After a conversation with a mother who thinks her child’s profanity is no big deal, Learn Me Good’s Mr. Teacher is looking for worst parent-teacher conferences ever.
Edna Lee writes an imaginary confession to a mother who’s uncovered her secret ambition: To ruin her child’s life.
Everything your child has told you about me is true.
The reason he is failing math IS because every time he raises his hand to ask for help, I ignore him. I go to every other student but him. Yup, I have never worked with him in a small group, neither on a daily basis or ever for that matter. I have never worked with him one-on-one both before or after school. I have never pulled up a chair next to his desk and sat with him while he completed his assignments. No, the truth is, when I see his hand go up, I look right past him.
His poor math grades have no relation to his daydreaming, playing in his desk, talking to his neighbor, or digging in his backpack.
Another teacher writes about a mother whose child was caught stealing on tape. He was “borrowing,” she said.
Update: Matthew Tabor critiques a new teacher’s commentary on parent-teacher conferences.
I once had a father who wanted to beat me up b/c I “said” his daughter was mean.
I read the original blog. I didn’t understand that the parent thought her child’s cussing was no big deal. What I understood the parent to be raising was the appropriate way to teach and discipline a young child. When a child starts school they immediately come into lots of influences that a parent has been able to shelter them from at home. Cussing may be one of them. When the school calls the parent and expects them to have better innoculated their child, it is puzzling to know how to respond. I think I would also begin by asking whether the teacher had told him not to (I respond the same way when children come to me–as they love to–when they have caught another child using a bad word). That just seems to me to be the most appropriate response to the behavior. There might be some additional follow up, time in a time-out place, apology to another child, etc.
When a young child (I am assuming young, because it was during recess) is suspended for a day, I have some pretty potent doubts, not only about the effectiveness of the response, but also the motivation of the teacher. This always sounds like an intent to punish the parent (“get their attention” about what a bad kid they have raised). What the school seems to want is to force the parent to spend a day implementing a punishment of some kind. This is not likely to happen. First, it is far to long a time-frame to be effective, and second, parent’s days are generally already full with some of the other necessities of parenting–like earning a living, or caring for younger children. Since most of us don’t have the kind of jobs that would allow for the natural consequence of having to go to work with mom and be bored all day, the day will likely be spent with whatever emergency care situation the parent has at hand. Which will likely include stuff like TV and relaxation.
That said, I believe I will refrain from posting what my “worst conference” experience has been.
Well… it wasn’t a parent conference but an open house, and the father came to it stoned. It really wasn’t too difficult for me, I just had to occasionally wave something shiny around to keep him distracted.
a mother who thinks her child’s profanity is no big deal
I’m always sort of amused at the typical “bad parent” story. I have to ask myself:
1) Is the parent a customer? Or a panhandler? I mean, the parent certainly isn’t paying a dime “personally” for the educational service. Tax dollars are. If one was to act rudely at the store or doctor’s office, he would get thrown out on his ear. Why is school any different? Why all the angst regarding the moral fiber of parents?
2) As we become more multicultural as a people shouldn’t we expect that many parents don’t find profanity a big deal? Why the gasp? We can’t all have different values and yet somehow agree on everything. It’s a free country. In many industries (oilfield, construction) cussing is standard, and I’m sure the parents cuss at home. Big whoop. Just set the school rules and enforce them.
3) Can you imagine any other service where you pay $10k (the average price of a child’s public school ed, about 20% of an average median annual income…with my six kids, that’s $60k!) where you are not treated as a customer? Where you aren’t given a clear promise and choice of what you get for your cash? Where the local trade union owns the entire market, and then smirks and uses your tax dollars to lobby the government every year to ensure that you get zero alternatives?
4) What is a “worst conference” – a bad one from the parent’s point of view or the teacher’s? Would you expect a “worst customer service” experience to be told from the employee’s or customer’s point of view?
5) Personally, if my kids went to public school I would want the parent-teacher meeting before I sent my kids, to grill the instructor and find out what his philosophy is, just like a college. And I would want a selection, and to be able to watch the class whenever I felt like it, sort of like a mechanic lets you watch as he works on your car. I guess schools think my kids are less important to me than my car. The school admin would probably think I’m crazy, sort of like someone in the old Soviet Union wanting a choice of where to buy shoes was laughed at. Boy, do the teacher unions have one heck of a racket going.
Hmmm… I had a parent conference with a mother because her son was always late to class.
She showed up for the conference 45 minutes late.
I didn’t know quite what to say.
Then there was Esmeralda’s mom.
During the conference, which was pleasant enough, she pulled out a knife and carved a notch in the table as we talked.
