Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Advice needed on very difficult teacher

It sounds like you really won't know how to deal with this situation until you have more info, which you won't have until the meeting. I would try my best to be wait until the meeting before assuming that this is all going to go south because of the teacher's methods. I have had teachers like this teacher who were rigid, and the rigidity didn't automatically mean they weren't also great teachers. So try not to overthink it ahead of time, go to the meeting and listen to what she has to say, then come up with a game plan when you know what's really on her mind.

To play devil's advocate here, just a few things that could be interpreted in a not-so-bad way. For instance, the not answering emails after 4 - the way she said it sounds abrupt and annoying, but how many of us wouldn't honestly prefer not to be chained to our work email after hours? I can see that setting up that expectation puts some clarity around when she will and won't respond - which is not all that different than saying "I'll stay in my room after school until 4 to help". Re saying that students must do the math the way she shows them how to do it - I think that isn't necessarily a bad thing depending on where your child is at in terms of curriculum - we tend to want to give our kids the freedom to come up with how to calculate early math however they are comfortable doing it as a way to prevent children from becoming frustrated and discouraged with learning math - but once you hit a certain level of math, there are ways to do things that build into other types of ways to do things.

I *totally* didn't explain that very well but what I'm trying to say is, if you give her a chance, she might turn out to be a fabulous teacher, or at least a competent teacher. I wouldn't throw in the towel until you've had the chance to talk to her

Good luck with your meeting!

polarbear

What scares me about this is the fact that this will be a teacher your child will have for many years. One year--okay. My DD had a very strict and rigid teacher last year. We considered it a learning experience--you know, some teachers are like this. The teacher was not unfair; just very, very strict, and not a great fit for my child. You can do this for a year--but multiple years? I feel very tired for your DD.

hmmmmm... unless....

the grading practices are NOT evenly applied. While I think that relatively unlikely, it's a possibility.

This is my concern. Ms. T. made it clear on back-to-school night that this year's placement will determine placements for the subsequent three years.


Yes, I completely understand this perspective and when I teach my kids, I ensure that they learn how to write something out in a stepwise way. I recently showed my DD a couple of many large spreadsheets I'm working on. I pointed out how tidy and organized they are, and told her that it's very important for tidiness and order to become second nature when working.

But I don't enforce this approach to an extreme degree. I make it age-appropriate.

As for the curricular level, it's definitely not a good match, especially because the pace is too slow. I think my DD suffers from what I call curricular blandness: when stuff moves too slowly over an extended period (as it has been for years now), one loses focus and stops paying attention.

I can tell you what I think, but you probably should not act on it.

If Ms. T gives a zero for reasons unrelated to the correctness of the work (or cheating), she is a fraud and ought not to be teaching. A grade should reflect the work done. She and/or the principal should be so informed, ideally by a group of parents.

I'm sure there are some valid reasons for taking points off for things like missing a name, but really, in this day and age, what is the lesson if you don't put a date on your work (especially if it's graded the same day you turn it in?) I don't put a date on my communications -- my email provides the date. And a zero because there is no date? Why?

DS9's teacher tried some of this heavy-handedness very briefly last year... but she dropped it in pretty short order. At one point I sent her a note letting her know DS had ADHD and there was approximately zero percent chance he was going to remember what she was wanting all the time... I'm assuming other parents contacted her as well. This was a very young teacher, though. For an older one I'd be pretty scared of how to handle this.

This is one of those areas I have the cognitive dissonance. The "right" answer is to tell the kids to check their own work. Pretend like they're Mrs. T and correct anything she would have marked as wrong. Really I feel like saying, "How can you say that teaching a child above grade level is not letting them be kids, but expecting them to perform like a computer program is?" They say there's more to school than just academics, like learning to do what your boss says. How are they not too young for that? The worst part is that your nine year old probably takes it very personally that the the teacher doesn't like her. You've got much better advice in this thread. I'm just sympathizing.

Not everyone holds that philosophy in terms of bosses or in terms of the purpose of schools.

I've looked around before, and I wasn't able to find a US public school that says this is part of their mandate. If anyone has a link to one, I'd love to see a school own up to that learning outcome.

Well, they don't put it in QUITE those terms, no-- but they do use phraseology such as:

"workforce-ready"

"the skills they'll need as part of the 21st century workforce"

"learn the (self-direction/motivation/attention to detail/responsibility/etc) that they need to succeed in life."

Those kinds of things, I see quite frequently in middle and high school. In other words, they DO consider this sort of thing to lie somewhere on the life-skills-to-job-training continuum, and be well within the mandate of public school education.