Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree. 5th grade is a bit old for a parent to be involved, except maybe some relatively hands off chaperoning on a field trip. I used to teach middle school and parents would have just complicated matters most of the time. Kids of that age act very differently when parents are around.

If anything, kids that age 10, 11, 12, 13 behave better when a parent is around. Parents (some, anyway) bring fresh energy into a stale dynamic. Most kids I see just brighten right up when they see a fun parent in the room. Even on a 6th or 7th grade field trip--these kids are usually dying to show off their work to you or just talk about the subjects from a different perspective for a change. The teacher can just leave and go get a Starbucks, really. Many of the Moms and Dads at Janney have extensive educations and experience with modern, more nurturing methods of interacting with kids that are certainly on par with most of the teachers. As for gossiping about the other kids--you're wrong. I've got a younger kid who is special needs in 3rd grade and volunteering was a great opportunity for me to bridge the social gap a little bit with him to see which kids he really was connecting with and facilitate a better relationship for him with some of those kids and with his teacher, actually. Parents in the classroom is a win-win.

Are you the OP? By the above ages most children do NOT want their parents around in their social/academic setting. This may come as a shock to you but this is an age when many children find their parents a social embarrassment because it keeps them from being themselves. I feel sorry for your children and I pray for heavenly intervention for those poor souls who teach your children. Here's is something very important you should know and remember, your constant presence singles them out and this can lead to unpleasant teasing by other children, e.g., "mama's baby," or worse. You need some help in learning to let them go.

Anonymous wrote:My DC has a 5th grade teacher at a JKLM ok Janney who responds to every request I make to her about a class activity with this annoyed expression and the response: "I don't care." I'm trying to be polite and make scheduling request like: "Do you mind if we take the class outside for lunch during the field trip?" or "Should we do the story reading first before we serve the food?" Innocuous sorts of questions. But every time she blasts back with: I DON'T CARE! It is pretty jarring. It feels curt and rude. Couldn't she just say: I have no preference? She just seems so annoyed that any parents are in the classroom at all--From what I have observed she is incredibly harsh with the students. Also the school librarian talks to the students as if she were a prison guard. I overheard her reduce a student to tears yesterday. I get that the kids are disruptive sometimes. I'm the parent so, I certainly know that some kids are repeatedly causing problems--and I know that parents can be annoying--but, wow, do we really need to be so harsh about everything in a school atmosphere? It is disheartening.

Children who are disruptive and keep other children from learning should, and need to be, corrected. If they continue to be disruptive and cause problems they should be put in a class where disruptions do not matter. Today's generation of new moms are rearing elitist sissies. Yeah, be sure to call CPS because battered, abused, neglected children do not matter where your precious little darlings are concerned. I would imagine the teacher is so sick of you that she goes to the bathroom to vomit when she simply hears your name.

We live in a helicopter community. The teachers have really laid down the law (and blamed it on the principal) so as to diminish the number of "helpful" parents. I can't say I blame them. It must be hard to have these people bothering and disrupting all the time under the guise of "helping" (not really).

Anonymous wrote:OP here. My questions were definitely not intended to control the teacher at all. But yes, I feel that parents should be involved as much as the kids are comfortable with it. The teachers who are open and confident have nothing to fear from a parent like me. I think when kids see parents at school they realize the continuity of conduct and learning extends to home and school. This even extends to middle school where kids really need to have teachers who are sensitive to how difficult these years can be. If a teacher is afraid or uncomfortable with a very relaxed and open atmosphere towards parents in the classroom, then I will assume he/she is using harsh discipline instead of actually teaching and nurturing the students. We are judged in our jobs; why should teachers be treated differently?

We are judged in our jobs by the people to whom we report.

The teacher does not report to you. She reports to the principal.

What is rude is posting about a specific grade teacher at a specific school so as to enable the reader to identify that teacher (and probably you) easily.

Anonymous wrote:The teacher can just leave and go get a Starbucks, really. Many of the Moms and Dads at Janney have extensive educations and experience with modern, more nurturing methods of interacting with kids that are certainly on par with most of the teachers.

OP, I'm the former teacher who asked if it might be your communication style. Based on your 2nd and 3rd posts, I'm guessing the teacher does not enjoy having YOU in her classroom (as opposed to other volunteers). Even if your words are innocuous, your attitude toward your teacher/teachers in general is leaking through. Give your child space and give your child's teacher space and a break from your judgment and condescension.

Let this year be an exercise in letting go.

OP, have the responses from the teachers on this thread made you see your interaction with this teacher in a different light? I think it can be hard for parents to make the transition from having small children to having adolescents and 5th grade is right around the first of these fault lines in parent/child relationships.