Margo/Mom, the kid was in 3rd grade, having been in school for at least 4 years at that point, and obviously WELL under the “influence” of other naughty, cussing children.
Maybe you’re right, and I should begin each week with a reminder not to cuss, not to have sex, not to lie, not to cheat, not to chew tobacco on school property, not to commit grand theft auto, not to prank phone call the white house… there’s just bound to be something I miss!
Misterteacher–why not just follow some well-documented and effective responses to behavioral slip-ups?
BTW–what is it that you would want the ideal parent to do when they get a call saying that their child cussed on the playground and cannot come to school tomorrow? Or would the child of an ideal parent never do such a thing?
Margo/Mom, did you miss the part about how the cussing was just the last in a long line of transgressions?
I think the ideal parent reinforces that when the child breaks the rules at school, he or she can expect to be punished at home as well. So in this case the mother would take a day off work and stay home with the child to make sure he didn’t sit around all day watching cartoons and eating ice cream. And she would take responsibility for making sure he didn’t cuss at school. Most schools send home a copies of rules and expectations for behavior at the start of the year, and the ideal parent would be teaching the child to follow them.
(I’m not interested in how bad it will be for the family for her to miss work. Her duty as a parent is a pretty big one, and it was her child that caused the problem, not the school for enforcing a pretty standard expectation.)
Sure, we’ve all had a few teachers who we might have thought were goofy, but when a parent teaches a child that the teachers and the school personnel are people whom the child is free to ignore and that the child will always have support even in misbehavior from his parents, well then, you’ve created a kid who is going to be problem to educate right until he or she gets kicked out for good.
I’m with NDC on this one. With the exception of violence, schools usually do not choose to suspend immediately. A suspension generally follows a series of infractions.
Mister Teacher made it very clear that she had been on this path for quite a while. I’m sure he, as most of us do, had maintained thorough documentation of her behaviors and consequences in accordance with his school’s policy. Without a doubt, steps had been taken by the teacher and the school to help this child as well. We all have tools in our toolchest to aide students with behavior, and only the poorest teachers simply hand out consequences without making an attempt to help a child otherwise.
Even with the use of those behavioral tools, school policy must be enforced with all students. While you are working on correcting a behavior such as cussing, a child might make a poor choice as she did. Just because you are currently implementing behavior modicfications does not excuse a child from consequences.
I’ll even bet her mother saw this one coming because it was not the first time her child had been in trouble. At some point, serious consequences that may impact both the child and the parent must be handed down or the child will not respect the boundaries established at school. While it is not the intention of a school to punish the parent, inconveniencing her might help her see that her child is struggling with behavior and needs to respect boundaries.
We teachers really do want to work with parents as a team. We are not the enemy. We want parents to be involved, visit the classroom (Vital Core), and come to us when they have a concern. We only ask to be treated with the same levels of respect and dignity we show their children.
As for punishing the parent, one school I worked at had a policy of having parents immediately come to pick students up from school when they were suspended, whether they were at work, home, or running errands. There was a singificant decrease in the number of repeat suspensions after the policy was introduced.
“Can you imagine any other service where you pay $10k (the average price of a child’s public school ed, about 20% of an average median annual income…with my six kids, that’s $60k!) where you are not treated as a customer? Where you aren’t given a clear promise and choice of what you get for your cash? Where the local trade union owns the entire market, and then smirks and uses your tax dollars to lobby the government every year to ensure that you get zero alternatives?”
As Vital Core stated, we pay a lot for education in this country. As he also stated, we all share in that education price tag through our taxes. In reality, we tax-paying adults who don’t have children or who are parents of adult children do not have the benefit of a child tax credit and are paying more for your child’s education than you are. With that logic, I, a childless teacher, pays more for a student’s education than the parent does. Should that afford me any special privileges? Does that mechanic or shoe salesman you referred to earlier pay more for your car repair or pair of shoes than you do?
As for a desire to be given “a clear promise and choice,” you are. The promise comes in the form of education state standards. By law, those are exactly what we will be teaching your child. It is our promise and our obligation. You also have the choice to send your child to school elsewhere. Be that another public school, a private one, or even homeschooling; you have that choice. If you choose a private school or homeschooling, the public school will still provide additional services not available in a private or homeschooling situation, such as speech or occupational therapy, should your child require them.
All of the choice is in the hands of the parents. Schools have little choice. Under federal law, we are obligated to offer a free and appropriate education to all children, and that really means all. Unlike a business, we do not have the right to refuse service to anyone.
Finally, NEA is largely funded not with tax dollars, but with union dues paid by members. I am paying for my own lobbyists, not you. Like you though, I don’t always agree with the choices the NEA makes, but I do suppport collective bargaining in any profession.
