'What teachers really want to tell parents'

How old is the son you are having problems with?

 

I have the opposite. My wife is in her first year of teaching preschool and she complains about certain kids. My advice is always to talk to the parents abotu the issues she is having, mostly behavioral. She does this, and usually says nothing changes. My advice, at that point, is to go to the principal and let them deal with it. If the teacher makes a concerted effort and nothing changes, and the parent chooses not to do anything, then the teacher shouldn't have to deal with it anymore.

 

He's in high school now.

 

I guess it's a little late then, but using an agenda (parent signs, teacher signs) was the best way to communicate with a parent and for letting them know what was due the next day.

 

I've had teachers tell me (because I've asked) that a lot of their questions about why kids are doing what they're doing, how they're doing it, are answered within about 15 seconds at the first parent-teacher conference. Especially if the parents don't show up.

 

We tried that, but the teachers made it clear it was up to him to bring his agenda to them to sign it. He forgot half the time.

 

From the story:

"If we give you advice, don't fight it. Take it, and digest it in the same way you would consider advice from a doctor or lawyer. I have become used to some parents who just don't want to hear anything negative about their child, but sometimes if you're willing to take early warning advice to heart, it can help you head off an issue that could become much greater in the future."

"If you don't want your child to end up 25 and jobless, sitting on your couch eating potato chips, then stop making excuses for why they aren't succeeding. Instead, focus on finding solutions."

These two statements doesn't address an issue that I had with my Asperger's son's principal in the regular elementary school: What if the advice is flat-out stupid, and the solutions don't work? What do you do then?

My son's teacher tried her best, and my wife and I actually liked her, but the principal was a royal pain in the ass. She had no clue how to deal with an autistic kid, and even tried to claim he wasn't autistic.

We had all sorts of ideas on how to help him, which were also recommended by our son's doctors and therapists, only she would dismiss it as "too much work". Or if she was willing to implement an idea, it would take several weeks for it to be implemented. She'd want paperwork filled out, meetings scheduled for the slightest adjustment.

What's worse, she'd open her big trap. She'd even say, "Other parents in the class are complaining about your son." My response was that I didn't give a shit about the other parents, I cared about my son. She gave me a nasty look.

Now, my son is in a school that adjusts to his needs, and he's thriving. If Plan A doesn't work, they go to Plan B with a phone call or a brief note to to us to explain it. Takes a day. If Plan B doesn't work, we go to Plan C and so on. The former school would use Plan A, bitch and moan that it wasn't working, spend a month coming up with Plan B, bitch and moan about that, then shrug their shoulders and point the fingers at us.

All of this basically means is that what Clark says is great if the teacher and principal are saints. Not all teachers and principals are saints, and what he says isn't always in reality what happens.

 

To follow up Baron's point, but without the Asperger's: How many of us have had one teacher that says our kid is a behavioral problem, then he gets the next year's teacher who says "oh, he's just a rambunctious boy, he'll be fine"? If I had a nickel ...

Also ...

If your wife doesn't feel like it's in her job description as a preschool teacher to deal with misbehaving 4-year-olds, perhaps it's good that she is discovering that in her first year when she can make a career switch. Because I can tell her pretty conclusively that 4-year-olds aren't going to stop misbehaving.

 

That's not exactly my point. And this is more than just misbehaving, it's violence to other kids and things like that. Kids take a while to process information, but they should be expected, after numerous timeouts, discipline's etc, The point is that she does attempt to handle it, then if she can't she addresses the parent. If it doesn't even start to get better after that, and the parent doesn't appear to care, then she should go to someone else.

 

The notion that people take advice from their doctors and lawyers without a peep is hilarious. Yeah, right.

Also, and I'm sorry to say this, but teachers are among the professionals with the lowest IQ's out there. The bar for entry is sooooooooooo low into that profession. I know a lot of parents are pains in the ass, and I'd have to judge on a case-by-case basis, but when I'm a parent of a school-age child, you better fucking believe I'm going to be monitoring things closely. This is not 1953, and I'm not just throwing my unquestioned support onto someone I know little about. Now, my kid will never know word one of any of that, but there's no reason that you shouldn't monitor your kid's education as closely as you keep an eye on your mechanic.

 

I don't know what you mean by her thinking it isn't her problem anymore, but it is her problem as long as it's her classroom. The behavior you're mentioning could be severe. But if she decides not to deal with it because she doesn't like the parents, she's pretty much making every other kid in the class deal with it. You said it's preschool, so it's all voluntary, but really I have to say that is not a trait or an attitude that is likely to get her very far in a classroom setting.

 

Blue font?