Your Relationship with the Teacher

[Anonymous]

Are you a single parent OP? If not, do you have 2 incomes? If so, move into an apartment in a good school district. I am a single parent and a teacher who doesn't make much money but this is what I did. Before I did this, I moved into a basement apartment is a home in another top school district. Be creative and you won't have to subject your child to a substandard education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
OP here:

Everything worked out. I emailed the teacher and he sent a document with calendars for the year showing the units they will work on in each subject (which he said all the teachers at the grade level uses). He responded very politely, sent it the that night and didn't seem to take anything personally. Which is great, because now I see that there are several units/standards they are covering pretty thoroughly that I don't have to plan to teach and can take off our plate, and a couple of things I would love to double down on at the same time (they are going to be doing some engineering design projects (yay!) which will be great for me to supplement during that same month and prior to that).

I am not sure why some people in this thread would have felt that much apprehension and anxiety from a parent asking for a look at the curriculum they plan to teach. I only had to ask because the district does not have this listed anywhere on their website and it is not publicly available. The teacher probably knows this, so its no big deal to send it. And its obvious he already had it in document form and that it was planned out by the teachers together already. Why would they have needed to hide it?

A parent asking for a curriculum calendar does not mean a slippery slope into them harassing you all year over details and explanations and forcing you to teach them to read or something. This isn't a give a mouse a cookie situation, and just as teachers are constantly asking parents to cooperate with them by supporting the classroom with school supplies, volunteering, chaperoning, reading to the child every night, and so on, teachers need to cooperate with parents on supporting their child's learning at home as well. We are ALL in this together to ensure our kids do well. Responding to a parent with secrecy or telling the parent they need to sit back and let them handle it is defensiveness, IMO, and there is probably a negative reason for that.

If a parent harasses you, THEN you express your concern and set your boundary by saying "No." Don't respond to every parent that approaches you as if they are out to abuse you. Just like I don't let a teacher giving me an attitude or being dismissive of me or my child affect how I speak to all teachers.

I know I may be feeding the trolls, but just wanted to add my response for any real parents or teachers reading that may encounter a similar situation.

PS. We are also at a Title 1 school where teachers and admin have tried hard to get parents to do activities with their children at home because so many of them are failing to pass the standardized tests. They send all types of materials home with activities to do with the child, like counting snacks, and they even send flashcards home. It would not make sense for them to balk at a parent that willingly asks to see what they are teaching so that she can do all those things most efficiently. That's one less child for them to have to worry about pouring even more resources to.

How can you tell from a calendar if a topic is covered thoroughly or not? Did you simply count the number of days? Unless you actually see all the materials, how would you know the actual depth of instruction.

If your child is on or above grade level (which you imply), it doesn’t benefit a teacher for you to supplement st home. The kids that it matters for are those who are struggling.

[Anonymous]

You don't need a "relationship" with the teacher. Public teachers are paid to educate kids, not entertain parents. If your kid is struggling significantly, then the teacher should reach out to you and initiate steps to get your kid help. Teachers are unbelievably busy and being forced to respond to parents of kids who are doing fine is just a waste of time. If you need a lot of the teacher's time and energy then pay for private. Public school class sizes are too huge for teachers to be able to devote any time to parents - the kids are the top priority.

If your kid is failing or performing below grade level, you should plan to interact with the teacher. Otherwise, don't waste the teacher's time. If your precious straight A student gets a B or a C and you need more than a 30-second email regarding his/her progress, then you are "that" parent. If you need a conference because your kid's straight A's have dropped to mostly B's and a few C's, then you are "that" parent. If you call every time your kid gets less than a B on an assessment, then you are "that" parent. Please, as a teacher, I'm begging you, let me focus on your kid, not you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
OP here:

Everything worked out. I emailed the teacher and he sent a document with calendars for the year showing the units they will work on in each subject (which he said all the teachers at the grade level uses). He responded very politely, sent it the that night and didn't seem to take anything personally. Which is great, because now I see that there are several units/standards they are covering pretty thoroughly that I don't have to plan to teach and can take off our plate, and a couple of things I would love to double down on at the same time (they are going to be doing some engineering design projects (yay!) which will be great for me to supplement during that same month and prior to that).

I am not sure why some people in this thread would have felt that much apprehension and anxiety from a parent asking for a look at the curriculum they plan to teach. I only had to ask because the district does not have this listed anywhere on their website and it is not publicly available. The teacher probably knows this, so its no big deal to send it. And its obvious he already had it in document form and that it was planned out by the teachers together already. Why would they have needed to hide it?

