How to address biased HS teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Liberal teachers are biased, too. Except their bias is tolerated in teachers' lounges.

+1
And in the classroom and in the hallways.

You really enjoy your Fox News fantasies of teachers running through the hallways shaming straight white kids. In reality, teachers just want their students to listen, follow basic directions, and submit work on time. They don’t even have time or resources to implement their radical socialist CRT agendas!

It's not about indoctrination. Our kids' experience has been in the classroom with teachers showing their clear biases, siding with the majority of classmates who share their opinions, and our kids not feeling comfortable participating in the class discussions as the sole differing voice. What I especially object to is this type of thing happening in classes that shouldn't have anything to do with the subject matter being taught.

PP -- and I'll add that Fox news is banned in our house; so no, it's not my enjoyment of Fantasy Fox. It's my kid's more conservative values and opinions being shut down by clearly liberal teachers and not feeling comfortable participating in class discussions, even in subjects where such discussions should be taking place like history and world affairs.

They are being shut down because "conservative" is just a euphemism for racist, sexist, and generally bigoted. If you indoctrinated your children with a bigoted and ignorant worldview, then the whole point of school is to expose them to actual facts and good arguments. Just calling yourself "conservative" doesn't make those views legitimate opinions that can be defended with genuine argumentation in a class discussion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Liberal teachers are biased, too. Except their bias is tolerated in teachers' lounges.

Clearly you haven't been in many teacher lounged in Virginia. It is far from liberal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Liberal teachers are biased, too. Except their bias is tolerated in teachers' lounges.

+1
And in the classroom and in the hallways.

You really enjoy your Fox News fantasies of teachers running through the hallways shaming straight white kids. In reality, teachers just want their students to listen, follow basic directions, and submit work on time. They don’t even have time or resources to implement their radical socialist CRT agendas!

It's not about indoctrination. Our kids' experience has been in the classroom with teachers showing their clear biases, siding with the majority of classmates who share their opinions, and our kids not feeling comfortable participating in the class discussions as the sole differing voice. What I especially object to is this type of thing happening in classes that shouldn't have anything to do with the subject matter being taught.

PP -- and I'll add that Fox news is banned in our house; so no, it's not my enjoyment of Fantasy Fox. It's my kid's more conservative values and opinions being shut down by clearly liberal teachers and not feeling comfortable participating in class discussions, even in subjects where such discussions should be taking place like history and world affairs.

They are being shut down because "conservative" is just a euphemism for racist, sexist, and generally bigoted. If you indoctrinated your children with a bigoted and ignorant worldview, then the whole point of school is to expose them to actual facts and good arguments. Just calling yourself "conservative" doesn't make those views legitimate opinions that can be defended with genuine argumentation in a class discussion.

You must live in a crazy echo chamber. I have various friends who are liberal, far left, libertarian, conservative, etc. My conservative friends are not bigoted at all. They're nice, normal people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD had a teacher who expressed stereotypical views against certain racial groups. She would make comments about how certain students must be good at certain sports or other students must be good at math/science. She was an English teacher and it was obvious she felt only one group was good at writing. I spent the whole year wondering how to bring this up to the school and never did because it is such a difficult topic but I now spend way too much time thinking about how much I regret not raising it.

There must be many teachers like this who feel strongly on all political sides and most of them set aside their. biases when they walk into the classrooms but not all. I think more should be done to try to address this problem especially given what is going on with the whole critical race theory issue and the book banning nowadays.

That's the thing - if people don't want ideas on one side of the political spectrum in the classroom, they have to keep other sides out too. That's the whole idea of a viewpoint neutral classroom
-conservative who is very disgusted by what happened to OP's kid

Civil and human rights issues can't be "both sided." There is no legitimate side that says black people shouldn't be treated equally, for example, or that the holocaust was a good thing. The only other "side" to any LGBTQ issue is a religious one, which has no place in the classroom.

