I had my first session helping out in dd5's grade 1/2 class this morning. I have to admit I have come away a little bit horrified. I can however be a bit unrealistic about some things, so I was hoping to get some perspective (and this is possibly a little off topic).
For the hour that I was there the teachers (they team teach so together two teachers manage two classes of 22+ kids) basically only spoke to the kids by threatening or making smart comments about 'misbehaving' kids who were not even doing the wrong thing, but were day dreaming or similar. Some comments including loudly and sarcastically saying "x might be doing a good job, but I wouldn't know because he's facing the wrong way" (they were doing 'brain gym' where they move around the room - he just happened to have finished a move not facing the teacher - he wasn't talking to anyone or distracting anyone), in another instance one of the teachers threatened the grade ones with having to practice lining up outside all lunch time "in front of all your friends so that they will all know you can't listen in class". No one was told they'd done a good job, and nearly every direction was pre-empted with "if you don't do x, y will occur".
Don't get me wrong, wrangling 40 odd 6-8 year olds is my idea of hell, but I found it really confronting. And I consider myself a strict parent. I don't accept being spoken to rudely or important instructions being ignored. I use consequences and stick to them and I am regularly told how well behaved dd is - so it's not that I think they should be allowed to run amuck. I just find their method really unreasonable, and frankly, disrespectful. Dd loves school, so she's obviously not fussed by it - but she is a VERY compliant child outside of home and I worry about her not having the opportunity to speak up in such an environment.
Now, I have a REAL personal intolerance of injustice and shaming people and I am not always realistic in terms of how I expect people to behave when interacting with one another, so perhaps this is normal?
Any thoughts?