Vital Core, although it may appear so, I am not trying to be adversarial. I understand a parent’s strong desire to have a say in their child’s education and encourage parents to be advocates for their children. I simply wish to express that teachers and schools are not on the other side of the fight. It was hurtful to suggest that schools feel your child is less important than a pair of shoes. Beyond hurtful though, it was misguided. You CAN meet a teacher before you child enters a class. You CAN sit in on lesson in the classroom. Just as you are not someone from the old Soviet Union, neither are the schools. You have many rights as a parent, but it is up to you to understand those rights so that you might fully utilize them.
NDC: Let me put a few questions to you, as your vantage point appears to be somewhat different from mine.
As the post does not include any mention of any disciplinary action on the part of the school–for either the cussing or the “long list of previous transgression,” do all schools and teachers reliably and consistently respond to all misbehavior in appropriate ways? Should a parent never question a teacher’s judgment? Should a parent never ask for clarification?
Very specifically, what do you expect a parent to do that would reinforce that when a child breaks the rules at school they are punished at home as well? What would the ideal parent, who takes a full day off of work to sit at home with their child be doing for that full day in order to reinforce whatever the response was at school–that apparently did not rise to a level of sufficiency to extinguish the behavior within the teacher/school’s timeline of appropriateness? Would this full day of activity (whatever it is) be sufficient to extinguish the behavior, or should the parent expect that this have to happen repeatedly in order to get the behavior that the school desires?
As I said, my perspective is different. I have spent some time in the classroom, but far more of my teaching experience is in other settings. My background (both professional and personal) teaches me that a full day of “punishment” implemented a full day after an infraction has next to no ability to impact the behavior of an 8 year old. The window of opportunity for changing behavior was during the immediate time just after it occured–and a fairly short (about 8 minutes would the the rule of thumb) consequence would be appropriate. While a single “dose” is not sufficient to extinguish that behavior, ongoing consistency will diminish the behavior considerably (example–do any teachers, who “know better” EVER cuss?)–and set a supportive “tone” to what happens on the playground for all of the children.
I would also say–and this is based on my working experience in settings where the “rules” were different from what children experienced at home, school, or in the community–that children learn very easily what is expected of them in a setting even if (and this is a big IF) it is not the same that is expected at home. Third graders are very susceptible even to the particular adult “in charge.” Witness what happens to behavior whan an adult, or certain adults, walk into a classroom.
Edra Lee:
We disagree. Point by point:
I, a childless teacher, pays more for a student’s education than the parent does.
This logic is flawed. First, the taxes you pay depend far more on income than if you get a child tax credit, so by your logic rich people and business sould have more say than anybody. Second, the costs of raising children far exceed the child tax credit, and the government tax rolls and economy benefit greatly from children. All that free parental labor that goes into raising our next generation (these children will change childless people’s bedpans in their old age, fund our nation’s Social Security, fight our future wars, etc.) means that people without children are contributing far less to the economy and hence our tax rolls over a lifetime than a taxpayer with children, who is working day and night for free to raise the next generation. The government knows this, and that’s why they offer a child tax credit – it’s a bargain.
As for a desire to be given “a clear promise and choice,†you are. The promise comes in the form of education state standards.
Now I’m laughing out loud. This is like the Soviet Union saying, why, you do have “a clear promise and choice!” – you get our one-size-fits-all fancy clogs built to our high industrial standards! I’m sorry, but I would love to see how you react with the same “choice” for your shoes as I get for my children’s education.
Unlike a business, we do not have the right to refuse service to anyone.
This is one of the many thousands of things that need to be changed about schools if they are to improve.
Finally, NEA is largely funded not with tax dollars, but with union dues paid by members. I am paying for my own lobbyists, not you.
Not quite. When teachers (without penalty) can take their union dues for themselves and bargain on their own, then you will be paying for your own lobbying. Right now, teachers just take more cash from taxpayers to cover NEA lobbying and get laws passed to prevent competition. Since dues are not optional they merely gets factored into the cost of the contract. Economics 101.
I do suppport collective bargaining in any profession.
Me too – as long as others can compete with those who do unionize. This is how it works for the rest of us. I can assure you, the NEA would last about two seconds in the free market, where the customer could take their kid to the best offer. The NEA has simply bought their way into power with politics, and they are destoying public education on the way. That’s the simple truth.
although it may appear so, I am not trying to be adversarial.
No doubt. But since what your are saying is adversarial – you desire to prevent choice for parents and have a strong financial benefit for doing so – we are natural adversaries.
I simply wish to express that teachers and schools are not on the other side of the fight.