Teacher here. You are all treating this as a philosophical thing. Like the teacher asked the kid to consider why gay people should have rights. It was a writing ASSIGNMENT. In a genre- argument. On the SOL, persuasive writing needs a counter argument *and refutation.* OP’s kid chose the topic so while we may all agree there is no moral “both sides” to LGBTQ rights, the teacher can’t assess her ability to write a counter argument and refutation if she simply says “my topic doesn’t have one.” Sure it does - it’s your job to provide it AND refute it. If you can’t, choose another topic.

[Anonymous]

All I'm getting from this is OP's kid is too stupid to make up his own mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Liberal teachers are biased, too. Except their bias is tolerated in teachers' lounges.

+1
And in the classroom and in the hallways.

You really enjoy your Fox News fantasies of teachers running through the hallways shaming straight white kids. In reality, teachers just want their students to listen, follow basic directions, and submit work on time. They don’t even have time or resources to implement their radical socialist CRT agendas!

It's not about indoctrination. Our kids' experience has been in the classroom with teachers showing their clear biases, siding with the majority of classmates who share their opinions, and our kids not feeling comfortable participating in the class discussions as the sole differing voice. What I especially object to is this type of thing happening in classes that shouldn't have anything to do with the subject matter being taught.

PP -- and I'll add that Fox news is banned in our house; so no, it's not my enjoyment of Fantasy Fox. It's my kid's more conservative values and opinions being shut down by clearly liberal teachers and not feeling comfortable participating in class discussions, even in subjects where such discussions should be taking place like history and world affairs.

They are being shut down because "conservative" is just a euphemism for racist, sexist, and generally bigoted. If you indoctrinated your children with a bigoted and ignorant worldview, then the whole point of school is to expose them to actual facts and good arguments. Just calling yourself "conservative" doesn't make those views legitimate opinions that can be defended with genuine argumentation in a class discussion.

I'm not "conservative" and don't call myself "conservative." As I indicated earlier, both my spouse and I are liberal. But if a child of ours has less liberal positions, just what word am I supposed to use? Not everyone with more "traditional" or "conservative" viewpoints is a radical, ignorant alt-right racist, sexist bigot.

As for the rest of your assertion, "actual facts and good arguments" yes. However, it is not the school's job to make sure students are indoctrinated with extreme liberal views (which I sense you consider to equate to "actual facts and good arguments"), or even with conservative views, or neutral views. It is their job to teach objectively and factually. Part of doing that includes facilitating objective classroom discussions that include different perspectives and opinions. Far-left liberals can be just as bigoted and ignorant as their far-right wing counterparts. As it is, our household is neither far-left nor far-right. And even if we were, our children should not be made to feel they cannot politely and respectfully offer their views or ask questions on a topic in the classroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC has a teacher with known conservative views on many social issues (pro-choice, against gay marriage, aligned with groups that do not believe in affirmative action or kids who are trans using their preferred gender bathroom) based on previous advocacy work.

This year DC wrote what we thought was an excellent paper related to about a particular historical moment in the LGBT rights movement, and got a poor grade. When she got the rubric and grading back many items that were marked off did not make any sense. When she tried to inquire with the teacher the teacher was very defensive and kept coming back to the point that the teacher did not agree with the thesis. The teacher also came down on DC for not presenting the other view point which is that LGBT rights are not a good thing. DC did mention that there is opposition from some groups, especially religious groups, but it was not half her paper because the assignment was not to present all sides of an issue but to pick a moment and make an argument about it. One of my good friends is a HS teacher and read the assignment and paper and was shocked about the grade and thought this needed to be brought up to the administration.

We are not sure what to advise DC to do next if anything. Is this something you would bring up and how would you do it? Would you go to the teacher first? The department head or the principal? This is a public school.

