Because it’s all about you.

I think we could all benefit from laughing about it a bit.

Laughing? All I read was whining and putting down other people – which is always a laff-riot

You say venting, I say mocking. It was the tone that I found disturbing, not to mention unprofessional.

I didn’t just read a couple of sentences. I spent some time going over other posts and comments.

During my eldest daughter’s first parent-teacher conference, her Kindergarten teacher indicated that my daughter was “working on her sight words” which I found fascinating because my daughter was beyond that and read chapter books at home. I had to press and show samples of our at home reading material. My daughter was retested. Low and behold, she was out-reading her peers. The sad thing is that the first 2-1/2 months of class were wasted as the teacher did not appropriately evaluate or challenge my daughter. This was in a class of 18 with a full-time teachering aide.

For my second child (same Kindergarten teacher), I advocated for her starting on day 1 with slightly better results. However, when my 3rd child entered school the following year, we just gave up and transferred to another school.

I don’t have a problem with a teacher venting, if they are clear that that is what they are doing, and do it with someone with whom they have an appropriate relationship. In most cases this isn’t a parent–but I have had a few teachers that I had that kind of relationship with. Those teachers were willing to participate in finding solutions, shared good stuff as well as bad, and understood themselves to be professionals.

I think what’s being reflected (not very effectively) by the poster, is that she, the teacher, has the child for part of a day for one year, while the parent has known the child since birth and spends, actually, much more time with him/her. But, yes, it’s wrong for the teacher to simply want to vent to a parent. That’s not useful.

Susan, I never mock children. Never. In fact, my blog is dedicated to venting (hence the whining, Cal…better than in the workplace I always say) about the reasons that I DON”T always get to teach. Because I love my kids (no matter how difficult they can sometimes be).

I know there are plenty of fantastic and supportive parents out there who are amazing to work with. But I’m not writing about those parents right now. I’m writing about the parents who refuse to have a partnership. And I’m confident enough in my teaching and my past relationships with parents to put these troubles out there as a general frustration. Just because they stink and make my job harder.

Also, I think people need to become more critical readers of blogs. Remember, you are not getting the whole story…just a piece. Granted, a piece of the story that I chose to put out there, but still… I think it’s great that blogs spark conversation (because productive conversation is great), but when people judge an entire person’s ability to be successful on a few sentence offered up on the internet…how does that help anyone? Plenty of teachers face frustrations with parents. And plenty of parents face frustrations with teachers. I think we could all benefit from laughing about it a bit.

If it’s the parent’s fault that the child misbehaves at school, does that mean that it’s the teacher’s fault if the child misbehaves at home?