I am in shock. My son reads...VORACIOUSLY (up to 1,500- 2,000 minutes a week when he is in school- more when he is not) and everyone knows it at school-the teacher gets it and lets him keep all his books at his desk(normally 5-7 at any given time) it's what he does all day when he is done with his work. IT keeps him out of trouble. He is RE-Reading the Hunger Games before he sees the movie- he actually read it when he was 8. He is now 9 and in 3rd grade. I read it first and asked him a lot of probing questions while he was reading it to make sure he was ok reading it. None of his peers have read it and his teacher has asked him not to talk about it since the other kids are not allowed to read the book due to content...SERIOUSLY??? every video games these kids play have as much or more violence....He always reads books way above the other kids content level and if anything has pushed other kids into reading larger and more difficult books because he is SO PASSIONATE about them. It just makes me sick- censorship of a 9 year old.... insert scream here!!!!

Perhaps the parents of the other children have shared with her that they find the content inappropriate for their kids with the movie coming out and it coming more into the awareness of other parents. I'd have to expect the teacher to comply with other parents' requests of that sort if that is the case regardless of whether they make sense to others (i.e. - no greater violence than the video games they play).

If she were telling your son that he couldn't read it due to other kids' or their parents' objections, then I'd have more of a problem with it. Sorry to play devil's advocate here .

Just to play the other side of the Devil's Advocate...;-) If a bunch of parents said that the Bible's content was inappropriate and the student was requested not to discuss his reading... threatened child sacrifice and all.... Should/would the teacher comply?

I bet half the kids in the class will have seen the movie by the second month it's out on DVD.

The teacher LOVES the series and actually was shocked when the first week of school he was reading Mockingjay- she asked if I thought it was appropriate- I said- I know you just met him but yes he can handle it- feel free to question him....it actually opened her up into accepting how much and what he reads- it is just sad she feels like he has to be censored.....he single-handedly got 3 or 4 other kids interested in the Eragon series because how animated he was in telling the others about it. I just hope it does not squelch anything in him

The problem here is that it's Stephen King.

The Long Walk.

Really, when I realized the plot of The Hunger Games, this was the first thing I thought of...

"One hundred teenage boys participate in an annual walking contest called "The Long Walk," which is the "national sport". Each Walker must maintain a speed of at least four miles per hour; if he drops below that speed for 30 seconds, he receives a verbal warning (which can be erased by walking for one hour without being warned). If a Walker with three warnings slows down again, he is "ticketed." The meaning of this term is intentionally kept vague at first, but it soon becomes clear that "buying a ticket" means to be shot dead by soldiers riding in half-tracks along the roadside. Walkers may be shot immediately for certain serious violations, such as trying to leave the road or attacking the half-track. The soldiers use electronic equipment to precisely determine a Walker's speed and is said to even be able to hear the boys conversations.

The event is run by a character known as "The Major," who is implied to have much power, stemming from a possible military or fascist state system. The Major appears at the beginning of the Walk to encourage the boys and start them on their way, and then occasionally thereafter. While the Walkers initially greet him with awe and respect, they eventually realize their admiration is misplaced and ridicule him in later appearances.

The Walk begins at the Maine/Canada border and travels the east coast of the United States until the winner is determined. There are no stops, rest periods, or established finish line, and the Walk does not pause for any reason (including bad weather or darkness); it ends only when one Walker is left alive. According to the rules, the Walkers can obtain aid only from the soldiers. They may request a canteen of water at any time, and food concentrates (apparently similar to the ones developed by NASA's space program) are distributed at 9:00 every morning. Walkers may bring anything they can carry, including food or additional footwear, but cannot receive aid from bystanders. They are allowed to have bodily contact with onlookers as long as they stay on the road. While they cannot physically interfere with one another to detrimental effect, they can help each other, provided they stay above four miles per hour."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Walk

Yes. The bible has stories of justified gang rape, wars against and mass killings of unbelievers, and so on. Parents would be justified in saying, "I don't want my child exposed to that." Besides, what if other kids in the class come from families who come from other religious backgrounds?

Bgbarnes, I can see Cricket2's point. I looked up the book and it seems to be aimed at older kids (12 and up, according to amazon.com). I agree that it would have been out of line to tell him not to read it, but it seems reasonable that other parents might think the book is too mature for nine-year-olds.

My son just turned 9 and is in the 4th grade. He has read the books and is excited for the movie (we already have tickets for Friday) I also think that a lot of 8-9 years old (3rd-4th graders) that should not be reading the books as they do have mature content that will not be fully understand by a lot of children in this age group. We can only make this decision for our own children not the other children in the class.

