Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments teacher/student mismatch

Last school year my husband and I had a feeling that our son's teacher really didn't "get him" and really didn't take any interest in him. We tried to give her information about him and let her know what his needs were in terms of emotional intensity, learning styles and other issues but she never really seemed to do more than nod her head as we spoke. We let the principal know at our June meeting that we weren't very happy with the teacher and that she really didn't seem to be a good fit for MrWiggly. But all school year he said that he liked her fine and she was nice and he never complained or told us anything bad was going on, even when we specifically asked about the teacher.

Last night I had MrWiggly fill out a questionnaire in preparation for some testing we are having done in August. It was the Harter Social Support Scales and it asks the child to indicate feelings about people in their lives. He handed it to me when he was done and said: "All the ones about teachers are about Ms. T. Now you know what kind of a teacher she really is." It was so sad. He had marked things like "Some kids don't have teachers that care about their feelings" was "really true for me." And "some kids have teachers that treat them like a person" was only "sort of true for me." All the ones about teachers were like that.

Then he told me that when anyone had their feelings hurt Ms. T. never did a thing about it. "She just didn't care, Mom," he said. I almost cried. Not only because my son was obviously not happy or supported in his second grade class but because he is apparently sensitive enough to it to have seen that she was like that for everyone. She teaches second grade, for crying out loud. Shouldn't she be a sensitive person??

We don't have much option for this coming school year. Our school has only one classroom for my son's grade. Even going to 4th for math he only has one class to go to. Not a choice in teachers. But you can be sure that I'll be more assertive with the teachers next year and hope that someday soon he'll be matched up with that teacher who really understands and appreciates him. I have two or three that I remember as having that special connection with. I hope my son gets that same chance. It makes such a difference in a child's life.

How sad for him. Reading your post, it seems like something I could have written about my child, although, he, too, said he liked the teacher. I was in the classroom enough to wonder "what in the world is this person doing teaching FIRST grade??".

I'm sorry MrWiggly had to go through that.

DD9 is also a sensitive child and I can really identify with your post. Our 3rd grade experience was similar and her teacher didn't "get her" and I don't think she really wanted to teach. These kids know it and feel it and often internalize it.

I hope Mr. Wiggly has a better experience next year. We have experienced both and it makes such a huge difference.

I have a few random thoughts about this, none of them should be taken as the whole story.

It is always sad when people don't like us our our children, especially people in power. I still hate it when I get one of those bosses. But there is always someone, a co-worker or a boss or a person in our social circles, who we do not get or who do not get us. Learning to deal with that can be an important skill. I wouldn't want it to be the primary experience of growing up, but a few teachers here and there, especially with parental support and coaching, might be turned into a useful experience.

There is a teacher at DS's school who was having mini strokes for a year before they got diagnosed. She had been a great teacher until she started to decline. People noticed there was a problem, but it took doctors a while to find out what was really happening. Another teacher has a wife with a chronic illness, another teacher's spouse died just before school started, and another one suffered from 5 months of morning sickness. All were great teachers, but probably not all that great when their lives were so disrupted. I happened to know about these ones, but what other problems might a teacher have that would not become public? Maybe she shouldn't have been teaching, maybe she was never a good teacher, but sometimes there are good teachers who have to just keep working, no matter how hard things because they need the money or the benefits or to make it through to retirement.

I don't want to suggest that it isn't really sad that your son felt this way. It is sad. But I wonder about "the rest of the story...." Maybe seeing it that way could take a litte of the sting out of the pain. Or maybe not....

thanks so much for the supportive comments and the insight.

acs: I think you are right about seeing the whole story and what's behind the teacher, so to speak. I didn't find out until the end of the school year that this teacher had been teaching special education for 13 years before she transitioned into a regular education classroom. I'm not sure how long she's been teaching regular education. The parent of a child I know who spends the first half of his day in a self-contained classroom just raves about Ms. T and how she is such a great teacher and so wonderful for her child. But she also only worked him for half the day. She wasn't even teaching him the core subjects of math and reading/language - so I'm not sure what was so wonderful about.

I don't know if it was just a personality mismatch, perhaps she's a little burned out in teaching, perhaps she was overwhelmed with the class size (28 kids - but split for math/reading instruction) or she's just not knowledgeable about gifted kids. But she seemed to pretty much ignore my son the whole school year. My son's responses on the questionnaire taught me to trust my gut more consistently. My husband had the same gut feeling. But we let it slide. Not that there was much we could do - except maybe talk to her more or discuss it with the principal. I just know that I plan on being more proactive in the upcoming year and more involved.

And I'm even more sure that we're doing the right thing by having DS tested again and getting some help with advocacy and understanding his needs better. And I'm really glad you guys are here so I can vent and bounce ideas around!

DH and I always took the attitude that "part of life is learning to get along with bad teachers, bosses, etc., so our son will just have to deal"...until we got a doozy of a teacher. At that point, DH and I changed our tune.