This is not true. Factually, they are on the other side. The unions have even said so. That is, when the teacher’s interests run against that of the students, the union is obliged to side with the teacher. Do teachers pay those union dues for nothing? Teachers must protect their own interests, over and above those of “the children.” And we see the results; I’ll let the product of what comes out of public education speak for itself.
You CAN meet a teacher before you child enters a class.
Since I have no say if I don’t like the teacher, what’s the use?
You CAN sit in on lesson in the classroom.
That depends; it’s certainly not a right where I live. And again, what’s the use? Even if I don’t like what I see, I would have nowhere to go. Why bother?
Look, I homeschool, and would do so no matter how good schools were, so I have no dog in this fight. My sole concern here is for the parents who, for whatever reason, must use public schools. What is truly “hurtful” to my mind is how so many riding the education gravy train want so much to keep the status quo regardless of the results.
Thank you Vital Core. Some us parents have not been able to find an alternative to public schools. The closest private school to us is twenty miles away, and we can’t afford tuition for three kids.
MisterTeacher: As for the mom who asked if her child had been told that cussing at school was wrong….well, my children’s school permits a wide variety of behaviors that are prohibited at home. We do allow hitting, teasing, or taking another person’s property. A child can do all these things at school for at least five times before school personnel will intervene. For all I know, cussing is allowed too.
And for parent-teacher conference nightmares…last fall, my daughter’s teacher informed us that:
1. No one at the school liked my husband or I.
2. He had no idea how to teach a child like ours, so he didn’t do anything with her.
3. That his job was to work with the low performing kids and it wasn’t his job to teach our child.
He also had no explanation for how he derived the grades that were on her report card.
Of course, he has tenure, so he will be at the school until he retires.
Jane, that situation is a terrible one. It is possible though that tenure doesn’t protect him quite as fully as he and his administrator might think. Please make a formal complaint about your experience to the local board and to the accrediting agency in your state.
Margo/mom,
I think it’s fine for a parent to question what a teacher has done, but the doubt shouldn’t be expressed to the child. The child’s seeing the parent question the teacher’s judgment will undermine the teacher’s authority in other situations, and likely not just the authority of that teacher but other teachers as well. The parent in the blog made it pretty clear that while the child wouldn’t be at school that day, she had no intention of reinforcing that cussing at school was wrong. She showed the child that she had no regard for the school or its policies and the child will learn something from that.
As far as what to do with the day of suspension, I think that the child should do a full day’s worth of school work at home after whatever punishment would have followed the child having violated one of the parent’s own rules. I agree that I don’t think most parents come up with day long punishments for eight year olds, but parents have many more options to choose from while teachers are faily limited in what they can do. A mother or father is in the unique position of knowing exactly what constitutes reward or punishment for her or his child where teachers are pretty limited. Teachers can redirect a student, verbally warn a student, at some schools keep a student after school, call home or write a refer to the office. Depending on how much the child really values adult approval, it’s possible that none of the options available to the teacher will do much to change the child’s behavior.
You seem to believe that the all day suspension was the teacher’s first effort at redirecting the student’s misbehavior whereas I tend to think the teachers had exhausted the methods he is permitted to use. I don’t know for sure that he did, but I’ve never worked at a school where teachers alone had the authority to suspend a kid or where suspension would be the first consequence for misbehavior like cussing on the playground.
You also seem to believe that the student was likely to be receptive to more immediate consequences at the teacher’s disposal whereas I tend to think that the attitude of the mother about the cussing and the suspension reflects that the child is more likely to doubt that negative consequence will ever follow anything he does, and therefore, he or she in danger of being incorrigible and that it’s the mothers attitude rather than the teacher’s that is the problem.
Many students who have received good parenting will for the most part try to follow establish rules with occasional lapses because they are children. These students will likely never need more that a sharp look or a verbal warning. Other students, often with parents who don’t accept the authority of the school or the school’s rules, take more of a “who’s going to make me?” attitude about following expectations. In a lot of places, the second group has all but driven most of the first group out of public schools.
Margot/mom, on my blog, I wrote an anecdotal story. I did not go into every single detail of that child’s behavior over the course of the school year because the point of the story was to talk about that one particular incident. I tried to make it clear that that was NOT the child’s first instance of sub-standard behavior; in fact, it was not even the second, third, or tenth. He had already been placed in time-out several times (for roughly the 8 minute time periods that you suggested), lost recess, been reported to his mother (sans suspension), and placed in in-school suspension.
