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

Thanks again for all the thoughtful comments. In a nutshell, the teacher accused me of pushing my daughter for selfish reasons and I ended up writing a letter to the owner and principal. I mentioned that parents of at least two other kids share my opinion about her.

Re: the notes. She expects them to take notes on entire lectures, including methods and approaches, rather than just individual problems or homework assignments. IMO (based in part on what I've read here), teaching fifth graders how do this is a great idea, but expecting a fully formed skill from the first day isn't.

I agree that she's not going to change. I'm feeling really stuck here. DD loves this school and her friends there, but she's always been frustrated with math. Apart from one incident last year, we let it slide because overall, it hasn't been a major problem, and with minor exceptions, everything else about the school is wonderful. But the problems with Ms. T. are a big deal, and I'm torn about what to do.

Argh.

Being highly OCD and a teacher-pleaser, myself, I would probably have thrived in the atmosphere of "name goes on this line, date goes on this line, answer goes on this line, use this kind of paper", though if the teacher's method of solving the problems went against mine, it might have caused some friction. If one can internalize all the rules and reliably follow them, this kind of teacher can be like taking candy from babies. But I shudder to think what my DS would do in that class. There is zero percent chance that he would ever get anything higher than a zero, even if he knew all the answers off the top of his head. I would have to pull him, no doubt about it.

The fact that you are looking at four years of this teacher and she is already against your DD pretty much says to me that you MUST find another option -- online math or something. It's just not going to work.

And yes, teaching 5th graders to take notes on lectures is a fine idea, but expecting them to have already been taught, in her own personal anal method, is insane. And taking lecture notes in a math class seems fairly useless.

DS is in 7th grade (though 5th grade age) and it's still a miracle if he manages to write down homework assignments. He lost his sports picture check twice yesterday -- DH had to take it to him at practice, and then he misplaced it again before he managed to find it and turn it in. Expecting lecture notes from him would be akin to expecting him to flap his wings and fly home.

This is such a tough situation to be in! What are your other school options? I'm just curious.

Our ds switched schools in 6th, my dd switched later on as she was moving into 5th. Our ds switched partly because he was frustrated with not being accelerated specifically in math, but also lack of overall pace and low levels of intellectual discussions (and in his case, there was a 2e related issue too). The thing is - up until that point at the end of 5th grade he had been adamant that he didn't want to switch schools, and even then he was still worried about leaving behind the place that he was comfortable in just from having been there for several years. Yet his new school, which gave him what he needed in terms of challenge, was such a better fit that he was instantly happy and never once looked back.

My dd is an extremely social kid. We offered to let her switch schools when ds did and she was *adamant* that she would not ever ever ever switch schools and that she wanted to stay with her friends - so we let her stay. After just one year of listening to the things ds did in school, of walking into the building with me to pick him up and seeing the school atmosphere and getting to know a few of the kids - she was begging to switch to his school So she's there now and has also never looked back. Soooo.. it might be worthwhile just looking into what your other options are and if you find a school you think you might like, have your dd try it out for a day.

polarbear

I'd answer this (because as a post-secondary science educator, I do have some insight) but it seems kidna off-topic.

Suffice it to say that I think that your point is an entirely valid one for an extreme environment-- for example, one in which no quantitative grading or individual assessment occurs. Those environments, thankfully, are somewhat rare. What seems to be much more commonly toxic to boys is an expectation of rigid conformity to not-entirely-age-appropriate impulse control, activity levels, etc.

On the other hand, it's probably not a bad thing that the 'average' classroom practices in primary and secondary resemble something that doesn't favor either extreme (neither exclusively competitive nor ANTI-competitive) at this point. It's much more reflective of future professional environments in STEM at this point, in my opinion (and my DH's, who is much more competitive by nature than I am). Now, the relative rigor of curriculum presented is another matter entirely, and I think we can all agree that this particular problem is helping nobody at all. {sigh}

STEM is still the one place where I think that this balance is about right. (Between the prosocial/collaborative/unranked/we're-all-winners-here assessment model and the winner-take-all/strict Gaussian grading/name-and-shame ones, I mean.)

Not coincidentally, it's also the one where there isn't a lot of gender disparity favoring female students in higher ed. If anything, male gender is still normative in the physical sciences and engineering.

Back to the practices that Val is seeing, though-- this kind of thing just seems a bit like shaming and divisiveness rather than healthy competition. I'm not sure that is good for any of the students, given the other issues related here; I strongly suspect that this isn't tied very closely to content mastery in the first place, and is probably REALLY punitive for any students in that class who have slower processing speeds or deficits that limit the neatness of their work or their relative attention to detail (math comprehension notwithstanding).

If you wouldn't give an A to a student for being well-groomed and pleasant, then maybe giving an F for not writing neatly enough doesn't make any sense either, KWIM?

I'm really concerned for your DD, Val.

My twice-skipped DS had the same problem through 7th grade. Take heart: with him it started getting better in 8th grade and is now not a problem in 10th.

The Wikipedia has interesting information about why this problem occurs. Perhaps it's more about executive function:

Exactly. At back-to-school night, she told us that all that mattered was improvement. That sounded reasonable. But if improvement is all that matters, why is she giving sweets to the kids who finish in less than x minutes?

Why is she giving sweets to kids anyway? Is she a confectioner or a teacher?

+1 aquinas.

Update.

The good news: DD will be in the accelerated group. The meeting last Thursday was postponed. It will take place tomorrow, and the principal may attend.

The bad news: The kids have to staple their homework assignments "diagonally" in the top left corner. If they don't staple the right way, they will lose points.

Oh dear. You people could be forgiven for thinking that I am making this up, but I promise you, I could not make this stuff up.

LOL - how many minutes of arc tolerance does the battleaxe allow on the stapling?