Wow, I may be taking things a little different. Not everything is so black and white, but they do tend to move certain directions. If you are reading this you are most likely are a very involved parent in your child’s education, this is a good thing. My DW is a TA in a public ES and works with special needs students. I run a math club within the MS and I am currently advocating for better math within the district. Much of what the article speaks to is true, and much is also missed. Teachers are people with good and bad days, great teachers and some very bad teachers. Blanket statements about teachers and parents are not overly helpful. DS10 has an English teacher that has a very bad reputation with a large number of parents for a very long time, she is retiring this year and I believe there may be a parent party. She teaches 6th grade and she gets most of the top students in her class. She is hard and place’s a lot of responsibility on the students. If you’re late you get 0, if you do not follow instructions you get 0. She has high expectations and many very good students do not do well with her. I believe about 1/2 have cried in her class. DS20 had her and had issues, many of the Scouts in our troop (20 years now) and their parents can’t stand her. I am on the fence about her. I like hard standards with no wiggle room for the students. It teachers them a lot more than just good English (By the way she does have high expectations of her students) she also gives out a lot of homework, lots of writing, with multiple drafts, and yes show all drafts. I don’t like that she can be mean, and even demeaning. Still I believe her heart is in the right spot and that her intent is to make much stronger people. This is just one teacher, my DS 10 has some that all he has to do is turn in HW and you get an A. How many of us have students where most students get an A in the Class, how about other classes where less the 10% get A’s. DW has a parent , whose child is ADHD, yet the parent refuses to even discuss it, and if DW were to bring it up officially she could be fired. I still see things as a collaborative effort for 80% of the kids, our 1% on this board may have a much more difficult time than most. I have seen the pushy parent, the helicopter parents, and the one I see the most the uninvolved parent. Teachers today are glorified babysitters, we have asked our schools to teach morals, feed our kids, provide health care, all kinds of different services, we sue them if our kids get a skinned knee (Can’t run on the play- ground anymore), we sue if they have an allergic reaction (For some I understand this can be deadly, DS 20 peanuts), I think sometimes we ask to much from the schools. I think (Like anyone asked me) that this issue is much more than us vs. them. My sons will continue to have both good and bad teachers, and they will have to learn to deal with it, I will continue to advocate when needed, and if a particularly Bad teacher does something I will step in, after all I am an involved parent.
