewell? I mean, it's strongly implied. It's worthy of partial credit.

I hate stingy teachers who are just looking for ways to knock kids down instead of build them up. A lot of teachers hate kids.

PP said “good day,” not “good morning.” Which kind of just proves the point.

No one says "good day" in English. They say something that more specifically points to the time of day: morning, afternoon, evening. That's the more accurate translation. You would use Buenos tardes for afternoon or noche for evening.

Is English even your first language?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYZ6_n7Mpb0

[Anonymous]

He didn't follow directions. That's a fail to me, and not a picky teacher.

[Anonymous]

Teacher here and you should absolutely contact the teacher and principal or assistant principal. Be polite and respectful but you can be assertive. Do not apologize that your child has ADHD or a 504. Do not act like you are asking for a favor or preferential treatment, you are not. You are standing up for a child with a disability.

If the child has a 504 or IEP that requires direction and instruction clarification. This accommodation was not given and the kids subsequently got a D then the teacher needs to either correct the grade based on whether his answers met the substantive mastery of what she was testing OR give him a new test and clarify the instructions.

There is a reason why IEP and 504 are protected by federal laws. The whole point of a 504 or IEP is to a level the playing field so a child with a learning disability can access the education and b to provide consistency so the parent/child does not need to constantly re-negotiate or explain the LD. As a teacher you can be a complete asshole and hate kids with LDS or accommodations but guess what- your job is to teach them and failing to follow the 504/IEP is an actionable offense.

The reality is that there are good teachers and bad teachers. There is an inherent imbalance of power between a student and teacher. Long ago when I was an intern I saw kids with LDs and 504/IEP come up to a teacher and ask for help only to be batted away. Sadly for that teacher the ONLY kids who has their plans followed were the ones for whom their parents complained to the AP.

OP -you are not asking for any favors by insisting that the teacher follow the 504. a 504 is not a special favor, it is a legal right for someone with a disability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Better to learn to follow directions now.

I teach college and last year I had a student hand in an essay that completely missed the purpose of the assignments. She was a great student, had been doing very well in the course, was a lovely person but for whatever reason she just went completely off base on her final term paper. She wrote a great paper and obviously put a lot of work into it but it wasn't the paper that was assigned.

I graded using a rubric and there were parts of the rubric that I couldn't even apply to her paper. I gave her marks where I could and her final mark was around 40%.

She contacted me immediately asking to meet. She came to my office and she looked like she had been through something awful. She told me she couldn't sleep or eat, that she had never failed anything and she didn't know how to cope with this. She started sobbing in my office and it was a bit heart wrenching. I could see that she really didn't know how to cope with this. She pleaded and pleaded to let her rewrite it or to grade it differently or do a bonus assignment or anything because she couldn't accept a failing grade. I said no to all and she was honestly almost traumatized. I really think this was the most difficult thing that she had gone through (as a high achiever). I had to get her support from a friend to leave my office. Her mom called me a couple days later pleading with me to do something as her daughter was not coping well and this had impacted her mental health.

I met twice more with the student helping her to learn to cope and build resilience and never changed her mark. That would have been the easy out for me and made her happy but this was a life lesson she needed to learn and it was what was fair. She never fully understood. She did pull herself back together and did fine in my class (above the class average but lower than her usual marks). It would have been much much better for her to learn this when she was younger.

This story is horrible. Makes you sound awful and sadistic.

Yeah, you don't come off here well at all, college instructor!

What?! NP here. I can't believe you are advocating for changing a grade in response to a COLLEGE STUDENT who melts down when she makes a mistake.

Are you all unfamiliar with assignments? Rubrics? What planet am I living on??

This poster has given you a perfect example, wrapped in a bow, of why children should learn that details matter. Gah!

No I don't think the grade should be changed. But the college student asked to write another paper, on the correct topic this time, for partial credit and she turned her down.

I don't think she should get an A for the rewrite but maybe a C or a B which is better than a low F.

