pet peeves OT

[Pilot2b]

Been there done that. The 5th grade parent that came into your room and said multiplications were not important, they can use calculators...I would have had another teacher watch my class, take her down to the office. She could have been arrested at my HS.

Parents just don't get it. If their child fails, it is our fault. It is our fault that Johnny can't read. Parents are not parenting anymore, they want teachers to do it all.

When Congress voted down the other week, English being the language of America. We are losing this country. Our founding fathers must be rolling over in their graves. We borrow money from Saudi Arabia and China for the war, Bush will borrow more for the money we are to be given.

Our grandchildren and children will be in the midst of it after we are gone. China owns most of CitiBank. No one wants to offend the illegal immigrants, or anyone from another country. We are now beholden to them. It scares me to death...because we are losing our country.

ENough said. But, I could write a book about my teaching days.

Helen

[Pilot2b]

PS: Carolyn, I thought I would really miss the classroom, I did at first, but not anymore. Teachers are afraid the principal, the principal is afraid of the superintendent, superintendent afraid of the school board, school board afraid of the parents, parents are afraid of their kids and the kids are not afraid of anything!

Every incident you mentioned happened to me, except the parent walking into the classroom. When I got through with her in the principals office, she would never come into my classroom again.

Helen

[Rose92]

One of our good male subs said something quite astute the other day...........

"America is circling the drain and the only variable is the rate of descent."

Does that say it all, or what??!!!!

[sewcarolyn]

Pilot2B--you are so right the kids are not afraid of anything....The little ones still want to please the teachers but too many of our middle school kids know they have the power at home and scream to the parents "it isn't fair that [fill in the blank]" and the parents come storming in the the office. Our school is a school of choice so at least we have the power to send them back to their home school when they refuse to turn in their work, fight etc...

[Oasis]

Rose92-----That just about sums it up!

[TheKid]

People for many years have NOT heeded consequences and what will happen if....such and such is not completed. 38 absences means your school definitely needs some board policies set with some teeth for the parents. This is what our school finally did and it is working. The parents don't like it, but our social workers can now classify this as parent abuse. So, the student is definitely the looser. More and more parents are leaving the public schools for these reasons. Now, a private school is not the solution for most children, but this is the reason many are home schooling and sharing with hundreds of other parents or the private schools are allowing students to come in to participate in their after school activities.College students are not chosing teaching now as much, because of these multitude reasons of "Parent" not discipling their child before they ever enter a school. You have every right to be on a soap box.

[stormy]

I'm sitting here in tears reading this discussion. What ever happened to rules and regulations? Cooperation and respect?

[jameswife2003]

While reading this, I couldn't help but think of what it was like for me in school. If I'd have pulled any of that nonsense, my parents would have tanned my hide! They never blamed the teacher for me not having what I needed to study for a test, or for me not understanding something. They realized if I wasn't doing the work, it was my fault and no one else's. These are part of the reasons we're going to homeschool. I don't want to deal with the other parents irresponsibility! Between the bad experiences both DH and I had in public school(the kids for me, the teachers for him, he has ADHD) there's no way we're sending DS to public school until he at the very least knows why he can't eat certain things. There's no way for me to be sure another parent won't send peanut butter cookies to school or something, and a teacher has 30 students and not enough time to give them all his/her undivided attention. It's my responsibility to make sure DS is kept safe(with all his food allergies, that's a full time job in itself) and learns what he should, not anyone elses.

[Tulpje]

*T*

It is sad that prayers were taken out of school.
Also that parents are not allowed to dicipline their children anymore.

Yes child abuse should be reported, and children should be educated about the difference of dicipline and child abuse.

Our daughter absolutely refused to do her homework. No tv untill after dinner. I got very tired of "I did my homework at school allready, but left it at school", "I don't have homework"...it was a daily battle. I would go to open house at the beginning of school and ask the teachers how much time each teacher would give on homework assigments. I would add those times up, and made that as the standard time for homework. If you're done early, you can use the rest of the time to read a book of your choice, that is if you can show me your homework that you did. No matter what I did, it did not help. Our daughter was an avid reader, and there have been times that I would have her stand with one of my very heavy history college book that she had to read out loud. She could stop any time she wanted, sit down and do her home work. Nope, she would keep reading out loud (Very well) for her whole hour. (This was middle school)

Many times she told me I am going to report you to child protective services. 8th grade she did just that. She ran away to her friends house and complained about child abuse after having been there for hours. So they fed her dinner, talked some more to her and called the police. The police came to get her and brough her home. Amanda slipped quickly into the house letting me deal with the police.

At the end the police told her that she had made a seriues complaint, and next time he would need to take her in. he also told her, you live in a nice enough home, it is clean, you look clean and well fed, and you don't have a single mark on you.

Often Jeff and I wonder what the heck we did wrong. And it some times depresses us both.

***Tulpje***

[sewcarolyn]

I sent my daughters to a public charter school where there were regulations, a minimum gpa to continue (2.5), and 99% of the graduates go on to a college, university or professional school.


re: the little one with 38 absent days the parents have been referred to the courts for neglect.....

yesterday I held a meeting with a parent about their kindergarten student. We had tested him for a speech/language delay (which he does not have) at the DEMAND of the parent. At the end instead of being happy the Mom said "Does this mean he has to do his homework?" HE IS IN KINDERGARTEN!!!! The scary part of this is that she is a preschool teacher, has a 3 year old and is pregnant! but even worse is that the child's Grandmother is now annoyed because she has to oversee the child's homework after school. The Grandmother was the force behind the referral and assured the parents that she could get him qualified for speech so that I would help with the homework ...................................... now for the clencher...
the Grandmother is the 4th grade teacher who said she is annoyed when Parents insist that having their child keep their science journal up to date is NOT IMPORTANT (and then scream when they don't have the information needed for a test).................................


can't wait to hear what she says to me today