Anonymous wrote:Hmmm. Trying to put myself in your teacher's shoes, it's possible that she views the questions you give as examples above not as innocent scheduling questions. They may come off as suggestions (veiled as questions) for how she should manage the classroom. Asking "should we read the story first?" can mean "I think we should read the story first." which is overstepping your role as a volunteer. It

This is what I was wondering. Hard to know from OP's description whether this is the problem, or the teacher is rude, or some combination of the two.

Anonymous wrote:Former teacher here: I taught 11th grade the year I graduated from college. Then kindergarten, second grade and sixth grade later.

Without trying to sound rude, you come across as every teacher's nightmare. I am totally confident with my teaching ability and classroom management skills. When I taught kindergarten, I loved having parents help out in the classroom. And in second and sixth grade classrooms, parent volunteers were great for special projects and field trips. But in fifth grade, I would have been annoyed by having a parent in the classroom just to volunteer. Fifth grade teachers don't need help teaching. And they shouldn't need help managing their classroom. A fifth grade teacher's job is not to "nurture" the children. For heavens sake, you're talking about a child that is almost middle school aged. Harsh disciple shouldn't be necessary. But when I think of "nurturing" type of behavior, I think of kindergarten and first grade. By fifth grade, the environment should start to resemble a high school classroom. The kids should be actively listening. They should be working independently. The teacher should be ensuring that the kids stay on task with minimal reminders. There is no need for classroom volunteers on a routine day. Again, special projects, field trips, or parties are the exception.

Maybe the teacher is asking you to back off a little?

Totally agree! By 5th grade, I don't want my child to be "nurtured" at school -- I'll do that at home, thanks. I want him to learn and have fun.

10:40, thank you for your post. That right there demonstrates the difference between a trained professional with experience and moms like OP who think they are experts because they raised one child up to middle school age.

NP here. To the teacher: You sound great. I hope my kids end up having teachers like you!

Former Middle School teacher here again. The point I was trying to make was that kids (especially in MS, but probably in 5th grade as well) are learning to develop their own peer networks, relationships with teachers, ways of handling stress, etc. There are some kinds of behavior that should be continuous between home and school (being polite, being respectful) but there are other things that are special and different about the school environment. Having parents in the school space confuses these areas as much as would having a teacher hanging out at the family's dinner table. Kids get relaxed and comfortable with teachers at school similarly to how they are relaxed with parents at home, but the situations cannot be reversed.

Just one example I can think of is during the height of the Harry Potter book mania I had a group of seventh grade girls who loved the books and would tell me all about them, give me updates about their reading progress, tell me how excited they were about the first movie coming out - basically be giggly about Harry Potter like seventh grade girls can be. I was talking to two of the girls mothers and I mentioned how excited the girls were for the movie and they told me that the girls were kind of over Harry Potter and had outgrown the franchise, wanted more mature reading material, etc. These were good moms and good kids, it was just that the girls were trying out certain kinds of acting and thinking with their parents (trying new things, trying to be mature and grown up) and trying out different ones at school with their friends. That is absolutely developmentally appropriate and having the separate spaces to handle the two sides of an adolescent's personality is healthy. My point was that having parents at school may complicate how these kids use these separate spaces to experiment with their own personalities and work through the process of growing up.

I feel sorry for the teachers at Janney. It seems like they have as many bosses as they have children in their class. And they're forced to do snacktime for 5th graders. Seems like the parents don't want their kids to grow up.

Former teacher here: I taught 11th grade the year I graduated from college. Then kindergarten, second grade and sixth grade later.

Without trying to sound rude, you come across as every teacher's nightmare. I am totally confident with my teaching ability and classroom management skills. When I taught kindergarten, I loved having parents help out in the classroom. And in second and sixth grade classrooms, parent volunteers were great for special projects and field trips. But in fifth grade, I would have been annoyed by having a parent in the classroom just to volunteer. Fifth grade teachers don't need help teaching. And they shouldn't need help managing their classroom. A fifth grade teacher's job is not to "nurture" the children. For heavens sake, you're talking about a child that is almost middle school aged. Harsh disciple shouldn't be necessary. But when I think of "nurturing" type of behavior, I think of kindergarten and first grade. By fifth grade, the environment should start to resemble a high school classroom. The kids should be actively listening. They should be working independently. The teacher should be ensuring that the kids stay on task with minimal reminders. There is no need for classroom volunteers on a routine day. Again, special projects, field trips, or parties are the exception.

Maybe the teacher is asking you to back off a little?

I think the OP needs to homeschool.