This is not a thing. Did you not go to college? Or highschool, even? Where are you getting this idea that you get to redo assignments you screwed up? Honest question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Better to learn to follow directions now.

I teach college and last year I had a student hand in an essay that completely missed the purpose of the assignments. She was a great student, had been doing very well in the course, was a lovely person but for whatever reason she just went completely off base on her final term paper. She wrote a great paper and obviously put a lot of work into it but it wasn't the paper that was assigned.

I graded using a rubric and there were parts of the rubric that I couldn't even apply to her paper. I gave her marks where I could and her final mark was around 40%.

She contacted me immediately asking to meet. She came to my office and she looked like she had been through something awful. She told me she couldn't sleep or eat, that she had never failed anything and she didn't know how to cope with this. She started sobbing in my office and it was a bit heart wrenching. I could see that she really didn't know how to cope with this. She pleaded and pleaded to let her rewrite it or to grade it differently or do a bonus assignment or anything because she couldn't accept a failing grade. I said no to all and she was honestly almost traumatized. I really think this was the most difficult thing that she had gone through (as a high achiever). I had to get her support from a friend to leave my office. Her mom called me a couple days later pleading with me to do something as her daughter was not coping well and this had impacted her mental health.

I met twice more with the student helping her to learn to cope and build resilience and never changed her mark. That would have been the easy out for me and made her happy but this was a life lesson she needed to learn and it was what was fair. She never fully understood. She did pull herself back together and did fine in my class (above the class average but lower than her usual marks). It would have been much much better for her to learn this when she was younger.


This story is horrible. Makes you sound awful and sadistic.


Yeah, you don't come off here well at all, college instructor!

+2 I was a college professor too. I'm guessing that you were an adjunct.. No one who is an expert in their field is going to get off on giving a student a life lesson. Your post makes it clear that you were relishing the power that you had over this kid. Your life lesson is pretty incorrect anyway. There are few times in academia or the professional world when you make a mistake and can not fix it. In fact, the ability to jump in an fix your mistake is what makes people successful. You seldom hit a complete wall -other than at the DMV. A student coming forward, admitting that they were wrong and made a mistake and then offering to do whatever academic work was necessary to address the problem is golden. I and any of my colleagues would have had her do another assignment and taken a point penalty.

You're lucky that she didn't go to her dean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Better to learn to follow directions now.

I teach college and last year I had a student hand in an essay that completely missed the purpose of the assignments. She was a great student, had been doing very well in the course, was a lovely person but for whatever reason she just went completely off base on her final term paper. She wrote a great paper and obviously put a lot of work into it but it wasn't the paper that was assigned.

I graded using a rubric and there were parts of the rubric that I couldn't even apply to her paper. I gave her marks where I could and her final mark was around 40%.

She contacted me immediately asking to meet. She came to my office and she looked like she had been through something awful. She told me she couldn't sleep or eat, that she had never failed anything and she didn't know how to cope with this. She started sobbing in my office and it was a bit heart wrenching. I could see that she really didn't know how to cope with this. She pleaded and pleaded to let her rewrite it or to grade it differently or do a bonus assignment or anything because she couldn't accept a failing grade. I said no to all and she was honestly almost traumatized. I really think this was the most difficult thing that she had gone through (as a high achiever). I had to get her support from a friend to leave my office. Her mom called me a couple days later pleading with me to do something as her daughter was not coping well and this had impacted her mental health.

I met twice more with the student helping her to learn to cope and build resilience and never changed her mark. That would have been the easy out for me and made her happy but this was a life lesson she needed to learn and it was what was fair. She never fully understood. She did pull herself back together and did fine in my class (above the class average but lower than her usual marks). It would have been much much better for her to learn this when she was younger.

This story is horrible. Makes you sound awful and sadistic.

Yeah, you don't come off here well at all, college instructor!

What?! NP here. I can't believe you are advocating for changing a grade in response to a COLLEGE STUDENT who melts down when she makes a mistake.

Are you all unfamiliar with assignments? Rubrics? What planet am I living on??

This poster has given you a perfect example, wrapped in a bow, of why children should learn that details matter. Gah!

