Surprised to find that my kid is the problem student, not sure how to improve

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So this teacher was somehow offended by your daughter and instead of discussing it with you or your daughter, she exercises colossal poor judgment and acts like a major idiot by posting a shitty comment about your daughter on Facebook.

Your daughter gets good grades and you aren't aware of any discipline problems she has.

So...you believe the teacher? What what? Have you even met this teacher? Maybe she has an unreasonable bias against your daughter/maybe she's crazy. Until you know the situation, I think it was pretty unfair for you to line up against your daughter.

I had a teacher once who hated me...fortunately my mother believed me and scheduled a meeting with the teacher and principal to get to the bottom of the situation. In the meeting, the teacher blew up and screamed at my mom and the principle that she disliked me because (as a girl) I had no business always getting perfect scores on all my assignments and outdoing the boys in my class. She was fired. Sometimes teachers are crazy.

When and where was that?!?!?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So this teacher was somehow offended by your daughter and instead of discussing it with you or your daughter, she exercises colossal poor judgment and acts like a major idiot by posting a shitty comment about your daughter on Facebook.

Your daughter gets good grades and you aren't aware of any discipline problems she has.

So...you believe the teacher? What what? Have you even met this teacher? Maybe she has an unreasonable bias against your daughter/maybe she's crazy. Until you know the situation, I think it was pretty unfair for you to line up against your daughter.

I had a teacher once who hated me...fortunately my mother believed me and scheduled a meeting with the teacher and principal to get to the bottom of the situation. In the meeting, the teacher blew up and screamed at my mom and the principle that she disliked me because (as a girl) I had no business always getting perfect scores on all my assignments and outdoing the boys in my class. She was fired. Sometimes teachers are crazy.

When and where was that?!?!?!

Her imagination

[Anonymous]

I'm not the person who posted the story critiqued in the previous two posts, but I am a new poster who suffered through a year of an absolutely abusive teacher in 4th grade. Emotionally abusive to me in particular, because she chose to scapegoat me as she erroneously believed that my mother had ratted the teacher out to the wife of the man the teacher was having an affair with. Physically inappropriate with all the students because she would have her teachers' pets massage her cuticles and rub her shoulders during film strips. I never told my mother because I assumed that objectively speaking I deserved the ill treatment I was getting.

I have no idea what the facts are in the OP's situation, but anyone who believes that all teachers are 100% great and never behave inappropriately or even abusively are smoking something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need to screen shot that and forward it to the principal and let them know that one of their teachers is publicly bitching about a student at the school. Tell him that your daughter saw the FB post and is very upset to already have a bad reputation with a teacher even before school has started. Ask that she be moved to a different teacher.

I think the problem is with the teacher, NOT your daughter.

I agree with all of this, ESPECIALLY the screenshot thing. If there's no proof, the school will not take it seriously.

[Anonymous]

I had a teacher who hated me because she had been jealous of my mom since they were classmates in 1957. This was the early '80s! My parents documented the hell out of how she treated me unfairly and the principal had no choice but to reprimand her. Unfortunately, she was the only Hon English 7 teacher so I had to stay in her class.

I recommend sending the screenshot to the principal today with a request for a Monday morning meeting. I'm a teacher and this is just unacceptable behavior. I vent about students, but here anonymously or over a glass of wine with my coworkers, not on FB.

[Anonymous]

Maybe the teacher just finds her annoying for some reason. Could be a complainer or a know-it-all... doesn't mean she's a behavior problem or that she wasn't being honest with OP. Doesn't mean the teacher is crazy or out to get her either. (Whatever the case, I am not excusing the teacher's behavior at all... that never should have happened. It was unprofessional. You don't have to like my kid, but my kid and my kid's classmates should never know it.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Couple things:

1. The teacher's conduct is absolutely inappropriate. That doesn't mean your daughter ISN'T a problem student or that her behavior at school isn't an issue, but the teacher should NOT be posting about any of her students on social media, especially by name.

2. I would arrange a sit down with the principal to discuss the teacher's posting and how it will be handled and to request that your DD not be in that class.

3. At that meeting, you need to ask for an honest accounting of her behavior at school and what other teachers have reported in order for this to be coming up. There probably is something to it, your daughter is of course not going to know what it is because 13 year olds aren't very self aware.

4. You should not have shown your daughter the posting. That was terrible of you.

Thank you for your thoughts and I agree with the first three points you have made. But for the fourth comment, I am surprised to see this keep being mentioned. Why would I hide something like this from her, that I know some of her friends have already seen and the only reason she didn't see it is because I was really strict about not getting her a Facebook account until the first grading period after she is 13? It is unfortunate but now that something was said about her in public she already has the reputation. To know what people are saying about you and if there are any scandals or rumors is in my opinion the only way to be prepared to handle the situation. This way she knows to be very careful around that teacher and also is not blindsided if anyone of her peers says something to her about it.

