Time Article - What Teachers Hate about Parents (x-posted)

On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 21:20:24 -0600, toto
wrote:

Any anecdotes?


Divorces.

During a parent teacher conference, a child's father showed up with
his wife. He introduced her to me as his wife and the child was with
them and this was my first time meeting the parents, so I assumed that
these are the parents.....mom and dad. We start conferencing and then
5 minutes later, the biological mother (ex-wife) comes into the room
and sees the new wife and demands that she leave the room because she
is not the biological parent and therefore has no right to be there.
The mother/ex-wife also claims that the father is delinquent in his
child support and shouldn't have a right to be there either. They all
start arguing with one another over who has the right to conference
with me as the teacher. Needless to say, the child and I were both
mortified. Eventually, I was able to get them to calm down and I met
with them all together.....but that family gave me tons of grief all
year long with their constant in-fighting.

The worst example of said grief....they were never consistant about
who would pick the child up on any given day. Some days all 3 would
show up (...and argue w/ one another in the school yard). Some days
no one would show up. All three were listed w/ the school as
authorized but sometimes Mom would become angry w/ Dad if she found
out that he sent step-mom instead of coming himself. Sometimes Mom
would get so mad that she would deny Dad visitation and he would try
to get around her by picking the child up from school early without
the mother's knowledge. Sometimes Dad would also violate visitation
by not returning the child home when he was supposed to. She got hip
to it and would come early too just to confront him at the school in
the middle of dismissal and I think you can just imagine the ugly
scenes that ensued. Twice, school security had to intervene. This
went on all year long. It was horrible.


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Mochaspresso

Our guideline is 5 minutes per grade, 3x week (for K-6). However, this does
NOT include reading at home. We do the AR program, and while students have
time to read at school, some of the teachers have more required points than
others and use AR more aggressively in the grade, and if a child reads
slowly, it can take a long time to read enough books to get the required
points. And technically, a child isn't supposed to have books read aloud or
via books on tape past 2nd grade unless they have a documented LD (although
I'd be very tempted to suggest this to my child if they were struggling to
get the books read).

--
Donna DeVore Metler
Orff Music Specialist/Band/Choir
Mother to Angel Brian Anthony 1/1/2002, 22 weeks, severe PE/HELLP
And Allison Joy, 11/26/04 (35 weeks, PIH, Pre-term labor)

"Rosalie B." wrote in message
...

The special subject teachers rarely assigned any homework AFAIK. All
teachers, including the PE teachers, music teachers and art teachers,
guidance, etc. taught one reading period a day - the whole school did
reading at the same time. I don't remember assigning any reading
homework.


As a music teacher, the only homework I have in my classes is practice for
students in instrumental classes (and for 4th grade, if the student wants to
take their recorder home). I don't have a minimum amount, although I do have
a maximum at one time, because young wind players can easily exhaust their
embouchure and start developing bad habits due to fatigue if they play too
long without resting. What I do have is leveled songs, with the goal being
to pass the levels at your own speed. This is for recorder, band, and guitar
classes. The grade report lists the child's current level, as opposed to a
letter grade, and the only long-term consequence is that a child in band or
guitar must have made it to a specific level to move from beginning to
intermediate classes.

I tell my parents that practice is their child's responsibility as to
whether they do it or not. What I do ask is for the parents to listen to
their child play when the child wants to show off, and applaud their
efforts.

Most of my students make it farther and are more proficent in the same time
using mastery goals than I've seen from teachers who mandate 30 minutes a
day or 2 hours a week or whatever, in the same amount of time.

"Circe" wrote in message
news:XHxTd.81308$Yu.59656@fed1read01...
Well, frankly, I don't think that second graders have the first idea what
a
"diorama" is, let alone how to build one. Having read the directions for
that particular project, I think it is entirely safe to say that NONE of
the
kids in the class did it on their own nor was their any expectation on the
part of the teacher that they *would* do it alone. The information sheet
describing the project was quite clearly addressed to the PARENTS, not to
the kids.

Hmmm... DD (second grade) asked one day for a shoe box so I found a box for
her (or she found it and asked me if she could have it). I hadn't a clue
why she wanted one. When I asked, she said something about a diorama
showing a walking stick in a tree - she apparently knew what one was and
vaguely how to construct one. I cut the flaps off the box but other than
that I offered absolutely no help (knowing nothing about walking sticks).

Now, the resulting diorama wouldn't win any prizes - it was all made of the
cardboard so the insect blended very well in its surroundings (which may
have been the point...).

A diorama like the one required for this project is more like something
I'd
expect a fourth grader to be able to accomplish with minimal parent
intervention and supervision. It was completely beyond the abilities of
all
but the most unusually talented second graders.


Trust me, DD is not among the most unusually talented. Bright and curious
but not one of the GT.

What I've found is that every time I get a parents' note about a project,
it's like pulling teeth to get DD to do it. She claims not to be able to
complete the task, she doesn't understand, how could she possibly do it,
she's just a child, etc. But like the above example, when I don't get a
note, she's shown herself to be quite capable.

Jeanne

dragonlady wrote:
It can also be a problem if the teacher has to approve the book --
and
doesn't approve of your child's taste in books. DS loves to read,
and
reads well. However, his middle school teacher (7th grade, as I
recall)
would NOT approve any of the books he brought in, because she
considered
them inappropriate for a child. He was heavily into Stephen King and

Michael Crichton at the time, and she just did not approve. This
meant
he had to spend time reading stuff he didn't enjoy -- most of it well

below his reading level -- before he could get to the reading he DID
enjoy.