From an “ideal parent” or from ANY parent for that matter, what I would LIKE, if not expect, is some response that conveys to me that the parent understands that their child has made a poor choice and that the parent will reinforce at home the notion that these behaviors are not acceptable. For the parent to immediately declare that cussing is no big deal because kids do it at school all day long does NOT indicate that the child has been sheltered from cussing and is now being exposed to it at school as you had earlier suggested. It does not indicate anything to me other than the fact that the mom has a chip on her shoulder, expects the teacher and the school to take care of any problems with her child, and that the is unwilling to help. I have had other parents (not necessarily even IDEAL parents!) who have responded to one of my concerns with a comment along the lines of, “Thank you for bringing this to my attention, I will talk to my child when he gets home and we’ll try to make sure this sort of thing doesn’t happen again.” THAT’S what I’m looking for in this sort of issue, Margo.
NFM
Vital Core
Before I begin, let me state again that our conversations need not be contentious. Part of partaking in civilized discussions requires that we respect that we both are coming to this with differing, but justifiable, views. I am willing to show that respect to you and I hope you will return such a sentiment.
I was not implying that parents get off easy when it comes to paying taxes. I was simply using your argument to show that all of us pay taxes and all of us financially contribute to public education. (As an aside, it is not my fault I am childless. It is a source of great heartache for me. Your caustic remark about your children having to care for me in my old age was thoughtless and rude.)
As for union dues, of course they come from my pay. The pay I earned working from 6:00am until 5:00pm (no, that is not an exaggeration). That salary stops being earned at 2:45pm, but I have work to do, so I stay and get it done. That’s economic 101. BTW, union dues ARE optional because membership in the union is optional.
As for educational standards, if we didn’t have them people would be complaining that we have no expectations for children. Since we do have them, people complain that they are one size fits all. As a parent, what would you like to see? (Although you might interprete that to be a snarky question, it is not and I am truly curious.) I too, have opinions about how we address differences in learning abilities in education, particlarly when it comes to children with special needs but that is for another day.
And on to collective bargining… I am confused about your point here. How is my union keeping you from having choice? You, yourself homeschool your children. You could enroll them in private school. I am unclear where your lack of choice lies. Under NCLB, you even have a right to enroll your child in public schools other than your closest one. Is it that you want non-public schools to be funded by the state?
Finally, about school visitations. I do not know where you live, but I am mortified they did not let you visit a classroom or interview a teacher before the school year began. I am sorry you had that experience. It explains a lot of your anger towards educators. I certainly hope that you brought that to the attention of your local school board as that is an egregious violation of your rights as a parent and potentially the rights of all parents.
Our “educational gravy train” is not quite what you think it is. I work long hours for minimal pay. I have a Masters Degree in technology, but chose this profession instead. If you are under the impression that it’s an 8:00 – 2:30 job, you’re mistaken. I have no paid vacation days and many of my coworkers hold second jobs just to make their mortgages each month. We are being laid off in my state, just like other industries, as the economy worsens. Our jobs are not etched in stone and we must abide by standards just like you “in the real world.”
Wow, thanks for connecting these few posts and continuing the conversation over here! Great stuff! I think I’ll try to do something similar on my blog as well in the next day or so.
Enda Lee,
Part of partaking in civilized discussions requires that we respect that we both are coming to this with differing, but justifiable, views. I am willing to show that respect to you and I hope you will return such a sentiment.
I agree, and always do so. If I say something that lacks “respect for you” (please note this is different than lacking respect for bad ideas or incorrect data) please point out the exact quote where I do this and I will be happy to correct it. (I hope you realize that your comment implies that I am somehow showing lack of “respect for you” and yet you site no quote where I do such a thing. That’s rude!)
Your caustic remark about your children having to care for me in my old age was thoughtless and rude
Huh? You just made that up. Here are my exact words:
All that free parental labor that goes into raising our next generation (these children will change childless people’s bedpans in their old age, fund our nation’s Social Security, fight our future wars, etc.) means that people without children are contributing far less to the economy and hence our tax rolls.
My point clearly never referred to you personally at all, only to childless people in general. I challenged your direct claim that the childless pay more for education by pointing out that we will all need children for labor and tax revenue when we are old, even the childless, and that’s why the government gives parents a child tax credit. Your comment that I’m somehow a rude person for saying this, or that I was referring to you personally, is not only thoughtless and rude, it’s untrue.
And on to collective bargining… I am confused about your point here. How is my union keeping you from having choice?
I’m fine with unions as long as there is competition. If, say, GM has a union which drives up costs and lowers quality of product, I can always buy Ford or Toyota. With schools, I can’t. There are these giant ed unions, and their purpose has become spending our tax dollars to lobby and benefit teachers primarily by preventing competition. That’s what I call a gravy train: no competition by law and $10k per child, twice that of private schools on average.
