Kindergarten - my child "going postal" every morning...

Banty writes:
But why do you?

You see your child in a school, perhaps another child in a school, and
you as a parent in relation to that, and the other child's parent in
relation to all that - do you think "in this setting everyone should
be working"? Or - "I'm working here that parent should be working
too", or more likely probably it's "there is work I see that is to be
done here - everybody I see should be doing the work I see here"?

No, none of these. I tried to explain it. I guess the best I can
explain it is that I assume anyone who would have children is interested
in educating and raising their children, and it would seem really odd to
me to want to ship your child off to school for many hours every day and
not be part of what's going on there. It would be like having children
and then hiring someone to raise them while you go live somewhere else,
and have no contact with your hired parent-substitutes. It just seems
really odd, to me.

The natural (in my view) wish to participate in the process by which my
children are educated is totally independent of the needs or
requirements of the school.

Some people probably can't participate in the schools (for example, have
a job which makes it impossible for them to do so), and I could
understand why they might not participate, but I don't understand how a
parent would not *want* to participate.

The public schools are an institution with professional personnel
trained to educate our children - they set (at least in detail) the
agenda, goals, and methodology.

Are you implying that you think the schools have a better idea of how to
educate my kids than I do? I certainly don't agree with that! And I
think one of the main benefits of volunteerism is precisely that the
schools can't boss around volunteers or control them in the same way
that they would employees. So the volunteers have more of an
opportunity (relative to the amount of their participation) to have a
positive effect, through the contribution of their own perspective and
attitudes.

You have no right or standing or even information to expect otherwise.

Well, I think that, as an individual, I have "standing" to expect
whatever I want. I'm using "expect" in the sense of "I expect an
apology [for some infraction]"; it's what I think a reasonable person
would do, and what I hope everyone would do, although I'm aware, as a
matter of fact, that some people won't. And, to be honest, I don't
really want everyone to volunteer: if someone really doesn't want to
participate in the schools, then I don't want them there either.

David desJardins

Bev Brandt writes:
I've never had one single room parent tell me anything of value. And
yes, I've talked with them. They all say my son is "fine."

Bev Brandt also writes:
Okay. What *do* you think of a parent who does not volunteer and who
has not relied upon information from volunteer parents? I have a son
with problems at school. I don't go to the school regularly. I don't
ask the room parents about my son.

Don't these two statements directly contradict each other?

David desJardins

Bev Brandt wrote:

: The volunteers at your school must do more than the volunteers at
: mine. I don't see how helping the kids line up for recess and lunch
: gives them any sort of data on my child. They are not the ones that
: are there to evaluate his academic and social progress. I've never had
: one single room parent tell me anything of value. And yes, I've talked
: with them. They all say my son is "fine."

Yes, the volunteers at my son's school do more than yard duty work, so in
that case, no, my suggestion to ask a parent volunteer isn't going to help
you out one bit.

When I volunteer in the class, I'm providing direct assistance to the
students. I'm either teaching them how to use a computer or else I'm
helping them with reading or math in learning centers. I sit with kids
who are having trouble reading and follow along as they read a book to me.
I'm not expected to discipline the students, that is the job of the
teacher. Usually I'm the only parent volunteer in the class for that
given day, and while the teacher is providing more individual attention to
a rotating group of students, I'm busy supervising and answering questions
of the remaining three-quarters of the class while they work on assigned
projects.

Where I believe Marjorie gets the idea we parent volunteers are there for
socializing is that class parties and field trips can be a social occasion
for parent volunteers. However, those parties happen ony a handful of
times out of the year. Otherwise, we're there to help the students with
academics and allow for the teacher to give small groups more focused
attention.

Now were your son in the class I volunteer, I could tell you quite a bit
about how he's doing, both academically and socially. Whether you want to
respect my opinion or not is up to you and I'd give you the names of three
other parent volunteers to get their opinions as well.

: Okay. What *do* you think of a parent who does not volunteer and who
: has not relied upon information from volunteer parents? I have a son
: with problems at school. I don't go to the school regularly. I don't
: ask the room parents about my son. Implicit in your posts is that I'm
: not doing enough - but then, you don't know what I *am* doing.
: Volunteering or asking the room parent about a child was your *first*
: suggestion to the OP. I think it should be much further down the list.
: Much.