I don't think this is censorship at all. I would respect the teacher's wishes that it not be talked about in class. When the other children are ready for this type of book/movie I am sure that their parents will let them read/ watch it. The movie has a PG-13 rating, I think that the parents should be able to decide individually if their child is ready.

I guess that for me this might fall in the whole Santa Claus discussion...some children are ready at 5, some at 7, some at 10 and some might never be ready. As parents we should respect other parents and their children.

If you're asking whether "seriously" nine year olds aren't allowed to read it, yep, even at least one gifted kid, in my ds's case. My ds turned 10 yesterday and I would not let him read it. Ds11 (12 in April) read it recently after much discussion. They also DO NOT play violent video games (Wii, which is all we have, isn't that violent to begin with, and certainly not the games we have). We do choose to set limits based on what we feel is appropriate for our kids. Neither ds has watched a PG-13 movie. You really can't make assumptions so easily (that every single kid is playing violent video games). I read enough of the book to know that it didn't appeal to me (ds11 finished it, but chose not to read the sequel). Not everyone is ready for that kind of storyline. I respect your decision to let your son read it, but you should also respect that some kids (frankly, I think many) are NOT ready for it in 3rd grade.

The only thing I know about the movie is that they use kids as gladiators to the death.   There's a sad parallel.  I'm sure you've heard of the Border Wars.  The Zetas also steal little children and raise them up to be killers in the drug war.  I imagine it's not much different in the war torn middle East.  You hear stories how they kidnap people and make their families do horrible things or they'll kill the whole family.  Well, something else they do is kidnap little kids to raise to use in the drug war.  I have no idea how much of that is true and how much is rumors.  I know one of the last times I went across the river there was a Huge Kinko's banner across the highway from the drug lords saying, "hey cops and soldiers, if you want a better job with benefits and protection for your family.. Call this phone #".  And there were armed soldiers on the bridge and on the sidewalks.  I heard that the drug gangs were shooting the soldiers in downtown.  So, it might be likely they really were stealing little children and raising them to kill and be killed.  And I'm sure they do in the middle East.  And they vets have said they did in vietnam.  The vets say in Vietnam they had to shoot children  because you'd see a toddler running to you and when it lifted its arms to be picked up a bomb would go off.  
If this post is too graphic tell me and I'll edit.  It makes me cry too.  But training children to kill children is not as purely fiction as it should be.
This is how I know about the starfish story.  My grandma told me when I told her the stories I was hearing about the drug war in Mexico.  She said something like you can't save the world, but with a heart like mine I'd like this story and she sent me the story of the starfish.

Crisc & Cricket- I do understand I just find it really hypocritical with all the violent games I see the kids playing. I also know of a lot of other conversations that I hear about on the play ground, especially the ones with older siblings that are "inappropriate" or what about the music that I hear that kids grab on to the words so quickly?
I am also more aware because I finished Genius Denied on Sunday and well....I have really been resigned to the fact that the public school provides a basic education period. The book has my mind reeling over what should be possible and what the heck should I do with my son.....how do I find kids like him that can handle the conversations that go with a book like that? He should not have to be stifled in his education environment-where is a place where he can be a 9 year old boy but have deep intellectual conversations too. Where he can speak and ask the tough questions and be free to explore. Where he has more to do than read all day long because he finishes the work so quickly and he has no interest in doing more of the same level work- the other option. He tested at the high school level for Science and when I challenged the school on what they are going to do with it they suggest he is not interested in doing additional science work because he can work ahead in his 3rd grade science book and he chooses not to...I said why would he want to- it is not going to teach him anything!!! Originally I have left the school off the hook really in regards to how to accelerate any subject and meet his needs academically- just never saw any glimmer of hope to getting more than the basic GT program.. I always resigned myself it was all up to me to figure out how to challenge him. The book light a fire under me to reach for the stars for him!

This really is a wake up call for me- get off my butt and do something different for him because Hunger Games is really just the tip of the iceberg in regards to how different he is from his peers.