Finally, about school visitations. I do not know where you live, but I am mortified they did not let you visit a classroom or interview a teacher before the school year began. I am sorry you had that experience.
I never said I had that experience, that I couldn’t visit a classroom or get an interview with a teacher (I don’t have personal experience, and I’ve heard mixed things here). What I said was that I can’t just pop in for a visit whenever I want to monitor quality (and what good would it do anyway since I have no choice?) and that I can’t interview a teacher first and then reject him if I don’t think he’s any good. That’s my complaint. No choice!
Our “educational gravy train†is not quite what you think it is. I work long hours for minimal pay.
Wow. Then at $10k per child, why aren’t you screaming for the free market? Your salary would improve and hours drop overnight! I put in about 4 hours a day educating my six kids, and we could just pay you the $60k from government vouchers to do at your home. They show up at 7:00 AM. We just have to do something about the NEA first…somehow I doubt they will go for it, regardless if it helps children.
Misterteacher:
I hear lots of frustration, not only from you, but from many blogging teachers, and less directly from the teachers I encounter in my childrens’ schools. NCD suggested that parents have more punishment (and I am intentionally using the word punishment rather than discipline here) options than teachers. You suggest that the response that you are looking for is something along the lines of “thank you for telling me about this behavior, I will take care of it and try to see that it doesn’t happen again.”
I think that your frustrations are rooted in this somewhat mythologically oriented thinking. I get that when I have gotten these kinds of phone calls that teachers believe that there is something that I am allowed to do that they are not (corporal punishment is my general assumption, although I also suppose that they believe that my house is some techno-playground full of gadgets that can be removed for misbehavior–NOT), but also that I can, from home, somehow control the behavior of my child in a setting in which there are hundreds of distractions and alternate inputs. Try to imagine what your response to me would be if said to you that little Johnny was persistently disrespectful to me at home, or fighting with his siblings, or not doing his chores and that I would like you to do something aobut it.
The reality is that the best place to change behavior that occurs at school is in school. The fact that you say that you have done all the right things without the change you are looking for begs some questions. Is mom right about the amount of cussing at school–in other words, is this more of a pervasive, rather than an individual problem? In that case, a more school-wide solution, perhaps involving students themselves in defining appropriate behaviors, reminders and sanctions, might be more appropriate. You allude that the behavior was not one that you see in your classroom, but rather on the playground–are the “rules” (not the written ones, but the ones acted on, and the manner of action, and consequences) the same on the playground? Or has an island of anarchy been inadvertantly set up during recess (it’s easy to do–usually there is little/no structure, reduced supervision, more interactions, etc)? Are there other “setting” considerations–was there a provoking circumstance, or an attempt to garner attention? What is this student getting out of this misbehavior–and how does the prevailing discipline system contribute to the student getting what he wants (or avoiding what he wants to avoid)?
When it comes right down to it, while I don’t condone cussing, I am reluctant to cede to this problem the weight of an out of school suspension–which really ought to be used primarily as an interruption and resolution time to something truly dangerous. It is also hard for me to accept additional justification due to cumulative offenses. What the cumulative offenses say to me is that there is a disconnect between what you have been doing and the needs/abilities of this child. You really need to cultivate a relationship with this kid’s mom if you are going to have an impact. I don’t think you are there yet.
Vite-
“…these children will change childless people’s bedpans in their old age, fund our nation’s Social Security, fight our future wars, etc.”
I think we all know that your comment was a backhanded condemnation of me and others like me without children. Your quote continues on to imply we childless folks are not contributing to the future of this country as much are people with children are because we have not produced offspring to carry on in our absence. I’ll thank you to not make such judgements about me. That comment also serves as an example of your personal disrespect for others who are not like you, including me.
So I suppose I am not rude now, as I have given you the citation you were seeking.
I do not enjoy calling people out in such a public forum, but you crossed a personal line with that a remark.
It’s been lovely dancing with you, but I must run. Evidently, I have a gravy train to catch. I wish you and your family all the best. I truly do. Now, where IS that damn train?
Margo/mom,
Surely you acknowledge that as your child’s parent, you really do have more ability to influence his or her behavior than any other adult, right?
Are you suggesting that another adult who sees your child for 180 or so days a year for one year, maybe not even all day, has more influence over the moral and ethical decisions that your child is making from day to day?
NDC–we are talking about the playground behavior of eight year olds. I would say that the jury is still out on their moral and ethical decision-making abilities.
I would say that the adults that are charged with the oversight of that playground have considerable responsibility for setting a tone and maintaining a civil (or not) atmosphere on that playground. The same would be true for the hallways and classrooms.