Would it really have been better of me to not let her know this was going on? My mother always told me any gossip or impressions about me when I was growing up so that I could change my behavior to mitigate the damage and so that I would not react like I was shocked if any of the girls made fun of me for anything. Perhaps this, too, is a wrong approach that I need to reconsider?

Assuming you are for real and not a troll (I have serious doubts), I think it's a bad idea to pass on hurtful gossip to kids about them with the idea that shaming them will make them change. I think that leads to a kid who will learn to care far more about what other people think about her than to evaluate the situation and use her own judgment. You want a child who has good judgment on her own, and who knows the difference between right and wrong, not the difference between "this will get me talked about" and "this won't get me talked about." This case is a good example: even if your kid was difficult, what the teacher did is far more egregious. Of the two offenses (being a possibly challenging student versus posting about a student on social media), the latter is far, far worse. By focusing on passing on the gossip, you're essentially validating the teacher's actions. What the teacher did here was outright, full-stop wrong and needs to be reported to authority figures at the school (and your daughter needs to learn that it was absolutely a wrong thing to do), not used primarily as a source of shame to a middle schooler.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Go sit down with the principal. Your kid should not be in that woman's class.

I agree

I'm a teacher and I also agree with that.

[Anonymous]

Is it possible that the teacher was making a joke to her friend "Oh, I have it so rough this year having Becky, Suzy, Jack and Ben in my class" because every teacher at the school knows that these kids are really great kids to have in her class. They are no trouble, they do their work and are joys to teach. Maybe she feels that she really lucked out this year getting such a great group of students.

I don't know what her post actually said but it sounds as though Op's daughter might have a reputation.... for being a really great kid. It just seems odd that a teacher would have developed such a negative opinion of a kid this early in the school year to the point where they are posting complaints on Facebook. Sounds excessive. So excessive that it almost has to be a joke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it possible that the teacher was making a joke to her friend "Oh, I have it so rough this year having Becky, Suzy, Jack and Ben in my class" because every teacher at the school knows that these kids are really great kids to have in her class. They are no trouble, they do their work and are joys to teach. Maybe she feels that she really lucked out this year getting such a great group of students.

I don't know what her post actually said but it sounds as though Op's daughter might have a reputation.... for being a really great kid. It just seems odd that a teacher would have developed such a negative opinion of a kid this early in the school year to the point where they are posting complaints on Facebook. Sounds excessive. So excessive that it almost has to be a joke.

Ok, Polyanna, whatever.

No teacher should be naming ANY student on FB. For any reason.

OP, have you been in touch with the parents of the other students the teacher mentioned in her post? You should all go to the principal together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it possible that the teacher was making a joke to her friend "Oh, I have it so rough this year having Becky, Suzy, Jack and Ben in my class" because every teacher at the school knows that these kids are really great kids to have in her class. They are no trouble, they do their work and are joys to teach. Maybe she feels that she really lucked out this year getting such a great group of students.

I don't know what her post actually said but it sounds as though Op's daughter might have a reputation.... for being a really great kid. It just seems odd that a teacher would have developed such a negative opinion of a kid this early in the school year to the point where they are posting complaints on Facebook. Sounds excessive. So excessive that it almost has to be a joke.

Ok, Polyanna, whatever.

No teacher should be naming ANY student on FB. For any reason.

OP, have you been in touch with the parents of the other students the teacher mentioned in her post? You should all go to the principal together.

Polyana? Huh. Nice to meet you Chicken Little.

I agree that the teacher shouldn't have been posting comments -good, bad or indifferent - about her students on Facebook. However, it does appear that the teacher was under the impression that she was posting the comment to one other teacher who would "get" the context of her post. It does not sound as though the teacher was publicly complaining about the kids but somehow her comment was made public. Maybe the teacher was being dead serious and maybe she was joking. It isn't clear to me at all what her intentions were because none of us have actually seen what was actually written.

[Anonymous]

No matter what the intent was, OP needs to clear the air because now the child is left with questions and will always see that teacher as hating her. Go to the principal immediately with the screenshots your friend sent and get to the bottom of it. Any principal worth their salt will have the teacher in and your child moved in no time flat.

Then come back here later this week and report because there are lots of folks wondering!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So this teacher was somehow offended by your daughter and instead of discussing it with you or your daughter, she exercises colossal poor judgment and acts like a major idiot by posting a shitty comment about your daughter on Facebook.