I would take issue with the teacher saying your ds couldn't read the book, but I don't have an issue with the teacher asking him not to talk about it in class. The teacher can't control what he talks about at home or on the playground, but her classroom is her classroom, and there are undoubtedly kids in his grade level who really aren't emotionally ready to hear about it. I also think saying he should be able to because video games are violent is irrelevant. Yes, video games can be very violent - but that doesn't mean all the kids in this class play violent video games. We don't let our kids, and we have known a lot of other parents who also don't let their kids play them either. I suspect my ds could have handled the subject matter of Hunger Games at that age and he was more than capable of reading books at a much higher level by then, but I still wouldn't have wanted him to read it. I know my dd10 would have been very disturbed by it and probably still would be. I can't keep them from hearing about these things out on the playground or from their friends, but I can and do respect that the teacher wasn't acting overbearingly or irresponsibly or hypocritically in asking that it not be discussed in her classroom - I suspect she was acting out of genuine caring for the more sensitive children in her class. I'm also guessing she doesn't let the kids play video games in class either

Please know I understand your frustration with school - it sounds like your ds needs much more challenge and is spending a lot of his day at school bored. And yes, absolutely, reach for the stars for him!

Best wishes,

polarbear

bgbarnes, I'm sorry my parenting choices are making you sick. I have twin 9 yo boys in 4th grade and even though a handful of their friends have read the Hunger Games, my husband and I have made the decision that we don't want them to read the book yet. Other children in their classes do talk about it and there's quite a bit of peer pressure for them to read it, so I wish their teachers would tell the other kids to cool it on the Hunger Games talk.

I don't think it's appropriate for my 9 year olds. It's not that my boys aren't voracious readers, or that they're not capable of understanding the concepts in the book or that they're not highly gifted, too. It's that they're only 9. I think they can worry about a fictional grim future where kids are forced to kill each other when they're a little older. That's my parenting choice, which I suppose you could call censorship. I also censor R- rated movies, and they seldom see PG-13 movies. But here's where I'm a hypocrite-- they do have some shoot 'em up video games. (I think games and books are different and therefore have different rules.)

I'm struggling to understand why you're so strident about criticizing my decisions for my sons. I ask that you take a step back and realize there are many ways to raise kind, ethical, happy, intelligent children.

It probably depends if you are religiously expansionistic or not.

Some people want to make sure that other religious backgrounds are ultimately stamped out, for example, those with a general theocratic political program.

I was just talking to one of our legal assistants. She was catholic going to a evangelical school. They were constantly trying to convert her.

I think there are several different things going on here and some posts are making assumptions which may be correct but which aren't correctly based on things in the OP. My opinions:

- Is it OK that some 9yos aren't allowed by their parents to read Hunger Games? IMO yes, absolutely. I also don't think there's a simple relationship with giftedness here - we've had threads before from people who need to shield their gifted children more than is age typical due to emotional OE. Come to that, I haven't read HG and have no plans to, call it my own EOE!

- Is it OK for the teacher to ask someone not to talk about it in the classroom? IMO yes. It's really her call, but I would be very surprised if she were not also stopping children talking about violent video games in the classroom.

Some posters have assumed that this is the situation, but the OP just said he'd been asked not to talk about it. So

- Is it OK for the teacher to ask someone not to talk about it at all? IMO this is dubious and interesting. As a ban, I think it's pragmatically foolish, because it's impractical to enforce restrictions on what children can talk about on the playground. I would certainly expect any parent who asked for playground talk to be restricted to be told that it's impractical. If such restrictions were to be enforced, talk about unsuitable books wouldn't be high on my list of things to restrict - I'd suggest completely eliminating all homophobic and sexist language in the playground first, for example... OTOH, I would have absolutely no problem with the teacher pointing out to someone that the book he's very enthusiastic about is something that some children his age would find very upsetting, and asking him to be sensitive in how he talks about it and to whom.

Homophobic language on the playground? I don't think I even knew homosexuality *existed* until I was in late high school. Maybe college.

Horror movies like Poltergeist, Nightmare on Elm street? That was normal playground discussion. Granted, this was the 1980s.

THIS! And I also think that it might be a better approach to discuss with him WHY it might not be a good idea to discuss the book with other kids his age. If he is mature enough to comprehend the themes of the Hunger Games, then it seems likely that he would be able to understand the need for some discretion.

And FWIW, I would likely not let my DS8 read the book (even though he is academically capable) because, like ColinsMom said, he can be very sensitive to stories of the mistreatment of children so I know it would be upsetting for him. And I also don't allow anything but E/E-10 rated video games right now. So far they are perfectly satisfied with Lego games and sports games, thank goodness!

Oh, maybe you don't need to hear another dissenting opinion ;-) but I am also in the camp where I think it is fine, and actually wonderful, that the teacher asked him not to discuss this in class. Totally concur that it would be wrong for her to ask him not to read it at all.