I am not much for duelling systems of morality, and my experience has been that there are not enormous differences between the moral and ethical systems of the adults in and the adults out of schools. But there are a lot of skill deficits, which are certainly frustrating, and blaming parents for not providing enough support, or for teaching disrespect–particularly when this is based far more on supposition than any time spent actually observing at-home interactions–can provide a handy scapegoat. It just doesn’t help anyone solve the problem.
Margo/mom,
I think you have a much greater sense of what the schools and school personnel can accomplish than I do when it comes to student misbehavior that the parents aren’t helping to extinguish, as in the example from the parent call about the student cussing on the playground.
What is your background in this area?
I’m a 6th grade teacher and dealing with kids on the cusp of being teenagers a curse here or there will slip out. I have never witnessed one of the “major” curses but my classroom has been peppered with the “minor” types.
I do not call attention to it when it happens but I will acknowledge it with the child after the period is over. If the curse is audible enough for most kids to hear then i’ll throw out a comment like, “I don’t speak that way to any of you, so don’t use it with me.” Most, if not all, kids apologize and we move on.
One student used the word “douchebag” today as in “Holy Douchebag.” His mother is a nurse so I leaned over to him and asked him if he knew what it meant. He didn’t. I asked him to ask his mother if it is an appropriate word for school and his response was, “If you’re asking me to ask her then it’s a bad idea.”
NDC:
I have a background (degree) in education, have taught in public schools a bit (substitute teaching and GED classes–working with “push outs”). But as a licensed social worker I have many years experience working with parents and their chidren in the (primarily low-income) community. I can tell you, it looks very different from the parent side.
What does it look like from the social work and parent side from your perspective?
I do see my students’ behavior as a reflection of parental expectation and I’ve seen differences at the different places where I’ve taught or even within academic levels at the same school.
And in my own family, I know that my parents regarded my own behavior or misbehavior as a reflection on them, so the idea that how I acted at school was simply going to be regarded as being the teacher’s job, as opposed to my own job or my parents’ responsibility is just very strange to me.
What does a teacher phone call about misbehavior look like from the perspective you are trying to share?
Please describe some of the circumstances of the “push outs.” That’s kind of a new one for me as well.
NDC:
Thanks for being willing to listen. One of my push-outs was a single parent, raised by a single parent. Her single parent was a dad, employed full time. I forget what happened to her mom–she might have died. The district was notoriously “above” dealing with pregnant teenagers. She missed some days when the baby had chicken pox and got no slack–it became easier to drop out and get a GED. She was a bright kid and actually managed to finish up in about a year. She was a good story.
Many more had histories of being relegated to special education for disabilities that no one ever explained to them. Mostly they just sort of thought that they were dumb (that’s a paraphrase of what a student told me). Around ninth grade it got to be really clear that they were not likely to graduate and there were more enjoyable things available (having boyfriends and having babies). And so they left. But there were also others who were not identified as “special ed,” and would have to pass what was then an 8th grade test (given in 9th grade) in order to graduate. And the schools were then beginning to be graded on how many kids passed. So, I had kids who were “counseled” that it might be easier for them to “just get a GED.” No one was explaining to them the the GED was created to test all 4 years of high school content and the graduation test was set at a lower level. So, I had kids showing up to “take the test,” who got really frustrated when we had to explain to them that they could take the practice test, but that their entry scores showed that they needed basic work in reading and math before they would be close to ready to pass.
Regarding families–I really haven’t known many that didn’t want really good things for their kids. I have seen poorly disciplined kids whose parents made choices that I would never agree with for my own children. This is true not only in low income families that I have worked with but also (and sometimes more so) in upper middle class families. There are some differences. When you are poor and your kid misbehaves many people think lots of bad things about you–from you don’t care about discipline all the way up to you are a crack ho on welfare. When you are a stay at home junior league mom, they wouldn’t dare.
I think that lots of the things that schools/teachers do are consistent with an honest belief that if their students come from the wrong side of the tracks their parents don’t care as much, are less smart, value education less. Some of the Ruby Payne work reinforces this. So, if this is your perspective, it makes sense to call a parent at work in the middle of the day. Not because the student’s behavior is an emergency, but because it helps to “up the ante” and “get the attention” of someone that they think doesn’t care enough. It makes sense to suspend a second or third grader, not because that is an appropriate way to teach a child of that age a different behavior, but because the teacher believes that the parent hasn’t been doing their job to train the child–and now they are going to “force the issue” by making a huge and non-negotiable demand on the parent.