You think the paper is wonderful because it represents your point of view and you feel that you are proving to the teacher she is wrong. The paper in fact could suck. Just depends. Does the rubric say to provide opposing viewpoints and explain them? Refute them? Teens' ideas of refuting an argument can be based on feelings but maybe the point was to refute the arguments with actual facts and citations. Even so they might pick the wrong facts that don't actually refute argument. It's still a learning process.

Your friend of course is going to tell you the paper is brilliant even if she doesn't think so.

Other posters are right, you and your DD just want the teacher to be wrong. It's a waste of time. Don't teach your kid this kind of nonsense. They don't need to try and fix the teachers view points. That's not her responsibility and it's not even possible. Do your kid a favor and just tell them yeah this wasn't the right approach, learn to tread your audience, and don't waste any more time on this.

These suggestions to cater to the teacher's personal biases, don't disturb the waters and just get your A and move on are terrible advice. Teens should be encouraged to consider different perspectives and stand up for what they believe in - whether it's pro-LGBTQ or pro-life. Telling them to just appease the teacher is a disservice to them and limits their education and learning.

Once I believed as you did, PP. my life experience has taught me that such views are extremely privileged to maintain. Kids should be aware of the cost too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD had a teacher who expressed stereotypical views against certain racial groups. She would make comments about how certain students must be good at certain sports or other students must be good at math/science. She was an English teacher and it was obvious she felt only one group was good at writing. I spent the whole year wondering how to bring this up to the school and never did because it is such a difficult topic but I now spend way too much time thinking about how much I regret not raising it.

There must be many teachers like this who feel strongly on all political sides and most of them set aside their. biases when they walk into the classrooms but not all. I think more should be done to try to address this problem especially given what is going on with the whole critical race theory issue and the book banning nowadays.

That's the thing - if people don't want ideas on one side of the political spectrum in the classroom, they have to keep other sides out too. That's the whole idea of a viewpoint neutral classroom
-conservative who is very disgusted by what happened to OP's kid

Civil and human rights issues can't be "both sided." There is no legitimate side that says black people shouldn't be treated equally, for example, or that the holocaust was a good thing. The only other "side" to any LGBTQ issue is a religious one, which has no place in the classroom.

Teacher here. You are all treating this as a philosophical thing. Like the teacher asked the kid to consider why gay people should have rights. It was a writing ASSIGNMENT. In a genre- argument. On the SOL, persuasive writing needs a counter argument *and refutation.* OP’s kid chose the topic so while we may all agree there is no moral “both sides” to LGBTQ rights, the teacher can’t assess her ability to write a counter argument and refutation if she simply says “my topic doesn’t have one.” Sure it does - it’s your job to provide it AND refute it. If you can’t, choose another topic.

x1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All I'm getting from this is OP's kid is too stupid to make up his own mind.

Nah, what I'm getting is that OP's kid is entitled. She failed to read the rubric, she failed to understand the assignment, she failed to understand that there is a counterargument to every argument, and she failed to understand that just because she's liberal and white and thinks she's woke that she can't make blanket statements without them being challenged. Now mom has jumped in and it is clear where the kid is getting it from cuz the apple didn't fall far from that tree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All I'm getting from this is OP's kid is too stupid to make up his own mind.

Nah, what I'm getting is that OP's kid is entitled. She failed to read the rubric, she failed to understand the assignment, she failed to understand that there is a counterargument to every argument, and she failed to understand that just because she's liberal and white and thinks she's woke that she can't make blanket statements without them being challenged. Now mom has jumped in and it is clear where the kid is getting it from cuz the apple didn't fall far from that tree.

Yes, the OP and OP's child must absolutely be white and wealthy. That's the only reason they would ever question a grade or the teacher's thinking. Especially when you read the original explanation of what happened...it's so obvious!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All I'm getting from this is OP's kid is too stupid to make up his own mind.

Nah, what I'm getting is that OP's kid is entitled. She failed to read the rubric, she failed to understand the assignment, she failed to understand that there is a counterargument to every argument, and she failed to understand that just because she's liberal and white and thinks she's woke that she can't make blanket statements without them being challenged. Now mom has jumped in and it is clear where the kid is getting it from cuz the apple didn't fall far from that tree.