My 12 year old son read the series last year (at age 11) and loved it. My 11 year old daughter overheard all the hoopla about it in her class in the past few weeks and begged to read it. Knowing more about the content now, I realized it would be better for her to wait for middle school to read it, but there was SO much pressure to read it, since all the girls in her class were constantly talking about it at school. I'm sure the publicity for the movie is part of the hoopla. I caved, and she did whip right through (in the middle of Mockingjay now), but on the 2nd night, she did have nightmares (I agree--in this case, I think her giftedness may have contributed to feeling the story more intensely than might otherwise be the case), and I was annoyed at myself for succumbing to the pressure. Yes, she can read it, she could have read it years ago, but I really wish she hadn't. There are so many more appropriate and also wonderful books for her! So having a teacher who acts to mitigate peer pressure to read what would be at least controversial (some think it's fine, some don't), I think shows she is a caring and involved teacher. Kudos to her. I wish my child's teacher had attempted to reduce the discussions on the Hunger Games in the classroom!

My kids do not have those violent video games, either, and they've only seen 2 PG-13 movies, which I had researched the reviews on CommonSense Media, and they were of the more mild-type. But you are right, an awful lot of kids DO seem to be allowed to play games I wouldn't permit, and even watch rated R movies ("Bridesmaids" and "The Hangover" in 6th grade!!! Yikes). And I would hope that the teachers would discourage discussion of scenes from those movies in class, too.

It is true that we can't control what gets discussed on the playground, etc, and it can be so shocking to hear what is discussed. Oh well.

Anyway, I'm glad your son enjoyed the books, and I do understand your LARGER issue/frustration beyond this particular book/request....it can be tricky to find the right peer group for any child, and often more tricky for highly gifted children. Good luck (sincerely)! But do try to understand why lots of parents would appreciate him being discreet about the Hunger Games.

Uh? Your son can read the book. She's just asked that he not talk about it -- you know, the murders might be upsetting to typical 8 and 9 year olds. I imagine she also asks the children who play the video games to not talk about those as well.

Just a note to say this thread is very interesting and I've been "out of it" for the Hunger Games thing, but now I'll be on alert and will discuss with DH. I guess we're a bit behind since we're still stuck on insisting DD not read above Harry Potter #4, which she is stubbornly reading now because everyone else is or has read it, but which she doesn't really seem to even like that much. She loved the Gregor series by Suzanne Collins. I "made" her read Treasure Island in between HP books #3 and #4 which she did with alot of grumbling, but I kept finding her hiding under the covers with it and she did chat cheerfully about it alot in the end.

Yes, JonLaw unfortunately homophobic language on the playground in elementary school does exist. And in the (boys' at least) locker room I understand from other parents (I don't have a boy) and from announcements that were made on a parents' night by the PE teachers. It starts very young and is very concerning.

"I pledge allegiance to the flag,
Michael Jackson is a ---"

When I was in the 2d grade in my first week of public school, I took several Jack London books to class to read. The teacher took them away from me. That began a long battle whose end result was that the Library was my first hour of school and I was able to read by myself in class as long as I took the tests and was quiet.

As for "appropriate" - when I was 8 I got to shoot the hogs for the smokehouse. I was also driving tractors on the highway and carried a rifle with me when I was out in the field. I worked beside my dad and my uncles from sunup to sunset and they talked freely about just about everything. Over half of them were Army vets. It could get salty.

Dude, that is *soooo* gay!

(My kid, who has two moms, only in the last year figured out what gay-as-in-homosexual means. I think we were watching The Wedding Banquet when she asked.)

In the UK, and I think I understand also in the US, this is a big issue at the moment. See this page about tackling it for example, with quotes such as "95 per cent of secondary school teachers and three quarters of primary school teachers report hearing the phrases ‘you’re so gay’ or ‘that’s so gay’ in their schools". I'm sorry to say that my DS has encountered it, and even sorrier to say that I suspect he has encountered strategic deafness in the teacher who ought to have been stopping it, too.

[ETA: it may well be that many of the children who are using "gay" as an insult do not actually know that the word means homosexual, may not even know that homosexuality exists. That's why I wrote "homophobic language" rather than "homophobia".]

I'll second that.

I'll third it. It's hard enough to struggle to get an appropriate education for your kids, and the advertisting issues makes it even more murky. And the field trips that are really a cover to sign up for sports teams/classes, because the school gets a kick-back.

I feel like basically we have different values than alot of people, nothing against them, we are just a bit more "old-fashioned" with our daughter as far as what she does, watches, reads. I don't really like the direction some of the kids in the neighborhood and older siblings of some of her classmates are headed.