Parents also see things within the school from a different perspective. They know how the phone gets answered (friendly or accusatory?)and whether messages are returned in a timely fashion. The see whether the teachers and principal work well together, if the teachers are a team or merely “independent contractors sharing a parking lot.” They know if people throughout the district talk to one another (Does special ed relate well to regular ed? Do the teachers know the lunch ladies? Are substitutes supported or on their own?) And they may have a clue about whether their kid’s teacher is having problems with one kid or many. So they may at times be right when they suspect that the problem does not begin and end with their kid.
But when a parent gets a call demanding that they either come get their kid, or keep them home tomorrow, it really doesn’t matter who you are. That is an attack, and it feels like one. I would also add, as a parent, that while I will deal with my child regarding their at-school behavior, I would consider it irresponsible to not also deal with the adults at school regarding theirs.
Margo/Mom,
I suspect that fundamentally we may just differ on how public education ought to work in terms of student behavior. I don’t think that kids who are unable or unwilling to conduct themselves in a non-disruptive manner should be the regular education teacher’s issue to deal with beyond fairly limited, age appropriate strategies.
I’m not sure how these students ought to be handled: a special education emotional or behavior disorder placement at an alternative school; investing in social services to work with kids to get them school ready when their parents and the school can’t; or if we’re just heartless as say, “we’ve offered you a service but you are unable to take advantage at the present time. Try again next year.”
But teaching the other kids well is enough of a job for the classroom teacher that extensive behavior modification for particular students shouldn’t be on his or her agenda.
I certainly don’t mean that elementary schools should have some kind of goofy three-small-mistakes-and-you’re-kicked-out-forever policies, just that even as an eight year old, a kid can actually be ruining the education of other students and that functional classes are an expensive enough commodity that we shouldn’t let that happen. So even though a suspension shouldn’t be the first consequence, at some point, it’s not about the suspended kid as much as it’s about the other kids.
I agree that schools can seem like they are attacking kids and parents a lot more than they should and that everyone who works at a school should try to diminish that as much as they can. But ultimately how the school handles discipline has to be about the events that occurred, and how handling the problem is going to make the mom feel, while a worthy consideration, can’t ever take priority over getting the kid to stop doing it or establishing that the behavior isn’t acceptable.
I think the same should be true for parents who find fault with something a teacher has done. There’s nothing to be gained by attacking the teacher, but that raising issues about events or procedures is completely fair game. Certainly, the way something is handled in all cases determines a lot about the results your are going to get.
Your experience has been more that schools seek to blame and hold parents responsible for things they can’t control and my runs more toward classroom teachers being held responsible for anything that goes wrong.
Certainly, the reality is probably that real responsibility should be shared, and in successful situation it is, but God help you when things go wrong.
As far as calling parents at work, I know I’ve never done it for the reasons that you’ve described. When I’ve called people at work it was because I couldn’t reach them at home and I was required to contact them. I suppose some teachers could view it as a power trip, but I’d be more likely to believe it had to do with when the teacher was trying to place the call.
As far as the force outs, looking at graduation rates as part of NCLB compliance may force schools to do better since those kids not graduating counts against the school’s data. The NCLB interest in subgroup performance for special education also ought to help a lot as well. NCLB gets blamed for almost everything wrong today, but it had the potential to do a lot of good if schools would just implement the right policies to achieve it.
I also don’t want you to think that I favor throwing away a lot of kids because of minor misbehavior, but I don’t think that schools can replace good parenting at any level of the socio-economic spectrum,
Having read the comments, I have to say, Vital Core, from an unbiased perspective, you were indeed being quite rude. There’s nothing wrong with your ideas, aside from making assertions without quite having the experience to back them up. And since you seem to require citations from your own statements to validate such claims:
Finally, about school visitations. I do not know where you live, but I am mortified they did not let you visit a classroom or interview a teacher before the school year began. I am sorry you had that experience.
I never said I had that experience, that I couldn’t visit a classroom or get an interview with a teacher (I don’t have personal experience, and I’ve heard mixed things here). What I said was that I can’t just pop in for a visit whenever I want to monitor quality (and what good would it do anyway since I have no choice?) and that I can’t interview a teacher first and then reject him if I don’t think he’s any good. That’s my complaint. No choice!
As it is, who knows if you can or can’t just pop into a classroom whenever you want to monitor quality. You said you don’t know since you haven’t tried. And you also tell us that anecdotals from others been mixed! Seems to me some schools probably have an open door policy, and some schools don’t. Maybe I’m wrong about that, but it seems neither of us truly knows. Anyway, if you desire choice that badly, you should run for chancellor of schools, or a similar bureaucratic position! Fix ‘em up! I’m sure it’s as easy to do as all that.