Yes, we all have to learn to get along with people who aren't ideal. But as adults, we are much better able to cope with these sorts of people. We have had time to develop the skill set needed. And we can choose to leave a job with a bad boss if the situation is intolerable. Children have no such options with a bad teacher. They are so much more at the mercy of the situation than an adult would be.

Ultimately, one of the main reasons we pulled DS out of public school was because the teacher was so difficult to deal with, and we felt that given where DS was in his development, it was doing actual harm to him to stay there. She was destroying his sense of self. I believe her actions were actually interfering with his ability to develop those very coping skills we wanted him to have. An insecure, unhappy child being made to doubt himself does not cope well and does NOT learn anything useful, and we realized that we were not usng any child-rearing logic whatsoever in our buying into the expectation that this would be a learning situation for him. It was just bad.

I'm not saying that was the case for your son, doodlebug. In our case, DS at the time did NOT have anything nice to say about school or his teacher or, frankly, his life. Not even a passive "It's fine." He acted out for the first time in his life. He was angry and frustrated and sad. It was OBVIOUS that he was getting NOTHING positive out of the experience. His coping skills visibly deteriorated. No question about it for us.

Now, it doesn't sound like you were in that same situation, and I'm certainly not trying to make you second-guess your year here. But I want to give you another point of view because I'm now a much greater protectionist for my child.

Ultimately, I no longer buy into the "getting along with rotten bosses is a lesson we all must learn in school." I think there's a time when we all must learn that, but I don't think elementary school is that time. Obviously there's a spectrum of teachers running from fabulous to abusive, and we have to be reasonable about our expectations. Not all will be the best teacher ever. But I think that the classroom teacher HAS to be closer to the good end to the bad for our kids. I think that must be a requirement. I'm not a helicopter parent, but when it comes to teachers, I've come to the conclusion that even one near the middle is pretty much unacceptable to me anymore. I just saw the amount of damage done to my child in a short time, and I think no good comes of that, no lesson is actually learned from that. The child is just destroyed.

FWIW...

I'm with Kriston on this one - and we learned the hard way. DS's first school was a terrible mismatch - teacher who yelled at the kids (even our OT saw it and said how surprised she was that the school let it happen, although, quite frankly, most parents were happy with the "discipline"). We forced DS through the year and the next one with other problems, telling him to buck up and deal with it. Well, he couldn't, and in hindsight, he shouldn't have had to.

On the flip side, I'm a deal with it person and have dealt with bad bosses, bad situations, etc. Perhaps if I realized earlier on that I did not have to deal with a bad situation but could leave and look for better options, perhaps DS would have had a better start to his school career. We have to be careful of the lessons we teach on both sides of the coin. Live and learn.

I speak only for our family and our DS, when I say this, so please don't take this as judgmental if you made other choices. But for me as a child and for DS, the not great teachers have been really good learning experiences.

DS has never had a major breakdown or shown any signs of being unhappy in school, so that makes things different for us. I had bad teachers in school and DS periodically has teachers that are not great (but, I should add, never abusive or emotionally shut down). He gets frustrated with certain parts of how they teach or treats the kids. We talk about these things a lot. We look at different persectives, the teacher's style and attitude, the mood of the classroom, what he had control over, what he doesn't, different things he can experiment with to try to change the dynamic. Many times he is actually able to change the situation through changes in his own behavior or attitude. I found the same thing when I was growing up--my mom coached me a lot and I found things that helped. Occassionally, DS needs me to come in and help change things and then I do.

I am not suggesting that this approach will work with every teacher or every kid. And there are definitely situations which we would not tolerate. So I don't want to imply that there is something wrong with you if you take your kid out. I am sure we have not faced situations as bad as many of you.

I guess my point is that for someone who has not taken their kid out of a bad situation (for what ever reason!), there may still be opportunity to try to find or make some good out of it. Even if it is to model to our kids that even as parents we learn from our mistakes!

ACS, I agree with you. I think my point should be if you try all that and it doesn't work and there is emotional fall-out, you don't have to stick it out for the sake of the stick it out lesson. It's important to look at the individual situation for your child and act accordingly.

I agree Mon, you have to take into consideration the child. I have one of each.
With one you can have an emotionless discussion about the affect people's actions have.
The other one is remarkably socially astute and does internalize to a great degree.
She's also too little to separate out the logic from those emotions, so I'd be more apt to take her out of the situation until she is developmentally ready to deal with those issues.

Also, I'm a little hesitant to over condition my kids to put up with B.S.

My husband has rapidly progressed in his career because he wasn't afraid to switch companies where waranted. At one point he was with a very solid company with a promising path. Twice, he was blocked from making an upward move because it was in the boss's best interest to keep him where he was.
The second time he left. Went to another large company where he has been promoted up twice.
A few collegues/friends are still there, pretty much not happy about not having made any progress in their careers.