We do make plenty of compromises so she's not a total misfit, but some things are just black and white to us and we have to draw the line. I just remind her that there ARE other kids out there here and there being raised like her (she does meet them at summer day camps and outside classes, and it sounds like there are families out there on this forum) and when she's an adult and making her own money she can make her own choices, but for now we feel that we know what is best for her.

I'm always struggling to edit my mind to find things that I respect the school (i.e. "the system") for but some weeks are definitely worse than others.

Maybe you guys just don't have it too much or at all. You can google "advertising in schools" to get the idea. It can be alot or a little, radio on the school buses, banners, posters, part of the curriculum materials.

I just am finishing the series and my son read them at late 10/early 11. My 7 year old could pick them up and read them and is reading Harry Potter. But I think HG would not be ok for her for at least a few years just because of the sensitive nature of the topic. It's also lead to many great discussions with my 11 year old that wouldn't have worked a couple years ago.

Anyway, I can understand why a parent might not want their children exposed to that series or movie yet. My DS and I are going to see the movie ASAP. We are really excited! No way on the 7 year old. My son could have handled it sooner than my daughter because he's just less sensitive about this kind of thing. So I get that some kids will be fine with it when others aren't. And that some parents will just take their very young kids to the movie without reading it.

My oldest has come back to series over and over and gets new things each time. I think he's read the Harry Potter series 3 or 4 times now.

FTR - I'd prefer my child didn't get bible at school either. We homeschool (secularly) for many reasons.

Here's an example.

The proliferation of companies like Steep Creek Media, which acts as a middleman between districts and would-be advertisers, has made it simpler for schools to get into advertising. Steep Creek offers an attractive proposition for schools — and business is booming, according to its owner and founder, Cynthia Calvert, who represents 35 districts and has had to turn down handfuls of clients.

In exchange for what usually amounts to a cut of 40 percent of the profits, the company lures potential advertisers with a diverse menu of placements: on buses, textbook covers, in-school television monitors, scoreboards and Web sites.

Or try this story.

Instead of placing ads up, some companies provide teachers with curriculum kits that mix educational lessons with frequent references to their products or corporate name. For example, in some communities, children use mathematics worksheets with Disney characters and when done see clips from the video. A nonprofit research group, The Milwaukee Center for the Analysis of Commercialism in Education, recently discovered that these corporate-sponsored classroom materials often subtly steer class lessons in directions advantageous to the sponsor.

Or, just google "Scholastic coal curriculum." Here's a summary:

Environmental groups are going after the world's largest publisher of children's books for teaming up with the American Coal Foundation to produce "The United States of Energy," a lesson plan designed for fourth-graders. The foundation, online at Teachcoal.org, is devoted to creating "coal-related educational materials and programs designed for teachers and students." …

The magazine Rethinking Schools published a scathing critique of the lesson plan in its latest issue, accusing Scholastic of producing "propaganda for the coal industry." They argue that the material "lies through omission" because it doesn't include problems like warming the planet, destroying mountain ranges, killing miners, or causing respiratory problems, to name a few. …

My experience is that there is a lot of preaching about "renewable energy" in the public schools without mentioning how much more expensive it is and other drawbacks such as the unreliability of wind power. Steven Landsburg has described environmentalism in the schools as an intrusive state religion
http://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/twimberley/EnviroPol/EnviroPhilo/WhyNotEnviro.pdf .

As easy as it is turn this into some kind of political statement (the skools is LIBRULSZ!!), the reality is that just about anything related to social studies it taught badly in schools, with little in the way of conflicting information that can lead children to exploration and developing critical thinking skills. Social issues are presented as facts to be memorized, regurgitated, and forgotten. The narrative of steady progress from grunting ape-like societies to modern man cannot become clouded by confusion, else the real purpose of education (to turn out compliant cogs in the industrial machine) be undermined.

When a district curriculum supervisor informed me that "the primary purpose of an education is social integration," my jaw hit the floor. I mean, she could have said "indoctrination" or "mind control" instead of "social integration," without changing her meaning at all.

/rant

Yeah, that. My mom has been complaining about this idea ever since I can remember. Sit still, do your worksheet, and be a good little girl or boy. No questioning allowed.

When I was in fifth grade, our teachers got a bright idea about giving everyone a color-badge based on behavior and what you could call social integration. You had to wear the badge all day. Kids with green badges got special privileges and were called to line up and go to recess first. Then orange, then red. The red kids lost privileges and were called out for their bad citizenship (or whatever the term was).

My parents were livid at the thought of a school labeling children and creating classes of students in this way.

