Your Relationship with the Teacher

[Anonymous]

Lower elementary school teacher here.
It is our first day of inservice as students start after labor day. Meeting ended at 12:30 and I went to my room and finally put my computer together and plugged in everything, to find 4 emails from parents of new students. Each of them wants to know my strategies in order to support and engage their very bright child who acts out when bored in the classroom.
I am not complaining -- but this is our reality.

[Anonymous]

God some of you people are mean. OP, your request sounded reasonable to me and I'm glad you got an appropriate response from your child's teacher. Good luck!

[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.

My favorite thing is that OP brags about how smart she is with her science PHD and her “curriculum” planning, yet, she hasn’t been able how to get her kid out of her shitty school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lower elementary school teacher here.
It is our first day of inservice as students start after labor day. Meeting ended at 12:30 and I went to my room and finally put my computer together and plugged in everything, to find 4 emails from parents of new students. Each of them wants to know my strategies in order to support and engage their very bright child who acts out when bored in the classroom.
I am not complaining -- but this is our reality.

I am so sorry - that absolutely sucks.

[Anonymous]

OP - I don't really know why you had to go into such detail if really all you wanted was a basic calendar of the curriculum. Obviously as you found out - you just ask and they will provide it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lower elementary school teacher here.
It is our first day of inservice as students start after labor day. Meeting ended at 12:30 and I went to my room and finally put my computer together and plugged in everything, to find 4 emails from parents of new students. Each of them wants to know my strategies in order to support and engage their very bright child who acts out when bored in the classroom.
I am not complaining -- but this is our reality.

I don't know any child in MCPS who has their teacher assignments. It is a reasonable question. Last year I tried to reach to as my child has some significant concerns and it very much impacts my child and the teacher said that my child didn't have it despite years of therapies and 1-2 evaluations a year. You show signs of a bad teacher who should not be teaching.

[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.

So, then what if the teacher doesn't reach out and your child is struggling?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lower elementary school teacher here.
It is our first day of inservice as students start after labor day. Meeting ended at 12:30 and I went to my room and finally put my computer together and plugged in everything, to find 4 emails from parents of new students. Each of them wants to know my strategies in order to support and engage their very bright child who acts out when bored in the classroom.
I am not complaining -- but this is our reality.

I don't know any child in MCPS who has their teacher assignments. It is a reasonable question. Last year I tried to reach to as my child has some significant concerns and it very much impacts my child and the teacher said that my child didn't have it despite years of therapies and 1-2 evaluations a year. You show signs of a bad teacher who should not be teaching.

Honestly I don't know how the above teacher can even respond to those parents -- she hasn't even met their kids yet! And a kid with actual issues is quite different than a child who is "bright and acts out when bored"......

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Eliminate all thought of coordinating with the teacher. They won't understand, and above all, they are not experts, YOU are. Elementary school teachers are kind and nurturing, but they're often not the brightest or the most academic-minded people.

No coordination is needed anyway! Elementary school is the only time that homework does not count towards grades, and elementary school grades are not important unless you are preparing your child for a magnet test in 3rd grade or 5th grade. Look it up on the MCPS website, this might be of interest to you if you're in a crappy cluster. There are workbooks on Amazon to help prepare your child for the modified Cogat test MCPS gives (there's also a Raven's advanced matrices added in 5th grade). If your child works on math and reading at home, there is no reason they won't have MAP scores that are several grades above grade level every year, as well as straight As.

So you can ignore the homework if you wish, teachers will rarely complain that it's not finished.

I "afterschooled" (great term, by the way!) my first child because he was GT/LD - gifted, talented and learning disabled, and our otherwise excellent elementary could not really cater to all his needs. I just created my own academic curriculum, as well as occupational and physical therapy activities after school and on weekends. My children also go to their native language school on weekends and have quality music lessons.

Wow. You're terrible.

No this is not terrible, it’s accurate. Teachers are not the best and brightest. Not in the US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Eliminate all thought of coordinating with the teacher. They won't understand, and above all, they are not experts, YOU are. Elementary school teachers are kind and nurturing, but they're often not the brightest or the most academic-minded people.

No coordination is needed anyway! Elementary school is the only time that homework does not count towards grades, and elementary school grades are not important unless you are preparing your child for a magnet test in 3rd grade or 5th grade. Look it up on the MCPS website, this might be of interest to you if you're in a crappy cluster. There are workbooks on Amazon to help prepare your child for the modified Cogat test MCPS gives (there's also a Raven's advanced matrices added in 5th grade). If your child works on math and reading at home, there is no reason they won't have MAP scores that are several grades above grade level every year, as well as straight As.

So you can ignore the homework if you wish, teachers will rarely complain that it's not finished.

I "afterschooled" (great term, by the way!) my first child because he was GT/LD - gifted, talented and learning disabled, and our otherwise excellent elementary could not really cater to all his needs. I just created my own academic curriculum, as well as occupational and physical therapy activities after school and on weekends. My children also go to their native language school on weekends and have quality music lessons.

Wow. You're terrible.

No this is not terrible, it’s accurate. Teachers are not the best and brightest. Not in the US.

I agree with the PP--you're terrible.

[Anonymous]

Op, just image if more than you are making such a request. If you are in MCPS, the teach students ratio is pretty high. I don’t think teachers would appreciate extra work assigned by parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lower elementary school teacher here.
It is our first day of inservice as students start after labor day. Meeting ended at 12:30 and I went to my room and finally put my computer together and plugged in everything, to find 4 emails from parents of new students. Each of them wants to know my strategies in order to support and engage their very bright child who acts out when bored in the classroom.
I am not complaining -- but this is our reality.

I don't know any child in MCPS who has their teacher assignments. It is a reasonable question. Last year I tried to reach to as my child has some significant concerns and it very much impacts my child and the teacher said that my child didn't have it despite years of therapies and 1-2 evaluations a year. You show signs of a bad teacher who should not be teaching.

DP. PP, you show signs of a parent who will make things so much harder for their child. Just contact the counselor and ask for a meeting rather than sniping from the bushes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP - I don't really know why you had to go into such detail if really all you wanted was a basic calendar of the curriculum. Obviously as you found out - you just ask and they will provide it.

She wanted applause for “afterschooling”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lower elementary school teacher here.
It is our first day of inservice as students start after labor day. Meeting ended at 12:30 and I went to my room and finally put my computer together and plugged in everything, to find 4 emails from parents of new students. Each of them wants to know my strategies in order to support and engage their very bright child who acts out when bored in the classroom.
I am not complaining -- but this is our reality.

I don't know any child in MCPS who has their teacher assignments. It is a reasonable question. Last year I tried to reach to as my child has some significant concerns and it very much impacts my child and the teacher said that my child didn't have it despite years of therapies and 1-2 evaluations a year. You show signs of a bad teacher who should not be teaching.

We got ours yesterday. But that's because we're going to a brand new school and the teachers there started their preservice last week instead of this week, so the postcards went out on Friday and we received them yesterday.

[Anonymous]

I don’t know why OP is getting so much flack.
I was you, OP, because my jerk of an ex didn’t care about good schools, all he cared about was more house for the money.
I tried to work with the teachers and here is what I found:
1) many teachers are at Title 1s because they just can’t or won’t deal with engaged parents. Hence their reaction to your questions.
2) many teachers think that all kids need busywork. I got a lot of flack for my son not completing assignments like write 10 words 5 times each. The words weren’t, say, onomatopoeia. Nobody told me my kid was good at math until I finally transferred him to a better school where he was more engaged.
3) many teachers feel threatened/intimidated by smart parents.

Good luck!