Your daughter gets good grades and you aren't aware of any discipline problems she has.

So...you believe the teacher? What what? Have you even met this teacher? Maybe she has an unreasonable bias against your daughter/maybe she's crazy. Until you know the situation, I think it was pretty unfair for you to line up against your daughter.

I had a teacher once who hated me...fortunately my mother believed me and scheduled a meeting with the teacher and principal to get to the bottom of the situation. In the meeting, the teacher blew up and screamed at my mom and the principle that she disliked me because (as a girl) I had no business always getting perfect scores on all my assignments and outdoing the boys in my class. She was fired. Sometimes teachers are crazy.

When and where was that?!?!?!

Her imagination

It happened in Texas in the 1970s...not sure why you think it's so hard to believe? Teachers aren't saints and they can be just as crazy as anyone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No matter what the intent was, OP needs to clear the air because now the child is left with questions and will always see that teacher as hating her. Go to the principal immediately with the screenshots your friend sent and get to the bottom of it. Any principal worth their salt will have the teacher in and your child moved in no time flat.

Then come back here later this week and report because there are lots of folks wondering!!

I would slow down and take a deep breath. I understand the desire to report this to the principal. I totally get why Op would want a class reassignment for her daughter.

However, I would personally be reluctant to make a big stink over something like this because I would not want to go on official record about a teacher considering my child to be a "problem". Depends on exactly what this teacher said I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was the daughter and granddaughter of teachers; I'm definitely not the sort of parent to think that my kids are always right or always perfect, and the teacher always too harsh. In fact, I'm pretty demanding on standards for grades and behavior at school. My middle school DD has always gotten A's or B's on the report cards sent home, never had detention, and never had any discipline problems that we were informed of. But now I've got a situation that has me utterly perplexed for what to do about it.

A friend just sent me screenshots of a Facebook post in which one of DD's teachers for the upcoming year complains about having DD and 3 other students in her class. The teacher has our (fairly small) school listed as one of her "networks" on FB, and although only first names were mentioned in the post my DD is the only one with her somewhat uncommon first name in the entire school yearbook, so I'm nearly certain the post was by that teacher and about my kid. It looks like the teacher intended to send the message just to one of her friends, but something must have gone wrong because the friend who sent me the picture of the post was not the named friend to whom the post was addressed, and my friend confirmed that the post is visible to both her and her daughter, which suggests it's publicly available. I'm all for people venting to friends if needed, and if my kid did something to earn a bad reputation amongst the teaching staff then she is just going to have to live with the consequences, however I do wish it hadn't been so public. But that's not the part of this I have any influence over. My part of the problem is to deal with my kid being apparently the bad kid.

I don't like the idea that my kid has a reputation already for being one of the problem students. Especially just starting the year, that's going to give her more hurdles to overcome. And I don't want to have "that kid". So, I sat DD down and I asked her... is there anything you need to tell me about how you have been acting at school? She said no. I asked, if I call the school and ask to see your disciplinary record or your transcripts, are there going to be any surprises I should know about? She again said no, and was confused and offended as to why I was asking. So I showed her the post I had received (I don't have Facebook, and she's not getting one until after the first quarter of school... she just turned 13 this summer). I told her, "Look, I don't know why, but this is what's going around about you. I don't like it. I didn't raise you to be the problem student and I don't think you want that reputation either. So if you can think of what you may have done to be the kind of student a teacher doesn't want, I want you to tell me what's going on and then I need you to commit to changing it this year because that's unacceptable." DD still remained adamant that she had no clue why this teacher dislikes her and she seemed quite upset about it.

Based on all evidence I have, I'm inclined to believe DD that she's not doing anything specific to be a problem student. But she's still got at least one academic teacher who has publicly named her as a student she dreads having. So where do we go from here in order for my kid to have a good year, be successful, and not further aggravate the teacher? Should I ask for a conference fairly soon after school starts and try to address whatever the problem is? I'm inclined to think that DD is at an age where she needs to handle these things, but on the other hand it's a somewhat strange situation. Just ignore it? WWYD?

OP.

I'm a teacher - HS.

If I saw a nasty post about my daughter, I'd share it with the teacher. sorry - But if you're being truthful in your post (and I don't detect any tone, just an honest attempt at remedying this problem), you can go head-to-head with the teacher.

I'll ask this - How old is the teacher? I'm finding that the younger ones have no social media boundaries. It's one thing to complain to trusted colleagues (We all do.), but another to post it for the entire world to see.

I'd copy the administrator, too.

sorry - But this is inappropriate and just plain stupid. Sometimes a little humiliation helps.