thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Aug 13, 2012 15:06:56 GMT -5
There seems to be a fine line - we all want what is best for our kids, and are willing to fight for them, but we all think the younger generations are too soft, and can't deal with adversity.
This weekend we were talking about our new teachers, and one Mom was saying that her gut says that her son's teacher is going to be a disaster. She is trying to figure out if she should ask the school to reassign her son, or if they should tough it out.
I thought it was funny because this is 3rd grade. My third grade teacher was a disaster. I remember her being horrible, and me having a horrible time in that class. And my Mom recently confessed that she knew how bad it was going, and hated that teacher every minute I was in that class. She said "In retrospect, I really should have moved you. That was the first time that you indicated that you didn't feel smart, and I wonder if that thought process clouded your whole education."
Where is that thin gray line that goes from concerned, involved parent to crazy, annoying, helicopter parent?
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Taxman10
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Post by Taxman10 on Aug 13, 2012 15:09:36 GMT -5
kids need a little adversity in their lives...so your 3rd grade teacher sucks...big deal, it's only 9 months.
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Sum Dum Gai
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Post by Sum Dum Gai on Aug 13, 2012 15:10:35 GMT -5
It's like the supreme court decision on porn. You know it when you see it, and it's slightly different for everybody.
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bean29
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Post by bean29 on Aug 13, 2012 15:21:06 GMT -5
I got in big trouble in 3rd grade because I called my 3rd grade teacher a B*tch...not to her face but on the playground...a note was sent home to my parents and I was punished...my younger brother had same teacher, he was very smart, and she refused to teach to his level so his response was to be sick much of the year. When I was an adult, Mom laughed and said you were right she was a B*tch! I am quite sure my Mother was sorry she did not fight to get us out of that classroom too.
I think your friend should go with her instincts, and try to get her child out of that classroom. I tried when my kids were in grade school but they would not budge, but DD's 4th grade Math teacher was DS's 4th grade classroom teacher. I had decided that if DD got assigned to her classroom I would attempt to change her assignment. She only had her for Math, but that teacher did not teach well to my accelerated or slow student. FYI she was also at the top of the district pay scale.
I don't think occasionally fighting for your kids best interest is being a helicopter parent, it is when you are over the top about it and never expect your kids to resolve problems themselves.
My DD is going to be a Sophomore this year. She dropped quite a few classes last year, and I let her. This year she told her friends she was not going to do that again, although she did make one change b/c she had a double 4th hour class and one for another reason. DD asks her older brother and other students that are older than her about teachers. She is manipulative about getting the teachers she wants. I don't consider this a bad thing. It is something I wish I had been more aggressive about in college.
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midjd
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Post by midjd on Aug 13, 2012 15:25:28 GMT -5
Dude, did we have the same teacher? Or mom?? In my case, it worked out - I was so bored that year that when they invited me to a G/T program (at a different school) I jumped on it. If they'd offered it at the end of 2nd grade, I wouldn't have wanted to leave my friends. I think in most cases it's better to let the kid tough it out... but I'm not a parent, so I don't know squat.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Aug 13, 2012 15:26:58 GMT -5
We didn't have the same Mom, but my third grade teacher's name was Ms. Cockroach, or something like that.
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shanendoah
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Post by shanendoah on Aug 13, 2012 15:41:38 GMT -5
I think it might just be that all 3rd grade teachers are terrible. My 3rd grade teacher was one of my least favorites- I think beaten out only by my 5th grade teacher, who was the only one to ever give me a "pink slip" - which I then convinced the principal I didn't deserve...
However, at my school, you didn't have teacher choice. There were only two teachers for each grade, and children were placed in classes based on whether testing showed they worked better in group settings or individuals. So one half of the school had individual desks in all the classrooms and the other half had tables, up until 4th grade. In 4th, everyone got their own desk, but those of us in the "group" classroom had modern flat desks that could easily be placed 4 together to form a table top, whereas the "individual" classroom had the old fashioned sloped desks. Anyway, long way to say there was no such thing as teacher choice. Only thing that could prevent you from being placed in a teacher's classroom was to be related to that teacher.
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Sum Dum Gai
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Post by Sum Dum Gai on Aug 13, 2012 15:45:24 GMT -5
I wish our school had that rule. I was in my mom's class in 8th grade and it was horrible. At least it was just one period a day.