Since your school does not allow parents to help out with academics in the
classroom, I can't equate our situations. I don't know what I'd do in
your situation. Your son is having trouble in school but you can't get
off work. Neither you or your husband particularly want to help out in
the classroom. Your plan to be more aggressive on improving communication
between you, the teacher, and the school principal sounds like the only
way to go under the circumstances.

Noreen

Nan wrote:

: So what is it about today's teachers that requires all this
: volunteerism???

I don't know about your state but in California it's called Proposition 13
from the 70's which took away millions of dollars from schools and
universities.

Noreen

Robyn Kozierok wrote:

: It sounds like you've maybe had a bad experience with a teacher in the
: past, but really, most kindergarten teachers have lots of experience
: with separation issues and are more than willing to help.

No, not at all. My son's kindergarten teacher was a reading specialist
and she had everyone either at grade level or beyond by the end of the
year. But no "perfect" teacher exists and she did fall down in a few of
areas, IMO, and especially when she was overloaded with five very active
boys in one classroom. I don't believe she dealt well with one active boy
in particular and could see if the parent had been involved earlier,
everyone would have been better served. By the time she brought in the
mother, half the year had passed -- the mother was defensive -- and things
went from bad to worse.

Noreen

x-no-archive:yes David desJardins wrote:

Marjorie writes:
Fourth, once your children reach middle school age, all of this is
moot. They don't have parent volunteers in the middle school
classrooms, thank goodness, and the parental competition dies on the
vine.

Now that you mention this, it certainly seems true that there's less
volunteer help in the middle and high schools (although I don't agree
there's none). I wonder why that is? My first thought is that, as
children get older, they have less respect for any arbitrary adult, just
because that person is an adult, and so it's harder for volunteers to
come in and be treated with respect and to be effective. I wonder if
that's the reason, or if there's some other reason.

No I think the reason is that the children go from teacher to teacher
- so they don't have one teacher all the time. There are occasional
parent volunteers (or at least were when I was teaching) but they
mostly helped in special ed or in the library or the office or
somewhere like that. It's just way harder to coordinate it than in
elementary school where one teacher has one class all the time.

Also, a teacher does more or less (depending on the kind of teacher it
is) the same lesson 4 or 5 times a day in middle school, and maybe two
or three lessons a couple of times a day in high school. I was a
student teacher where the 9th grade science teacher taught exactly the
same lesson 5 times a day. Since I was forced to student teach
outside of my field, he taught the first lesson of the day, and then I
did the other 4 lessons repeating what he said. It just isn't the
same kind of thing that an elementary teacher does with multiple
subjects each day.

As Robin has pointed out - in the beginning grades the parent is
expected to be able to figure out the answers. There is not always
that expectation in the upper grades and hs.



grandma Rosalie

David desJardins wrote:

: Well, I think that, as an individual, I have "standing" to expect
: whatever I want. I'm using "expect" in the sense of "I expect an
: apology [for some infraction]"; it's what I think a reasonable person
: would do, and what I hope everyone would do, although I'm aware, as a
: matter of fact, that some people won't. And, to be honest, I don't
: really want everyone to volunteer: if someone really doesn't want to
: participate in the schools, then I don't want them there either.

David, I'm all a'glow. We usually find ourselves on opposite ends of an
argument so I'm reveling in the accord right now. :-)

Noreen (ain't that a fancy way to say "Me, too)

x-no-archive:yes
(Robyn Kozierok) wrote:
(sorry I misspelled your name in another post)

In article ,
Nan wrote:

So what is it about today's teachers that requires all this
volunteerism???

Larger class sizes in many cases. Heterogeneous grouping of
students at all different ability levels in the same class.

We had that 20 years ago and it was regarded as appropriate and in
fact for better learning of all the children - at least research
showed that.