A parent asking for a curriculum calendar does not mean a slippery slope into them harassing you all year over details and explanations and forcing you to teach them to read or something. This isn't a give a mouse a cookie situation, and just as teachers are constantly asking parents to cooperate with them by supporting the classroom with school supplies, volunteering, chaperoning, reading to the child every night, and so on, teachers need to cooperate with parents on supporting their child's learning at home as well. We are ALL in this together to ensure our kids do well. Responding to a parent with secrecy or telling the parent they need to sit back and let them handle it is defensiveness, IMO, and there is probably a negative reason for that.

If a parent harasses you, THEN you express your concern and set your boundary by saying "No." Don't respond to every parent that approaches you as if they are out to abuse you. Just like I don't let a teacher giving me an attitude or being dismissive of me or my child affect how I speak to all teachers.

I know I may be feeding the trolls, but just wanted to add my response for any real parents or teachers reading that may encounter a similar situation.

PS. We are also at a Title 1 school where teachers and admin have tried hard to get parents to do activities with their children at home because so many of them are failing to pass the standardized tests. They send all types of materials home with activities to do with the child, like counting snacks, and they even send flashcards home. It would not make sense for them to balk at a parent that willingly asks to see what they are teaching so that she can do all those things most efficiently. That's one less child for them to have to worry about pouring even more resources to.

How can you tell from a calendar if a topic is covered thoroughly or not? Did you simply count the number of days? Unless you actually see all the materials, how would you know the actual depth of instruction.

If your child is on or above grade level (which you imply), it doesn’t benefit a teacher for you to supplement st home. The kids that it matters for are those who are struggling.

I'm not sure what you mean. He didn't send a calendar, he sent each topic. There is no way of knowing how thoroughly something is being taught, but I don't need to know that. I only need to know when and how long. I will know how thoroughly as I teach my child and see where she is in a particular topic during a given week. I don't need to see all the materials or lesson plans, only the ordering and timing of the topics, and which topics are being covered and which aren't.

My child is above grade level, but unfortunately that doesn't mean anything for this particular school, where teachers are generally not able to teach to the standards (no matter how much they plan to) because there are too many students that are struggling and/or with behavioral problems for the teacher to deal with. I'm not going to let her coast at an "A' level at the school when an "A" really just translates to just a little better than everyone else, when the standards have been lowered for the average child there.

Anyway, why would I be trying to benefit the teacher? I am trying to benefit my daughter and my daughter only.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I'm not sure what you mean. He didn't send a calendar, he sent each topic. There is no way of knowing how thoroughly something is being taught, but I don't need to know that. I only need to know when and how long. I will know how thoroughly as I teach my child and see where she is in a particular topic during a given week. I don't need to see all the materials or lesson plans, only the ordering and timing of the topics, and which topics are being covered and which aren't.

My child is above grade level, but unfortunately that doesn't mean anything for this particular school, where teachers are generally not able to teach to the standards (no matter how much they plan to) because there are too many students that are struggling and/or with behavioral problems for the teacher to deal with. I'm not going to let her coast at an "A' level at the school when an "A" really just translates to just a little better than everyone else, when the standards have been lowered for the average child there.

Anyway, why would I be trying to benefit the teacher? I am trying to benefit my daughter and my daughter only.

By sending her to school for a full day and then doing another full day of school with her when she gets home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don't need a "relationship" with the teacher. Public teachers are paid to educate kids, not entertain parents. If your kid is struggling significantly, then the teacher should reach out to you and initiate steps to get your kid help. Teachers are unbelievably busy and being forced to respond to parents of kids who are doing fine is just a waste of time. If you need a lot of the teacher's time and energy then pay for private. Public school class sizes are too huge for teachers to be able to devote any time to parents - the kids are the top priority.

If your kid is failing or performing below grade level, you should plan to interact with the teacher. Otherwise, don't waste the teacher's time. If your precious straight A student gets a B or a C and you need more than a 30-second email regarding his/her progress, then you are "that" parent. If you need a conference because your kid's straight A's have dropped to mostly B's and a few C's, then you are "that" parent. If you call every time your kid gets less than a B on an assessment, then you are "that" parent. Please, as a teacher, I'm begging you, let me focus on your kid, not you.

I don't think you realize how much you are contradicting yourself. The kids are top priority so therefore ignore the parents? The parents are the first and foremost educators of the child. Before they even reach school age, parents need to be supported to teach their child if teachers care that much about making their jobs easier. You need both the teachers and the parents (and the counselors, staff, administrators, extended family, etc.) to ensure the success of each child. It takes a village remember? And believe it or not, I am the final arbiter when it comes to my child's nurturing and education. Not you. You are just a paid employee. And as a public employee you don't get to hide what you do or what you teach to my child.

