Please remember words matter- and maybe brief the art teachers

[Anonymous]

And we’ve devolved into the normal DCUM stereotype of teachers as incompetent sociopaths.

[Anonymous]

You need to read the whole thread. There were 2 teachers responding who thought the kindergartner should toughen up an improve their art skills. They are the one without souls.

There were many stories of art teachers who had positive impacts.

But there were many other stories of the damage done by teachers, some of those by other teachers.

[Anonymous]

I'm glad to see this today. I'm an art teacher, and I do my best, but it's easy to get stressed out and have "moments." I see my kids only once or twice a week in general, and sometimes wonder how much of an impression I make as opposed to the teacher they see every day. I always try to be encouraging and kind, but posts like this remind me what I do matters and I can always strive to be better. This is what I needed to read as I get ready to start work again, so thank you.

[Anonymous]

I think teachers also need to be aware of what kids are painting. When my sister was in the first grade she came home crying because another kid in her class made fun of her for looking like an alien and drew a picture of her in art class as an alien in a spaceship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers make such a difference in the academic and social lives of small children.

I had a bunch of delays as a child. I didn't get my fine motor skills straighten out until I was 20.

I was in sixth grade and I was a pretty angry kid. When you get knocked around by the teachers and most of the kids too, you can develop a pretty pissy defensive approach to people and life in general.

Once a week our itinerant art teacher came in for an afternoon art class. His name was Mr. Morrell. He was not particularly fond of me and the feeling was mutual.

The afternoon assignment was to create a paper and crayon version of a stained glass window similar to what you'd see in a church. As with most things in sixth grade I was totally baffled with no idea where to begin. Mr. Morrell stopped at my desk and looked at my blank piece of paper. He asked if I was okay and I said I didn't know how to begin.

He started drawing black lines which gradually began to form shapes of people and fruit, and such things. He asked me to fill in the blanks with colors which I did.. When i went outside of the lines he said, oh that's okay and he smudged them into the paper with his thumbs.

He was still there after recess and he came back to help me again. Now we took a very thin almost transparent coat of black water color over the simulated stained glass to give it an antique finish.

I could barely write my name so he did it for me in very clear letters.

Mr Morrell did 90% of the work, but for some reason he showed the class OUR work and he gave me most of the credit. For one day in elementary school my work was among the best in the class and it was posted on the bulletin board for two weeks.

It never happened again and a month or so later we moved on to Jr. High. I never saw Mr. Morrell after that day, but 50 years have passed and I've never forgotten or ever stopped appreciating the day Mr. Morrell gave me a sense of worth and value at a moment in time when I had little if any self-esteem.

Thank you Mr. Morrell, I've never forgotten your kindness so many years ago.

I am sobbing. Thanks for sharing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP's art teacher sounds like my DS's art teacher. She is an incredible artist but has no patience for children with special needs. She finds them too wiggly, too messy, too unpredictable and thinks they are not following directions when they just can't do what she commands. Like not spilling a drop of paint accidentally on a self-portrait. She then gives them Bs, starting in K, and tells them they are failures at art.

She has sapped almost all the love of art from my child with dysgraphia. I think she should quit teaching at a public school and go teach at an art studio where she can have more control. I'm so depressed just thinking there are lots of these teachers out there.

This sounds like my daughter's music teacher. My daughter has dyslexia and needs to work EXTRA hard and needs added time to complete assignments that involve reading/writing. Her music teacher chose not to pay attention to my daughter's background and constantly forced her to do all the assignments the same way the other kids did. It was all I could do to avoid stomping into that school and wringing the breath out of that lady. She was so smug and self-satisfied and really beat down on this poor kid who was trying desperately each and every day.

Music, art, other "specials" teachers -- PLEASE realize what an impact you have on these kids. PLEASE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm glad to see this today. I'm an art teacher, and I do my best, but it's easy to get stressed out and have "moments." I see my kids only once or twice a week in general, and sometimes wonder how much of an impression I make as opposed to the teacher they see every day. I always try to be encouraging and kind, but posts like this remind me what I do matters and I can always strive to be better. This is what I needed to read as I get ready to start work again, so thank you.

You rock!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm glad to see this today. I'm an art teacher, and I do my best, but it's easy to get stressed out and have "moments." I see my kids only once or twice a week in general, and sometimes wonder how much of an impression I make as opposed to the teacher they see every day. I always try to be encouraging and kind, but posts like this remind me what I do matters and I can always strive to be better. This is what I needed to read as I get ready to start work again, so thank you.