Yes, the OP and OP's child must absolutely be white and wealthy. That's the only reason they would ever question a grade or the teacher's thinking. Especially when you read the original explanation of what happened...it's so obvious!

Since the gist of the OP's argument is that the teacher is conservative and her kid is woke, the 'OP's kid is entitled' argument does seem to have merit. After all, the OP cannot even adequately describe or rebut the arguments about the rubric. She can only keep claiming that the teacher is wrong because the teacher is biased. Huh. Go figure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All I'm getting from this is OP's kid is too stupid to make up his own mind.

Nah, what I'm getting is that OP's kid is entitled. She failed to read the rubric, she failed to understand the assignment, she failed to understand that there is a counterargument to every argument, and she failed to understand that just because she's liberal and white and thinks she's woke that she can't make blanket statements without them being challenged. Now mom has jumped in and it is clear where the kid is getting it from cuz the apple didn't fall far from that tree.

Yes, the OP and OP's child must absolutely be white and wealthy. That's the only reason they would ever question a grade or the teacher's thinking. Especially when you read the original explanation of what happened...it's so obvious!

Since the gist of the OP's argument is that the teacher is conservative and her kid is woke, the 'OP's kid is entitled' argument does seem to have merit. After all, the OP cannot even adequately describe or rebut the arguments about the rubric. She can only keep claiming that the teacher is wrong because the teacher is biased. Huh. Go figure.

The original post explained that they didn't understand the grading based on the rubrics. I think their assumption was that the child was graded low because the teacher didn't agree with the premise, since the original post also indicated that was their impression upon talking with the teacher. If the student otherwise has done well on similar assignments, then questioning an unusually low grade is not only natural but warranted.

[Anonymous]

Skip the teacher and go above them.

I had to do this once with my DD. The teacher was VERY biased and did not like my kid because she has two moms. She graded everything extremely harshly for my DD when we compared her work to her friend's work in the same class.

The teacher also made up random rules just so she could penalize ONLY my kid. For example, "no visible eraser marks" during the exam and this was a calc exam where scrap paper also wasn't allowed. DD lost points for eraser marks and when she asked to see the papers of 3 friends in the class, they had visible eraser marks and zero points lost.

That was actually the incident that sparred us bypassing the teacher and going straight to a meeting with the AP for her grade & Principal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC has a teacher with known conservative views on many social issues (pro-choice, against gay marriage, aligned with groups that do not believe in affirmative action or kids who are trans using their preferred gender bathroom) based on previous advocacy work.

This year DC wrote what we thought was an excellent paper related to about a particular historical moment in the LGBT rights movement, and got a poor grade. When she got the rubric and grading back many items that were marked off did not make any sense. When she tried to inquire with the teacher the teacher was very defensive and kept coming back to the point that the teacher did not agree with the thesis. The teacher also came down on DC for not presenting the other view point which is that LGBT rights are not a good thing. DC did mention that there is opposition from some groups, especially religious groups, but it was not half her paper because the assignment was not to present all sides of an issue but to pick a moment and make an argument about it. One of my good friends is a HS teacher and read the assignment and paper and was shocked about the grade and thought this needed to be brought up to the administration.

We are not sure what to advise DC to do next if anything. Is this something you would bring up and how would you do it? Would you go to the teacher first? The department head or the principal? This is a public school.

You think the paper is wonderful because it represents your point of view and you feel that you are proving to the teacher she is wrong. The paper in fact could suck. Just depends. Does the rubric say to provide opposing viewpoints and explain them? Refute them? Teens' ideas of refuting an argument can be based on feelings but maybe the point was to refute the arguments with actual facts and citations. Even so they might pick the wrong facts that don't actually refute argument. It's still a learning process.

Your friend of course is going to tell you the paper is brilliant even if she doesn't think so.