Frankly, you sound territorial and defensive, and not at all interested in the welfare of the child, but possibly just insecure about someone outside of the school assessing your own ability to teach your students to standards. And clearly hurt by the fact that a parent needs to supplement what you cannot provide. But its not about you. As a parent and an educator myself, I understand the limitations teachers have, especially when they are being underpaid, so much instruction is top-down and politically-driven, classes are overcrowded, and students with a range of special needs aren't being addressed. The fact that I seek to supplement my daughter is not about calling you out as a failure--its about making sure she thrives even within a broken system. I used to be a substitute teacher in a really bad school long ago. I know for a fact that getting straight A's in some schools don't mean anything but being the only one in the class to complete worksheets way below grade level sometimes. That is not good enough for my daughter and it should not be for any child.

All of that other crap you are listing is made up nonsense. But if that is what you are extrapolating from a parent ASKING TO SEE CURRICULUM THAT WOULD NORMALLY BE POSTED ANYWAY, you are going to have a tough time in general. Every year that my child has been in public school, I have only contacted teachers at the beginning of the year to ask for curriculum and to offer to volunteer and ask which days/times would they need it most. Any other contact was twice a year during parent teacher conferences. I am pretty sure that is what most parents do, so this fear of "the boogeyman" response from some teachers in this thread over an email request is really troubling.

Thank goodness not all teachers are like you. My daughter's teacher this year had no problem fulfilling my request. The teacher last year did (but it was also her first year teaching, she was only 22, so I let it go).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I'm not sure what you mean. He didn't send a calendar, he sent each topic. There is no way of knowing how thoroughly something is being taught, but I don't need to know that. I only need to know when and how long. I will know how thoroughly as I teach my child and see where she is in a particular topic during a given week. I don't need to see all the materials or lesson plans, only the ordering and timing of the topics, and which topics are being covered and which aren't.

My child is above grade level, but unfortunately that doesn't mean anything for this particular school, where teachers are generally not able to teach to the standards (no matter how much they plan to) because there are too many students that are struggling and/or with behavioral problems for the teacher to deal with. I'm not going to let her coast at an "A' level at the school when an "A" really just translates to just a little better than everyone else, when the standards have been lowered for the average child there.

Anyway, why would I be trying to benefit the teacher? I am trying to benefit my daughter and my daughter only.

By sending her to school for a full day and then doing another full day of school with her when she gets home.

No. Just 30 minutes in the mornings and 1 hour on the weekends. But we also have outings to the woods, the lake, museums, the beach, plays, etc. that last a few hours. She loves our outings though.

At home, you can teach your kid in a fraction of the time it takes a teacher to do it at school. And again, I only overlap what is being taught if she needs the extra practice. Otherwise I teach her things that she doesn't get to learn in school that are important to our family and that she finds fun.

[Anonymous]

Lol I think my favorite thing is that OP acts like she's so superior, and yet it turns out it's just 30 min after school. I wonder how many times she's hurt her arm from patting herself on the back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is a teacher as are many of my friends. I just do not know how they keep from losing it with parents like this. I have so much admiration for their ability to ignore the stupidity and just teach. I simply cannot imagine dealing with the OP or her kid day after day.

+1

Geez, some nasty ass people on this forum. OP asked for a way to ask the teacher for their schedule, and ya'll acting like she asking for their blood type and ss#.

OP, try to ignore posts like that. Its an anonymous forum, so they use any chance to let out their bitterness on here. Just ask the teacher for the schedule. If they give it ot you great, you're good to go. If not, then teach your child the most important things and talk to the principal about the lack of transparency. It is not worth going above that for.

It all really depends on the teacher, which will change from year to year, so you don't want to depend on them anyway. But your taxes pay their salary and they are teaching your child so you have the right to ask.

How does having the teacher's schedule help in this situation? If OP knows that ELA is taught from 9:15-11:00 as opposed to 1:30-3:15, how does that help OP?

Yearly schedule. As in Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec.

NP here. That kind of monthly or even quarterly schedule would definitely help with afterschooling (which I kinda do, though not very intensively). But I don't think teachers are going to look at you kindly for asking that OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is a teacher as are many of my friends. I just do not know how they keep from losing it with parents like this. I have so much admiration for their ability to ignore the stupidity and just teach. I simply cannot imagine dealing with the OP or her kid day after day.