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Wisconsin Beth
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Post by Wisconsin Beth on Aug 13, 2012 15:47:07 GMT -5
I don't think you could move kids in the Catholic grade school I attended. But like Shane, there were 2 teachers and 30/31 kids per classroom.
My 3rd grade teacher rocked though. She was everyone's favorite teacher.
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Post by BeenThere...DoneThat... on Aug 13, 2012 15:50:23 GMT -5
...I loved my 3rd grade teacher... she was a favored teacher from 1st grade who got married and changed her name... and her grade... so I got her again! ...and yes, God does love me...
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Aug 13, 2012 15:51:09 GMT -5
Is that when you dropped out of school?
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Post by BeenThere...DoneThat... on Aug 13, 2012 15:53:36 GMT -5
...helicopter parents have to become detrimental to their kids' well-being, otherwise they don't earn the title... imo... so I figure that if the teacher/student relationship is so bad that it warrants my sitting in the back of the classroom as a parent observer more than several times a month, to ensure my kid's well-being, then the situation calls for me to press the administration for a transfer... that's my line... ;D
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Sum Dum Gai
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Post by Sum Dum Gai on Aug 13, 2012 16:02:56 GMT -5
Pretty close.
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Gardening Grandma
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Post by Gardening Grandma on Aug 13, 2012 16:07:30 GMT -5
Learning how to deal with a mean teacher in school is excellent preparation for dealing with a difficult boss later. No parent should deprive their child of that experience.
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Sum Dum Gai
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Post by Sum Dum Gai on Aug 13, 2012 16:11:15 GMT -5
Yeah, but 3rd graders are like 8 or 9. That's pretty early to be worried about teaching kids how to work with a difficult boss. Or, actually, it's just that they're so much younger that they aren't going to cope the same way with a bad teacher as they will (or should) with a difficult boss later, so are they really learning anything useful from the experience? It would be like trying to teach Shakespeare to a 5 year old. Even if you got them to the point that they could parrot lines back to you, they aren't really going to understand it.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Aug 13, 2012 16:12:55 GMT -5
I absolutely agree with this. But, the thing I am more curious of is dealing with an incompetent teacher. My daughter had a teacher who wasn't mean, but she sucked at teaching. She was disorganized, couldn't hold the attention of class, couldn't deal with disciplinary problems, and wasn't very good at expressing her thoughts. She was simply a poor teacher. My daughter did okay, because she is that kind of kid, but she entered 2nd grade at approximately the same reading level as she entered 1st grade. It was like a lost year. I'm not sure my daughter learned anything that year. And I know there were a couple kids in there who had a major wake-up call when they started second grade. Dealing with difficult teachers is a learning experience. But, even though I have dealt with many, many incompetent people in my life, I'm not sure having an incompetent teacher really prepares you for much.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Aug 13, 2012 16:13:50 GMT -5
I don't agree. That depends on your childs temperament. My son is very introverted and his first grade teacher not only hated little boys, she hated smart little boys. My guts said to move him but I didn't want to rock the boat. It took years for him to recover from the damage she did to him, least of which was her calling him "stupid" and putting him in the DUMMY reading group, she referred to his reading group as the DUMMY group. He was one of 3 kids in that group, along with a kid who spoke no English and a minority student. I found out a lot of this stuff after the fact. It still is hard for me to even be civil to her. Now DD, if she had had that same teacher, would have either told her to F off, even in first grade or would have thought the teacher was an a-hole for not likening her! No self esteem issues for her. Plus, her crazy father probably would have beat the teacher up
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whoisjohngalt
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Post by whoisjohngalt on Aug 13, 2012 16:18:09 GMT -5
This statement is oh so wrong on so many levels...............
Lena
ETA: I really don't know why people insist that child-teacher dynamic is the same as employee-boss dynamic....
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Aug 13, 2012 16:19:06 GMT -5
These kids are powerless. I don't see any difference in this and simply allowing your kid to get beat up to teach them to be tough.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Aug 13, 2012 16:19:21 GMT -5
How has she not been run out of town?