Other posters are right, you and your DD just want the teacher to be wrong. It's a waste of time. Don't teach your kid this kind of nonsense. They don't need to try and fix the teachers view points. That's not her responsibility and it's not even possible. Do your kid a favor and just tell them yeah this wasn't the right approach, learn to tread your audience, and don't waste any more time on this.

WHAT KIND OF BS REPSONSE IS THIS? ARE YOU F'ING KIDDING ME?? Are you really saying that kids should be treading lightly around their teachers personal belief systems instead of trying to learn, meet the grading rubric, and succeed based on the merits of the assignment? In high school none the less? You are ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC has a teacher with known conservative views on many social issues (pro-choice, against gay marriage, aligned with groups that do not believe in affirmative action or kids who are trans using their preferred gender bathroom) based on previous advocacy work.

This year DC wrote what we thought was an excellent paper related to about a particular historical moment in the LGBT rights movement, and got a poor grade. When she got the rubric and grading back many items that were marked off did not make any sense. When she tried to inquire with the teacher the teacher was very defensive and kept coming back to the point that the teacher did not agree with the thesis. The teacher also came down on DC for not presenting the other view point which is that LGBT rights are not a good thing. DC did mention that there is opposition from some groups, especially religious groups, but it was not half her paper because the assignment was not to present all sides of an issue but to pick a moment and make an argument about it. One of my good friends is a HS teacher and read the assignment and paper and was shocked about the grade and thought this needed to be brought up to the administration.

We are not sure what to advise DC to do next if anything. Is this something you would bring up and how would you do it? Would you go to the teacher first? The department head or the principal? This is a public school.

You think the paper is wonderful because it represents your point of view and you feel that you are proving to the teacher she is wrong. The paper in fact could suck. Just depends. Does the rubric say to provide opposing viewpoints and explain them? Refute them? Teens' ideas of refuting an argument can be based on feelings but maybe the point was to refute the arguments with actual facts and citations. Even so they might pick the wrong facts that don't actually refute argument. It's still a learning process.

Your friend of course is going to tell you the paper is brilliant even if she doesn't think so.

Other posters are right, you and your DD just want the teacher to be wrong. It's a waste of time. Don't teach your kid this kind of nonsense. They don't need to try and fix the teachers view points. That's not her responsibility and it's not even possible. Do your kid a favor and just tell them yeah this wasn't the right approach, learn to tread your audience, and don't waste any more time on this.

WHAT KIND OF BS REPSONSE IS THIS? ARE YOU F'ING KIDDING ME?? Are you really saying that kids should be treading lightly around their teachers personal belief systems instead of trying to learn, meet the grading rubric, and succeed based on the merits of the assignment? In high school none the less? You are ridiculous.

Ever hear the expression "Discretion is the better part of valor"? Just because you've been wronged doesn't necessarily mean the best move is to take an epic moral stand, especially considering it will most likely fail. It's good for the teen to learn that there are, in fact, people out there who abuse their authority and you should be strategic about confronting them. The goal of confrontation should be to change behavior, not just to feel good.

Any attempt at confronting needs to be weighed against
1)the fact that the teacher has been there for years and the first instinct of the administration will be to defend them, and
2)the strength of the evidence. 2) has to be enough to overwhelm 1).

If you're arguing the finer points of what the rubric really means, you've already lost. Instead you're just advising the kid to kick up a big fuss and indulge their latent urge towards righteous indignation, with the only real result being branded a whiner and/or troublemaker.

OP might be best served as a parent by using this as an opportunity to demonstrate a bit of grace and forebearance. As an adult, that kid is at some point going to have a bad manager, or need something from an aloof bureaucrat who treats their authorities like a petty dictator. If all the kid knows how to do is make a moral stand and issue demands for fair treatment, they're going to faceplant in the adult world. Better to learn how to recognize that situation, and figure out how to get by while looking for the exits or keep your composure until they finally cross the line and do something actionable.