+1

Geez, some nasty ass people on this forum. OP asked for a way to ask the teacher for their schedule, and ya'll acting like she asking for their blood type and ss#.

OP, try to ignore posts like that. Its an anonymous forum, so they use any chance to let out their bitterness on here. Just ask the teacher for the schedule. If they give it ot you great, you're good to go. If not, then teach your child the most important things and talk to the principal about the lack of transparency. It is not worth going above that for.

It all really depends on the teacher, which will change from year to year, so you don't want to depend on them anyway. But your taxes pay their salary and they are teaching your child so you have the right to ask.

How does having the teacher's schedule help in this situation? If OP knows that ELA is taught from 9:15-11:00 as opposed to 1:30-3:15, how does that help OP?

Yearly schedule. As in Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec.

DP and a public school teacher who supplemented my kids: I never worried about trying to match up with their classroom teacher’s schedule. I made my own calendar and if things overlapped, great. If not, NBD. Everything we did was interdisciplinary and hands on learning. No worksheets. No quizzes. Sometimes, it was really nice for them that what we did at home didn’t match in any way what they did at school.

This is a nice way of looking at it too. Afterschool and school need not matching up or build up on one another. They can go in their own parallel tracks and meet up when it happens.

[Anonymous]

OP I hope you're in my neighborhood. You sound insane and I look forward to encountering your level of crazy for entertainment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP I hope you're in my neighborhood. You sound insane and I look forward to encountering your level of crazy for entertainment.

Couldn't contribute intelligently to the conversation, and so that's what you decided on?

[What happened to the trolls of the early 2000s? They've gotten really lazy and unimaginative these days.]

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is a teacher as are many of my friends. I just do not know how they keep from losing it with parents like this. I have so much admiration for their ability to ignore the stupidity and just teach. I simply cannot imagine dealing with the OP or her kid day after day.

+1

Geez, some nasty ass people on this forum. OP asked for a way to ask the teacher for their schedule, and ya'll acting like she asking for their blood type and ss#.

OP, try to ignore posts like that. Its an anonymous forum, so they use any chance to let out their bitterness on here. Just ask the teacher for the schedule. If they give it ot you great, you're good to go. If not, then teach your child the most important things and talk to the principal about the lack of transparency. It is not worth going above that for.

It all really depends on the teacher, which will change from year to year, so you don't want to depend on them anyway. But your taxes pay their salary and they are teaching your child so you have the right to ask.

How does having the teacher's schedule help in this situation? If OP knows that ELA is taught from 9:15-11:00 as opposed to 1:30-3:15, how does that help OP?

Yearly schedule. As in Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec.

DP and a public school teacher who supplemented my kids: I never worried about trying to match up with their classroom teacher’s schedule. I made my own calendar and if things overlapped, great. If not, NBD. Everything we did was interdisciplinary and hands on learning. No worksheets. No quizzes. Sometimes, it was really nice for them that what we did at home didn’t match in any way what they did at school.

This is a nice way of looking at it too. Afterschool and school need not matching up or build up on one another. They can go in their own parallel tracks and meet up when it happens.

I generally don't have a problem with it matching up or not. My main problem is repeating something that my daughter has already learned and mastered in school, or her learning things in school that she has already learned and mastered from me, and then her getting bored as a result. Its a little annoying when I've already planned everything out. Happened a couple of times last year. Also, there are a ton of things I can choose to teach her, so I don't want to choose something that the school is perfectly fine providing instruction in and then I'm annoyed because I should've chosen another topic that I wanted.

It helps to know what the teacher is teaching if you don't want to burden your child with double the school, that way you can zero in on what really matters and just supplement what she is learning already by either reinforcing important stuff or filling in important gaps (the latter is subjective). The only time I will teach what the teacher has already taught is if I find that she didn't do well absorbing the instruction from the teacher, but they've already moved on to another unit. Its still good to know ahead of time what might be coming up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lol I think my favorite thing is that OP acts like she's so superior, and yet it turns out it's just 30 min after school. I wonder how many times she's hurt her arm from patting herself on the back.

Quality over quantity, grasshopper.

Still, 30 minutes a day during the week and 1-3 hours on the weekends is a whole extra day of school per week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lol I think my favorite thing is that OP acts like she's so superior, and yet it turns out it's just 30 min after school. I wonder how many times she's hurt her arm from patting herself on the back.

Quality over quantity, grasshopper.

Still, 30 minutes a day during the week and 1-3 hours on the weekends is a whole extra day of school per week.

As an afterschooler (meaning I homeschool my child outside of school hours)

for 30 minutes a day in the mornings before school...