For some of our kids, it takes a lot of work just to get to where other kids start out from. So even if their end product isn't as "good", there is all that hard work that can and should be praised and it makes a world of difference to them when adults they look up to recognize this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agreed that many teachers of electives have little to no training in working with kids with SN or classroom mgmt in general. In truth, that’s all of us except SPED teachers. The real difference is not in training, but in hands on experience. Often kids with SN are pulled out to receive services and their pull outs occur during art, music, media, etc so that they don’t miss math, ELA, and PE. As a result, elective teachers don’t always go through the classroom management trial by fire that most classroom teachers experience. One of my first inclusion students was on the spectrum, had loud verbal tics, and frequently soiled himself. It was my first year teaching. My classroom was the appropriate least-restrictive environment for him. We survived. I think he learned from me. I know so learned from him. But he only took core academic classes, PE, and double period social skills. The art, music, FACS, and tech teachers never had him. They missed an opportunity to learn how to teach around loud verbal tics. They missed a chance to learn how to appear calm and be discreet when a student dies something that shocks you. The almost weekly pants-soiling earned me a reputation for being inflappable. I’m not. I just fix my face so fast, people don’t notice.
I’ve noticed that more parents are pushing for their kids to take electives. I think that’s great. Art, music, tech, and FACS are great things to explore as well as a good way to interact with typically developing peers. I wish parents were given more info about the actual learning environment in the elective classroom. My daughter with ADHD did fine in art because she was allowed to listen to music through headphones and was not distracted by classroom chatter. She has cooked independently at home for years, but would not have done well in her school’s FACS class where, for safety reasons, music is not allowed and there is a lot of distracting chatter. I only knew the character of the classes because of having an older child go through the same school.
Obviously, more training is needed for all teachers. Every student benefits from constructive feedback. Those brief interactions, often verbal and off-the-cuff, that are considered best practices for informal assessment can be devastating if not worded carefully and with both growth and objective standards in mind.
Keep the self-portrait up. It will reinforce that you value it. Also, consider turning the incident into a blog post or newsletter item to share with teachers. Many of us can learn from it. And it’s helpful to be able to point to when advocating for more training. The new teachers I mentor have just one course in working with students with SN.

I’m an SLP (and mother to an autistic elementary-aged kid) and I agree with all that is written above but also want to add that most “specials” teachers never see the IEP, are not aware of specific special education needs, don’t know about modifications/accomodations for specific students, and are rarely consulted or included in the team, not becaus they are bad teachers, but because of the confidentially aspects of special ed law. Parents can share that information and more with the art teacher/PE teacher/lunch room staff, but the sped team can’t. Even paraprofessionals in the classrooms aren’t necessarily aware of all the info in the IEP. Paraprofessionals who travel with kids to specials have likely been told not to discuss any confidential information they may know about a student and, since classroom teachers usually have their planning periods during specials, they may never see the specials teachers. I know I am surprising no one here when I say that it is a flawed system. This art teacher may have no idea what your child’s needs are and certainly, hopefully, would be saddened to learn that her words made him feel so bad.

[Anonymous]

^^PP again: meant to add that I often offer inservice training for teachers in my school on how to communicate with students with speech and language impairments and social communication deficits. Maybe there is a similar staff member in your school/on your team who could help you to plan and advocate.

[Anonymous]

Please know kids VERY OFTEN interpret comments from teachers that the teacher never ever said. I had a student with dyslexia who swore his former teachers called him stupid. I pushed and asked more and it turned out they never actually said that at all but "that's the impression i got."

As teachers we have to be mindful of that because kids do completely twist things we say into what their brains hear but I would bet anything the teacher did NOT say that and it's a miscommunication.

[Anonymous]

Who are all these parents expecting their snowflakes to never hear anything negative about themselves???

What a grave disservice they are doing to their kids. The only way to build resilience and self-confidence in children is to stop treating them like fragile hothouse plants. They need to hear criticism as well as praise. They need to grow a thick skin, especially for those with special needs who will likely struggle more to achieve less.

My HFA/ADHD teen has built resilience like this. As a result he knows exactly how he can push himself and what his limits are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please know kids VERY OFTEN interpret comments from teachers that the teacher never ever said. I had a student with dyslexia who swore his former teachers called him stupid. I pushed and asked more and it turned out they never actually said that at all but "that's the impression i got."

As teachers we have to be mindful of that because kids do completely twist things we say into what their brains hear but I would bet anything the teacher did NOT say that and it's a miscommunication.

Yes, except in the cases where the teachers call the kids ‘stupid’ even in front of other kids and parents.

We were informed in a parent-teacher conference that our child ‘hangs out with the stupid kids’ and then she named names. We drove one of those ‘stupid kuds’ to school every day and I’m friends with her mother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree art and music teachers have enormous power over our children's self-concepts.

I was chatting at a party with a music teacher and she explained to me how she got into teaching because she loves music so much and wanted to share that gift. And when I asked her what the hardest part was, she said it was dealing with all of the special ed kids who won't sit still for their music lessons.

She had no idea I have 2 of those special ed kids. So I did share that my dyslexic daughter is quite musical. I pray she is an anomaly.

I don't think that all of the "specials" teachers get much education in classroom management or adapting their lessons to kids with special needs. And that is almost more depressing to me because I think there is so much joy to be found in the arts.

I have met a lot of amazing drama teachers but they don't have that in elementary usually.

Former art teacher here. We do get training on classroom management and adapting lessons to accommodate different needs. The biggest problem we have is class sizes and lack of support. Like you said, you were chatting at a party with a music teacher and she just told you what the hardest part of her job is, she wasn’t criticizing you or your special needs kid. It’s HARD to wrangle 30 squirmy kids. And if she doesn’t get an aid for the SN kids, she has to constantly take time out of what she’s trying to do with the whole class to deal with them.

I’m appalled that the teacher in the op said such a thing to a kindergartener! Way to squash any sense of pride or accomplishment. But every teacher is different and that kind of attitude is not specific to “specials” teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who are all these parents expecting their snowflakes to never hear anything negative about themselves???

What a grave disservice they are doing to their kids. The only way to build resilience and self-confidence in children is to stop treating them like fragile hothouse plants. They need to hear criticism as well as praise. They need to grow a thick skin, especially for those with special needs who will likely struggle more to achieve less.

My HFA/ADHD teen has built resilience like this. As a result he knows exactly how he can push himself and what his limits are.

It’s a grave disservice that you have entered into the teaching profession without understanding child development. Maybe get an appropriate education yourself or find a careeer that you are qualified for. Good luck, snowflake.