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I love my job, but sometimes I wish it were a school for orphans.

Pop quiz, your child's teacher contacts you saying they have some concerns about your child's recent project and would like to schedule a meeting to discuss your child's performance and strategize ways to ensure their success, do you:

A) Schedule a meeting with the teacher

B) Tell the teacher that it's their problem and if they can't get [child] to do their work then you need to get another administrator involved.

C) B + incredible amount of condescension implying that teacher isn't doing their job.

[This message edited by hurtbs at 7:17 PM, February 11th (Tuesday)]

hurtsbs, I think you may be dealing with a member of my ex's family. Their children are all "good kids" who mysteriously get "picked on" by every teacher in every grade. Those teachers need to "do their job properly". The kids are also really smart and hard-working but the teachers all mark them down necessitating screaming telephone calls with the Principal.

I know this because it is all posted on Facebook. .

Well... let's see...

At our school it's not usually calls about academics, it's about their behavior... and we get the "but he doesn't behave like that at home..."

Well... no kidding... at home no one is asking him to use his brain and do anything more tedious then play xBox or watch TV or run the streets...

(((Hurtbs)))

[This message edited by jrc1963 at 8:41 PM, February 11th (Tuesday)]

Or better yet, I enjoy when I reach out to the parents on multiple occasions, make it clear that I have a webpage where all of the assignments and due dates of upcoming projects and tests are posted, make sure that everyone has my work email address, and also post grades and specific comments in the parent portal, which they can access at any time...

...and we still have to get together for a big conference about Johnny after school because the parents "want to know what's going on."

(((hurtbs)))

It's funny you bring this up, my H and I had a discussion about this last night. There are 2 school districts in the St. Louis area that are about to go under, they are unaccredited, and have lost the good students to other districts.

When the families of the remaining kids are on TV talking about it, they act like it is a failure on the schools part that their kids aren't performing well. It is really sad, because you know that these kids don't have the basic things in life like a Mom who loves them and helps them. Food on the table, and so forth.
I think a lot of these kids would be better off in an orphanage, or foster care.

It is a whole culture, and each generation gets further and further from really knowing and understanding what their role as a parent really truly is.

I have no advice for you hurt. I just wanted to say that I went to that kind of school. I was a ward of the state so there was no calling of parents if the child misbehaved or didn't do their work. The teachers handled all school discipline from spanking ( ) to detention. I would think the teachers considered it somethink of a bonus that they didn't have to deal with the parents. No "But Johnny/Jenny isn't like that at home. You're just picking on him/her. You need to do your job correctly." etc. Small school, small student population. If a student was a potential troublemaker/slacker, word got around. For the record, I had great teachers. Liked their job, took it seriously and for the most part made learning interesting if not fun.

Honestly at this school, we have the problem where parents are *overly* involved with their children and we are trying to get them to back off. I think that in this case, mom handles all "kid stuff" and dad is resentful that since mom is out of town he has to handle kid stuff (by kid, I mean 16 year old son). The first thing he asked me is if this could wait two weeks for his wife to get back in town.

I tip my cap to anyone who teaches.

It's unglamorous and demanding work, and the only time that teachers get the level of attention they deserve is during contract negotiations, when they get demonized.

These helicopter parents don't improve when the kids go to college. When one of our student's parents go ballistic we call a "Blackhawk down" warning.

I'm on the admissions committee for the medical school which means I interview the little darlings so they can tell me how much they luurve science and people.

This last year a parent tried to come in and explain why little Alice would be SOOOO wonderful as a doctor. I was like Get. Out. Damn.... Are ya gonna come dissect their cadaver, too?!?

@purple - I taught college for ten years. What I loved was being able to say "I'm sorry, but legally I cannot talk to you." I hung up on more than one.