Guess what, Val...the color coding is alive and well and being used in my DD's classroom. Yes it makes me livid.

In fact, she was probably "yellow" today because I neglected to sign her spelling test. I remembered it this morning after she went to school, and I feel horrible. It was my fault, she showed it to me and asked me to sign it but we didn't go inside for quite awhile after school yesterday and I stuck it away. Time change, nice weather, everything going on in the classroom/homework all different leading up to the almighty state assessments. She hasn't brought home a spelling test to sign in about six weeks so I sort of fell out of the habit.

I'll hear about it in about 1.5 hrs when I go pick her up.

Punishing the child for something the parent didn't do is unacceptable.

They do this same thing at my kids' school. The report card is sent home in a manilla envelope every 6 weeks. The parents are to sign it and send it back the next day. In K, the kids get 2 tickets to the treasure box if they bring it back the next day, they get 1 ticket if it's brought back a day late, and no tickets after that. Nothing like making a 5/6 year old sit and watch other children get toys for something they had basically no control over!

LOL.

And why do textbooks need to be rewritten every year?

Did someone discover a new way of doing math or chemistry?

I can tell now my post about kids killing kids was off topic. My bad.

I have noticed that it's sometimes hard to tell from the initial post and the subject of the post what the topic of the thread is.

I wouldn't worry about it too much.

With practice, you will probably get better at posting things that are on topic.

Happens all the freakin' time. (And a big chunk of it is that the teacher sees it as "parent would have done X if kid had reminded them, so I'm letting the kid experience the consequence of reminding / not reminding." Except that I often search my kid's stuff without being reminded, and often forget to do stuff I've been reminded about, so even for good kids with good parents, it doesn't work like that.)

The kids with bad parents get the consequences of that every single day. They don't need the teacher piling more consequences on top.

The kid getting the consequence thing is presented as helping to build up the parent/child communication. And we do fine, but it causes alot of stress because sometimes you just drop the ball. And if you try to communicate that to the teacher, you get the lecture about the child needing to learn responsibility, and it probably comes off to them like "the dog ate my homework".

Anyway DD got invited to a friend's house, the weather is fantastic and she seems to have forgotten about the yellow, replaced by nice things after escaping from the school walls for another day.

I just watched "the greatest movie ever sold". I forgot how much they said the advertisers paid to put acne commercials on "chanel one news", the one they show in middle school. That money probably didn't go to the kids, it goes to channel one news inc. but the principals were explaining selling ad space inside the school bus and on the fence of the stadium, saying, we keep getting budget cuts and trying to decide who to fire and which programs to cut, we're just trying to find ways to stop the bleeding. They said they could sell ad space to stuff like crimestopers, but they couldn't sell to advertisers promoting $0.69 cent whatever's to captive teenagers because the parents would complain. And yet no one wants programs cut and they keep cutting funding.

I'm sorry, but I can't accept that line of reasoning, especially given the inefficiencies in public education spending. To me, this justification is really saying, "Our budget got cut, so we have to sell to the highest bidder. Coal, anyone?"

I understand that budget cuts are tough, but that doesn't excuse putting Disney characters on your math worksheets and watching Disney cartoons during class.

Well, with Disney being such an old 20th century brand, it's critical that new Consuming Units(TM) be encouraged to provide Mind Share(TM). If Disney doesn't colonize that space, someone else will, and the Disney brand will be diminished.

Can you imagine what might happen to the economies of Florida and California in such a situation?

We all have to work together here to make it in the New Global Hypereconomy.

It's a win-win-win.

The school wins California/Florida win, and Disney shareholders win.

The real problem is that there is no ability grouping in the younger grades. I made a decision early on with my kids that I was pretty much going to allow them to read what they wanted to. Even though schools may hate ability grouping, I think as a parent you are well within your rights to insist that your child has a need to discuss the things he reads with his peers. It is the duty of the school to place him in a setting with other children who actually read books.

Welll...my kid is 8 and does not play any violent video games or watch any violent movies; these books would freak her out, I'm pretty sure. The teacher does seem kind of micromanaging, but she may have parents who are expressing concern about stuff like this.

My dd13's 1st grade teacher color coded the kids based on both behavior and achievement. They all had little pockets on the wall with their names on them and three colored popsicle sticks: green, yellow, and red. If they misbehaved, she called out, "Jenni, move your green" and Jenni would need to take the green popsicle stick out of her pocket. If you got down to red, there was some consequence. Dd was so petrified listing to the other kids get called out publicly that she never got in trouble.