In some cases, budget cuts have reduced the "special" periods
during the school day when the children would be with another
teacher freeing the main classroom teacher for prep work; also

This is a factor of budget which is a political problem and a school
board problem. We had mandated planning periods in our contracts, and
I do not think this has changed since I was teaching (I have talked to
friends who are current teachers and they still had their planning
periods.) They were trying to eliminate home ec, but they still had
other special subjects.

fewer "resource teachers" available within the school to help out
individuals needing extra help or enrichment. Also different
expectations on teachers today (both educational and beaurocratic).

The resource teachers are mandated by law for special needs students.
The school cannot eliminate them.

Those are the main things that come immediately to mind for me.

I truly don't see that any of those things are a reason to volunteer.
I basically agree with Banty. The schools are supposed to teach my
child. That's their job. I was happy when I was a teacher if the
parents came to parent's night to talk to me but generally it was only
the parents of the 'good' students who did that. I came to every
parents night of all my kids all through school. I kept track of how
they were doing. That was it.

My dd#2 had her 3 yo in a coop pre-school and was required to
volunteer a certain number of hours. She didn't mind volunteering the
hours, but she had a great deal of difficulty with the scheduling as
they WOULD NOT understand that her schedule wasn't the same all the
time (she's a pilot for AA). Some weeks she would be working on
Wednesday, and some weeks she would not. So she's transferred her to
the school that her son attends where she can just flat pay for it and
doesn't need to volunteer.

I will go farther than that. If there are schools that need
volunteers, I think they are the private schools. Private schools
have FAR less resources than public schools.

grandma Rosalie

"Noreen Cooper" wrote in message
...

Well, in an ideal world....but....who is living in an ideal world? If the
system isn't ideal, though, I'd still suggest getting data firsthand in a
scouting mission rather than continue to allow your child to fail because
the system is failing to communicate the problems to you in a timely
manner.

I agree. But I think a good first step is to ask the teacher,
fercryinoutloud.

When my daughter spent some time freaking out before kindergarten, she was
always fine five minutes after I left. She was responding to *my*
ambivalence about her growing up.

Pulling out all stops, rearranging schedules, and looking for "scout"
parents might be necessary 2nd, 3rd, etc. steps if the problem doesn't
resolve in a couple of weeks. But I don't think they need to be at the top
of the list. And school just started.

Just my .02,
Ann

"David desJardins" wrote in message
...
Marjorie writes:
Fourth, once your children reach middle school age, all of this is
moot. They don't have parent volunteers in the middle school
classrooms, thank goodness, and the parental competition dies on the
vine.

Now that you mention this, it certainly seems true that there's less
volunteer help in the middle and high schools (although I don't agree
there's none). I wonder why that is? My first thought is that, as
children get older, they have less respect for any arbitrary adult, just
because that person is an adult, and so it's harder for volunteers to
come in and be treated with respect and to be effective. I wonder if
that's the reason, or if there's some other reason.

I think partly it's because the subjects have become too advanced to
assume any volunteer can teach them. I know in junior high the
masses could volunteer for some things, serving hot lunch, or bringing
snacks for various teacher events. But by junior high they know the
volunteers they want. If they need math experts, they find the math
experts. If they need engineers, they know who's an engineer. So
they get recruit volunteers on a case by case basis. But also they
need many, many less volunteers. I think this might be because junior high
seems to be when tracking kicks in. In elementary school
it's great to have some one doing math enrichment while the other
kids are working on reviewing basics, or having some one do the
chapter reading group while others are working on short stories, and
others are on picture books. But when all the kids in the class are
ready for math enrichment, or reviewing basics, less "teachers"
are required. Also, as the kids get older their attention spans lengthen,
and teachers can deal with more students at the same time. When working
in groups they eventually don't need supervision in each group. At our
elementary schools the volunteers lessen every year. The difference in
volunteer classroom hours between 6th grade parents (last year of
elementary) and 7th grade parents (first year of junior high) is pretty
much a wash.

But by high school the parents are invited back in force, but not in
classrooms, in tutoring centers. Where parents can help kids catch
up in 1st and 2nd grade classrooms, by high school pulling kids out
of class to tutor makes no sense. But parents still tutor, it just doesn't
look like classroom volunteering.