Now that is just whacked!!! I don't care what my kids are reading, as
long as they are reading. We keep a book shelf and the kids choose what
they want to read. They are welcome to read my books if they're
interested.

With that said, last year DD10's teacher did make recommendations.
Note, DD spent two years in special classes to help her reading, with
which she struggled early on. They took her out of class a few times a
week and gave her intense, one-on-one help.

The teacher was concerned that DD was trying to read at a level too
high for her abilities. She said it's common, especially for those with
older siblings, to want to over-reach. She was worried this was not
helping DD. She showed me how they teach the kids to read the first
page, counting how many words they don't understand. Too many, and the
book is not appropriate.

Based on the teacher's recommendations of books that were appropriate
for DD at that time, I went out and bought a bunch of books and then
left them around. I stopped short of forcing DD to read these books
instead of Harry Potter, etc. I just left them out in the book shelf,
so they were an option if she was interested. DD started reading them
on her own accord. She went through a long Sharon Creech period last
year.

This year, she has finally caught up to her class, and not only that,
is starting to exceed her grade level. Something just clicked in with
her this year. Reading and writing are now her best subjects. I can't
tell you how amazing that is for all of us! I suspect next she will
start excelling in math; she's always had a natural aptitude for it,
but her reading issues tended to hold her back (hard to do math if you
can't read the questions).

However, I do sometimes wonder if it was all the intense help she got,
or whether she just caught up when she was ready to catch up. Who can
tell?

jen

Banty wrote:
Not everyone finds reading relaxing. Even those that do, don't
necessarily find
reading what someone *else* wants them to read relaxing.

Oh - our school requires a certain amount of reading every night, but
the book is the child's choice. They are free to read comic books (DD12
is into Japanese comics right now), or the back of a cereal box, for
all the teachers care!

In the younger grades, an adult reading to the child counts, too. By
6th grade, they are required to read a certain amount of minutes each
week. It doesn't matter when - they can do all the minutes in one chunk
on the weekend if they choose, or spread it out over the week 30
minutes each day.

jen

Banty wrote:

In article , The Ranger says...

Beta's 2nd grade teacher expected them to put together a diorama --
probably not one as complex as your child's teacher but very complex.
She sent home the instructions and on the bottom added, "Any dioramas
that come back clearly beyond your second grader's ability will be
returned ungraded. Think about it before you do it."

Two were sent back home three times before the children's fathers got
the hint. (I loved it! I just wish this would happen in other
classes...)

::clapping and cheering::

Although.... there is the danger of dismissing a very talented kids' work as a
parent's.

Yeah, a good friend of mine had a jr. high science fair
project disqualified because the judges didn't believe he was
capable of having done it on his own, even though he did do it
(and neither of his parents were capable of doing it ;-)
Needless to say, he was a most frustrated camper.

Best wishes,
Ericka

shinypenny wrote:


However, I do sometimes wonder if it was all the intense help she got,
or whether she just caught up when she was ready to catch up. Who can
tell?

How old is she? My experience has been that a lot of
late bloomer readers really hit a bit surge around 3rd grade.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Ericka Kammerer wrote:


How old is she? My experience has been that a lot of
late bloomer readers really hit a bit surge around 3rd grade.

She's now 10 and in 5th grade. The surge hit only in the past few
months. At the beginning of this school year, she was still behind her
classmates and reading at 4th grade level. Something kicked in and now
she is reading at nearly 6th grade level.

They identified in 1st grade that she was struggling. I was concerned,
because dyslexia runs in our family, but it's not dyslexia. All
throughout 2nd and 3rd she received special reading help. Last year,
she did not get pulled out of the class, but they continued to work
with her within the class. This year, she's not receiving any extra
assistance.

Her spelling still lags a little behind, but a great passion for
writing has suddenly emerged. She used to *hate* writing. Suddenly this
year she is journaling and writing poetry in her spare time, and saying
that maybe someday she'll be a writer by trade.

Whatever the reasons for this sudden turn, we couldn't be more
thrilled! I was especially tickled to read on her report card that one
area she needs to work on is learning to put her book away in class -
apparently, she's had to be reprimanded for reading *too* much, during
inappropriate times. The report card said she's "always got her nose in
a book."

jen

In article , Ericka Kammerer says...

Banty wrote:

In article , The Ranger says...

Beta's 2nd grade teacher expected them to put together a diorama --
probably not one as complex as your child's teacher but very complex.
She sent home the instructions and on the bottom added, "Any dioramas
that come back clearly beyond your second grader's ability will be
returned ungraded. Think about it before you do it."

Two were sent back home three times before the children's fathers got
the hint. (I loved it! I just wish this would happen in other
classes...)

::clapping and cheering::

Although.... there is the danger of dismissing a very talented kids' work as a
parent's.

Yeah, a good friend of mine had a jr. high science fair
project disqualified because the judges didn't believe he was
capable of having done it on his own, even though he did do it
(and neither of his parents were capable of doing it ;-)
Needless to say, he was a most frustrated camper.

OK. But what should be done? There sure are frustrated campers who have their
stuff overshadowed by 80% of the other entries being at an adult level.

And, no, 'teach him to value his own work and not be fazed by Johnny's Dad's
project getting an A' does not quite cut it. There needs to be some justice,
and not this choice between having my son's work be overwelmed by adult work
when he shows it in class, and 'join 'em if I can't beat 'em' and giving in and
doing his stuff myself.

Banty