The kids were also put in green, yellow, and red groups for reading and math. The green group was the advanced students, yellow average, and red kids who were behind. Again, although dd was all "green," this whole system sucked so badly and stressed dd out so much that we wound up removing her from school part of the way through and homeschooling the rest of the year.

Sorry, sidetrack...

(on the subject of homophobia [though it was a while back] when I taught art in a local private middle school, I was repremanded by the principle for objecting to near continuous gay-jokes being delivered durring class time by students. Apparetly I was being too hard on them, and they didn't really mean anything by it.)

-Mich

This whole thread is a side track I will weigh in on several of the ongoing conversations. First, with respect to the Hunger Games, my DS8 is relentless in his requests to read the books because according to him "everyone in his class is reading them." He is a grade skipped 3rd grader in a 3/4 HG classroom and I believe that many of the kids in his class are reading the books (though not all) but I just don't think he is ready for it in the same way I have made him stop at the 4th HP book for now. There are many books for him to read and I would just like to save some of the more mature themed, violent books for later. But, I don't judge those other families for allowing their kids to read even though it puts more pressure on me to stand my ground with my own DS.

On the subject of those awful behavior systems, I just don't get it. Why does it seem so obvious to us here on this board that many of those humiliation techniques just won't be effective and can even be damaging for kids. At the end of last year, my DS finally told me that he thought that his teacher tried to make kids be good by making them feel really bad about themselves. That broke my heart. Positive reinforcement is the best way to get my kid to behave and it is probably for most other kids too.

Finally, I had a huge disagreement with my DS's school last year about forgetting to sign his reading sheet. Even when it was clear that he had read and even written a sentence, if the parent forgot to sign, they made the kid skip recess and go to "homework hall." My child is very energetic and it would never be useful for him to skip recess. In my discussion with the principal about it, she said it shows that parents are involved and that is why it is required. This further infuriated me because at that time, I was helping our PTA organize and offer after school enrichment - I pointed out that this showed my involvement. Anyway it was resolved that my child would never go to homework hall and it never happened again. But, it really did feel sorry for the kids whose parents were not down there fighting for them to keep their recess.

Haha!
My son (YS9) brings home a blank reading log every week and we never fill them out. Teacher has never said anything and there has never been a consequence to my knowledge.

I hate reading logs for kids who actually spend some of their free time reading and enjoy reading.

Ok, I've read the entire meandering thread, and while I'm not sure the OP is even reading it anymore, I'd like to present one more idea about the teacher censoring your child's talk. Censoring ourselves to know what is appropriate or not appropriate to say within specific groups is a vital behavior skill that will help our children be successful in the workplace, at home, etc. there are things we discuss with our spouse, say about intimacies, that would be horrifically inappropriate to discuss with our children present. That is called discretion and does require that we censor our choice of topics because of the harm it could do to someone else witnessing the discussion. There are a myriad of examples of how we use discretion.

Your child is being given a valuable opportunity to learn how to use discretion and self control for the sake of others.

My daughter was given the same opportunity when she chose to enlighten a group of children on the playground about the facts of life at 8 years old. She'd asked questions; I knew she was advanced in her ability to process the information appropriately, so I gave her direct answers. It seems many parents were not so inclined to share the same information with their children, and thus one parent called the principal upset that they now had a child who knew things they weren't ready to process. It was a good opportunity for me to teach my child that just because she was mature and advanced didn't mean others were and that being respectful of that was an important skill to acquire.

Just a thought; hope it helps.

As to the parents signing things for a kids's grade - it's a massive pet peeve of mine, it in no way indicates anything about the kid's grasp of knowledge at all.

I talked to a friend who teaches at a highly rated public middle school.

Her take is that they send stuff home to be signed like this to prevent a lot of issues with some parents saying they did not know about problems or grades. Most of the problem parents are the ones who never sign the paper in the first place, but if they did not send it home, they would then drop in screaming that the school never told them.

Wow, ABQMom, your message was great. It made the point beautifully.

Yes, that's pretty much it.

Fairly recently, I got an e-mail from a parent who wanted to know how her child's report card grade of D happened. I wrote back, "Well, I wrote a D in her planner on this date, and sent home a D on her midquarter report on this date, and I see that you did sign her plan to bring up her grade from an F on this date, thank you for that. She did bring her grade up to a D at that point..."

While I certainly commiserate with the challenges of making parents accountable, I still think it ridiculous to hurt a child's academic score due to the failure of a parent to sign papers.

Interesting to hear the teacher perspective on parents signing things sent home.