My daughter's teacher is no longer with the school, because that year was the worst. I don't know if they put her in with every problem student they could find and told her to quit or they would recruit more problem children or what, but she is gone. Thank God. I would have thrown an absolute temper tantrum had my son gotten her. I actually wrote a letter to the school that said "I don't have a specific request for which teacher my son should get, but I would absolutely not like to have Mrs. X. I had her last year, and I believe I've paid my dues, and my kids should get good teachers this year."
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Gardening Grandma
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Post by Gardening Grandma on Aug 13, 2012 16:20:19 GMT -5
Yeah, but 3rd graders are like 8 or 9. That's pretty early to be worried about teaching kids how to work with a difficult boss. Or, actually, it's just that they're so much younger that they aren't going to cope the same way with a bad teacher as they will (or should) with a difficult boss later, so are they really learning anything useful from the experience? It would be like trying to teach Shakespeare to a 5 year old. Even if you got them to the point that they could parrot lines back to you, they aren't really going to understand it. 8 or 9 isn't too young to learn that there are all kinds of people in the world. I had a "mean" teacher in third grade. This was not a public school. It was an expat school in another country. Those of us who brought our lunches ate in her dining room. If we dropped crumbs, we had to get on our hands and knees and pick them up by hand. One day, I was on the floor, picking up my crumbs. I pulled back a corner of the rug and swept the crumbs under it. Unfortunately, I got caught and my punishment was a spanking in front of everyone. I survived. ;D
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Aug 13, 2012 16:22:53 GMT -5
8 or 9 is not too young to know there are bad people in the world. It is too young to have to suffer from one. These teachers have power and they abuse it. In the real world, they'd be fired or if they were bosses, people would quit. Kids are trapped.
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mmhmm
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Post by mmhmm on Aug 13, 2012 16:23:01 GMT -5
We had a situation with my daughter when she was in 6th grade. Her math teacher, she said, was "mean". My daughter, at the time, had a bit of a problem identifying her part in things that didn't go well. My way of handling it was to make an appointment to speak with the teacher about my daughter's progress. Upon meeting the young woman and spending about 30 minutes with her, I knew there was no way my girl was staying in that woman's class. I wanted to pinch her head off myself! I went to the principal's office and let her know "whuddup". My daughter was moved and all went fine. In fairness, the teacher in question was very new to the profession and probably still learning how to be effective. If she remained in the field, I hope she learned the lessons she needed to learn.
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Sum Dum Gai
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Post by Sum Dum Gai on Aug 13, 2012 16:23:20 GMT -5
And that taught you what about dealing with a difficult boss later? That if you screw up, but you let him take you into his office and "punish you for being naughty" you'd get to keep your job? Not exactly the lesson most of us want to teach our daughters.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Aug 13, 2012 16:23:45 GMT -5
Is that all we want for our kids and our schools? Simply non-death?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2012 16:58:07 GMT -5
I had a sub in 3/4 grade who told me she knew from the time she had me in kindergarten I would be no good... Really helped me relate better to my bosses having to hear that....
My dad did challenge one o my high school teacher, the teacher was reprimanded and left that summer...
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Gardening Grandma
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Post by Gardening Grandma on Aug 13, 2012 17:09:03 GMT -5
Is that all we want for our kids and our schools? Simply non-death? Actually it was the beginning of learning to be tougher, learning that if I did something wrong I'd probably get caught, and learning that sometimes the person in authority was a jerk. Now, if my mother had gone charging in I might have learned to go running to her whenever things got tough instead of learning to deal on my own. The teacher wasn't abusive like the teacher in previous posts. She simply did not seem to like kids much and to us, she was "mean"...
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Aug 13, 2012 17:11:39 GMT -5
Being strict and being cruel aren't the same. I don't see any quality learning coming from calling kids name. Even if the kids are stupid, I don't think teachers should call them that. I mean, would you put up with a boss that called you fat, or ugly or barked every time you walked by. It is poor role modeling.
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jaya3300
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Post by jaya3300 on Aug 13, 2012 17:13:36 GMT -5
I have several adult clients whose parents call me on their behalf. Most are in their early 20's but one client was 40ish. I can only assume that their parents did everything for them as children and continues to do everything for them as adults.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Aug 13, 2012 17:15:05 GMT -5
Ugh! Well, I won't do that!
Again - what about incompetent teachers? Do we think they bring any valuable learning?
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