No I don't think the grade should be changed. But the college student asked to write another paper, on the correct topic this time, for partial credit and she turned her down.

I don't think she should get an A for the rewrite but maybe a C or a B which is better than a low F.

This is not a thing. Did you not go to college? Or highschool, even? Where are you getting this idea that you get to redo assignments you screwed up? Honest question.

I went to a top 25 R1 university according to US News. Professors worked with students like this all the time. You just had to be willing to show interest and initiative and they’d gobble that up.

In fact, I once got a professor to give me an alternate test date so I could go out of town with friends. He later recommended me for full MBA scholarship because I asked him what he considered good, thought provoking questions.

In another situation, I accidentally wrote an essay on the wrong topic but it was so good that I got full marks anyway.

The professors in my major voted me best student when I graduated.

The point is, people know when the rules are dumb and don’t always matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here and you should absolutely contact the teacher and principal or assistant principal. Be polite and respectful but you can be assertive. Do not apologize that your child has ADHD or a 504. Do not act like you are asking for a favor or preferential treatment, you are not. You are standing up for a child with a disability.

If the child has a 504 or IEP that requires direction and instruction clarification. This accommodation was not given and the kids subsequently got a D then the teacher needs to either correct the grade based on whether his answers met the substantive mastery of what she was testing OR give him a new test and clarify the instructions.

There is a reason why IEP and 504 are protected by federal laws. The whole point of a 504 or IEP is to a level the playing field so a child with a learning disability can access the education and b to provide consistency so the parent/child does not need to constantly re-negotiate or explain the LD. As a teacher you can be a complete asshole and hate kids with LDS or accommodations but guess what- your job is to teach them and failing to follow the 504/IEP is an actionable offense.

The reality is that there are good teachers and bad teachers. There is an inherent imbalance of power between a student and teacher. Long ago when I was an intern I saw kids with LDs and 504/IEP come up to a teacher and ask for help only to be batted away. Sadly for that teacher the ONLY kids who has their plans followed were the ones for whom their parents complained to the AP.

OP -you are not asking for any favors by insisting that the teacher follow the 504. a 504 is not a special favor, it is a legal right for someone with a disability.

This is a great suggestion. But let's be clear - is issue here is that the teacher didn't follow the 504. The issue is NOT that the teacher is nit picky or that the teacher should have given credit despite not following directions. That the kid has a 504 and it wasn't followed. Period. If a different kid had done the same with without any accommodations required, the teacher's actions would have been 100% right.
s

[Anonymous]

OP here. I’m honestly surprised by the responses in this thread. I really don’t think I am sone special snowflake but people have bent the (dumb, petty type) rules for me all my life. I guess I had assumed that was happening for other people too.

Fwiw my husband also thinks this way of grading is dumb and pointless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I’m honestly surprised by the responses in this thread. I really don’t think I am sone special snowflake but people have bent the (dumb, petty type) rules for me all my life. I guess I had assumed that was happening for other people too.

Fwiw my husband also thinks this way of grading is dumb and pointless.

You realize it is like the height of privilege to say things like this, yes?

You sound so out of touch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I’m honestly surprised by the responses in this thread. I really don’t think I am sone special snowflake but people have bent the (dumb, petty type) rules for me all my life. I guess I had assumed that was happening for other people too.

Fwiw my husband also thinks this way of grading is dumb and pointless.

You realize it is like the height of privilege to say things like this, yes?

You sound so out of touch.

It's out of touch and privileged to think the Spanish teacher should recognize that my kid actually does know all of the Spanish vocabulary from this first unit and grade him accordingly??

What is the actual purpose of this class if it is not to demonstrate knowledge of Spanish?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I’m honestly surprised by the responses in this thread. I really don’t think I am sone special snowflake but people have bent the (dumb, petty type) rules for me all my life. I guess I had assumed that was happening for other people too.

Fwiw my husband also thinks this way of grading is dumb and pointless.

You both sound insufferable, entitled, arrogant and clueless to boot.