But actually, I was originally referring to a 3rd grader, which is quite different from a middle schooler. Also I rarely "drop the ball" it was a one-off, the quiz went back the very next day after I looked at it, I just forgot to sign it, in part because it was a regular things for the spelling tests to come home and it suddenly stopped about 6 weeks ago, then suddenly started up again. No communication as to why from the teacher. Same with the multiplication tests. They came home a few in a row, then stopped suddenly. I found out that the teacher had switched to giving the quizzes verbally, based on a phone conversation with one parent in the class who didn't feel the written quizzes were appropriate for HER CHILD. Since she is a mathematics professor, I guess that phone call advocacy was good enough for sweeping changes for all 20 kids in the class, without informing any other parents. For me, of course, I have test data from the child study center of a famous university with EG/HG scores for my child with very explicit advice for how to best accommodate her, and which has been continuously snubbed. Because my state does not require the support of the gifted, I am out of luck.

So if a teacher values consistency and is going punish the 8-year-old child the very next day after a quiz comes home and isn't signed, on the "first offense" perhaps it would be a good example for them to set to be consisent or at least communicative with how they are doing things.

I have never, ever "screamed" at a teacher or even demanded anything from them point blank.

I agree with Dude's initial reaction to the child being punished for what the parent does, however there doesn't seem to be much I can do about it at this point.

p.s. my apologies to the original poster to taking part in making this such a meandering thread, and I hope she is able to get some accommodations for her son.

My DD12 was offended when the teacher asked that I sign her work this year. She told the teacher that her homework was her responsibility and not her mother's. She worked out a deal with the teacher that as long as DD remained responsible -- no signing.

When DD was in kindergarten, I still remember a student being held in at recess because the parents hadn't signed her communication folder. As the year went on, it became apparent to everyone, including the other parents, that the mom in question had some sort of substance abuse issue. I finally said something to the teacher about how it didn't seem like it was fair to keep this child in at recess continually because her mom was incapable of handling the admin stuff. The teacher snapped at me and proceeded to tell me that the mom also failed to respond to phone calls and repeatedly missed meetings. The teacher felt that she couldn't back down or she would be rewarding the mom's bad behavior (!?) Talk about a kid being punished for the failings of a parent. It made me cry.

I'll keep that not-signing thing in mind.

What really gets me (and maybe this is the "gifted" part of me, such as it is) is the inconsistency, with the teachers I've encountered, with the principal (his refusal to change my daughter's classroom last year based on "policy", no exceptions, was garbage because he did it for another parent who screamed and hollered at him. The inconsistency is true at the library, where they let some kids "slide" and get out more books when they haven't brought their original ones back, and other kids they cite "policy". And all the kids know who gets to slide and who doesn't. I know "that's life" but it's so prevelant that it's hard to catch a break from one example after the other.

Well I'm going to stop now and try and salvage the rest of the day. Can you tell I was at the school volunteering this morning? The teacher didn't say a word when DD checked out a kindergarten-level book. I tried to persuade DD to get something else, but she was very down, and now so I am.

YES. If you're doing it to yourself, it's not censorship, it's discretion. (If the government does it to you, then it's censorship, and it's another story.)

DeeDee

Things like this can really get to me if I let them, so I have to just ignore. There is always going to be somebody who gets something more (as well as someone who is getting less) - and the energy lost to getting upset over it just isn't worth it. If it's something you feel *really* strongly about, then it's worth putting together a good fight that might benefit everyone's child, but for the most part I've found that I have to just tell myself - that's there life, this is mine, I didn't get that one thing they did but I need to look forward for my child, do the best I can, and just move on.

polarbear

Going back to the original topic. The teacher should not have had to ask him not to talk about it in class. The OP should have talked to her child first.

There are many topics that my child is mature enough to understand but his age mates are not. He has always understood when I tell him why he shouldn't discuss certain topics with other children.

And if your 8 year old is mature enough to read the Hunger games, then he should be mature enough to understand that other children may not be. Those are very adult topics, and yes I have read and enjoyed the books myself.

thanks polarbear! I think I'm very sensitive to hypocrisy, just in general (it always gets my goat) but particularly when it comes to people who are meant to be leading children in the right direction and helping parents with the "it takes a village". I also get a constant, steady dose of news about other children in the family who have wooooonderful experiences with school, and they are "veeery bright" and isn't it so great? Yes, yes, it's lovely for them.

Welcome to the real world, right? It could be much worse!

Spring break is coming, and I need the break because there have been too many "bug-a-boos" lately! They've been chipping away at my positive outlook.