Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy "your Mom is not in charge of your education"

What I don't understand if people's schools are so bad why send them there. The original poster mentioned about their school being worried that parent's are going to start homeschooling. That prompted the school doesn't need you kid comment.I remember growing up with the thought that teachers were all knowing. Obviously that wasn't right. But if you come on the forum you think all teachers are idiots.I don't buy that either. It seems the tendency now is to believe the kid before the teacher. I'm sure if I went to my daughters teacher and compared her to a kid in a sandbox I'm guessing she wouldn't take that well. Would you? Maybe since my daughter is in a school district that has a magnet program (she's in 6th) I may be a bit spoiled. I think if you want to homeschool that's fine. I guess I'm just more of an all or nothing sort of person

Well said.

This year, my ds12 has no science teacher as she quit near the start and therefore, if I want him to learn anything in science, it's imperative I afterschool him. I'm also having to supplement his math because he's skipped 6th grade.

I would much rather not have to do these things. I'd rather spend more time encouraging him to work on his novel or do other sorts of activities with him. I don't like it, but I simply cannot leave it all up to a school, which for various reasons, cannot meet its responsibilities in educating my child.
Ego boost? More like treading water struggling to stay afloat.

As for why stay with public school? For some of us the cost of private is daunting, and from the research I've done I'm not sure the private school near us understands giftedness as well as the public schools.

And to take this a step further, homeschooling, partial or whole, incurs an opportunity cost of foregone parental income. Homeschooling, itself, is a luxury.

What got me with the start of the thread is I and some others on here thought the teacher wasn't wrong with what she said. She and the school are in charge of the kids education. You're not there. I think that should have explained to the kid immediately instead of running right away to the teacher and complaining. Teachers aren't always right but there not always wrong either.I understand you're situation and it seems to be the right thing that you did. But a lot of thing come up on these threads seemed to be just to complain about things IMO that aren't really problems.The original post on this thread seemed to be one of them.

I don't see anything in the OP about a complaint. I see, "this happened... how would you react?" Am I reading it wrong?

This is really excellent context for understanding that statement!

(I also wanted to thank you for updating about this.)

Ugh-- power struggle between home/teacher due to inappropriate educational placement options at school, right? Sounds like this is a situation that bears watching. You did good, IMO, to carefully explain that talking to your SON was a poor way of expressing concern/frustration with the larger situation, which should involve mostly (or even solely) ADULT to ADULT conversations.

I think that most of us with older kids have either been there before or are there now with partial homeschooling. I know that I certainly have been, and it always makes me sad to know that the fit is SO bad with SO much standard curriculum; in primary, this seems to be especially true. I'm certainly not stepping in as an ego thing. Definitely not. If school does a good job, then I'm quite pleased to just stay in the background and ENJOY my role as parent-not-Professor-Mom.

Yes, also, to homeschooling ultimately being a luxury for many families.

It really sounds as though the teacher is engaging in a power struggle with this particular parent and child.

It would have been perfectly correct for the teacher to state "My classroom, my rules."

That's completely fine (IMO) and also reflects a subtle reminder to a student that while the "rules" might be different at home, at school, in that classroom, they are what the teacher has made clear.

So the teacher is in charge of his/her CLASSROOM. Education, ultimately, is a shared responsibility between student/educators/family. Philosophically, I mean.

It sounds as though there are some underlying insecurities being played out over the choice to partially homeschool/afterschool in this particular situation, however.

As I said at first-- if I didn't have reason to suspect that more was going on, I'd approach this with "Well, what do you think the teacher was telling you with that statement?"

However, the OP clearly does have good reason to strongly suspect that this was manipulative or even a bit passive-aggressive on the part of the teacher. THAT needs to be dealt with. Problems with the educational choices being made by parents and administrators are not things to address with a young child who is in your duty of care. KWIM?

Thanks for your input! As to why I continue to send my child to this school - it's pretty simple. 1. He is extremely social, so he really wants to be with his peers at least for part of the day. 2. I actually like some aspects of the school and am happy to have my child exposed to those things. 3. I still believe that every child deserves to be included in public school and also deserves to be met where they are at. 4. We have other children so if 1 goes to private school, likely the rest will need it. That's not cheap.

I have really struggled with coming to terms with the current state of public education. I have worked in public and private education for years, so I have watched the decline. Truly, I am saddened by what I see now. Yet, I still hope that things may improve next year or sometime in the future.

What particularly irks me about my son's current school is that in their literature and in their weekly tours, it is clearly stated that this school meets EVERY child where he is at. They also state that they will write individualized education plans for EVERY child and will make sure that each child will progress at his natural pace. These are lies.

My son is not the first gifted child to enter this school. He is the first PG kid to go there (so they tell me). Almost every gifted child leaves this school by 2nd-3rd grade. We are still there because we are trying to make it work. We have tried every approach imaginable. I don't think the teachers are idiots. But I do believe that many of the teachers have a bias that many teachers seem to have - they don't think gifted children have needs and they don't understand the kind of damage they do when the needs are not met, not even a little.

Our whole adventure began with this school when we realized what my son was doing at school was so different than what he could do at home. He was thinking at home like a high school/college kid in some subjects. With the same subjects at school he was below or at grade level. When we realized the mismatch and respectfully asked the school what we could do about this as a team, we were told time and again to do nothing. He was at grade level, he passes the tests there is no need for concern. Is that ok? In the meantime, his attitude about the adults at school was growing worse and he started to develop anxiety. At 6 years old!

So, to make a very long story short, I don't partially homeschool my son for anyone's ego benefit. I do it because he deserves to be educated appropriately. I also do it because I want him to have respect for adults and I don't want him to think that school is about writing on worksheets, "I don't know." as quickly as possible, so that he can go off and read his books or doodle. I want him to learn how to actually work at something. I want him not to be anxious or depressed at such a young age because he found himself to be in a very stifling environment.

"However, the OP clearly does have good reason to strongly suspect that this was manipulative or even a bit passive-aggressive on the part of the teacher. THAT needs to be dealt with. Problems with the educational choices being made by parents and administrators are not things to address with a young child who is in your duty of care. KWIM?"

Thanks HK. We are hearing more and more about this kind of behavior on the part of the school for kids on both ends of the spectrum, unfortunately. It makes me so sad.

Some people simply don't have a choice. They are unable to, for whatever reason (financial, etc), keep their kids at home to homeschool.

As for the original post, I would have left the teacher out of the equation and simply said to my child that teachers are like anyone - sometimes they are wrong. It's that simple.

In our house, I'm in charge of our kids' education. Period. The school has made recommendations that I have followed, and others that I have declined. I have the final say.

I have an issue with school staff assessing students and implementing education strategies based on their limited setting-based and individualized exposure to each child. They simply don't know my kids the way that I do. They don't know the "whole" child.

I also have issues with curriculum gaps (lack of "drill and kill" for math facts being one - some kids, like my ADHD son, simply need it). If I left the school in charge of math, my son would reach high school completely calculator dependent.

Might I also mention, while we're on the subject of math, that in my grade 6 daughter's class, they are required to use calculators rather than having been taught things like basic percent calculations. I could go on...

Not to mention the fact that each teacher has my child for one year (usually). After those ten months are through, the teacher moves on to the next batch of kids and what happens to my child is no longer relevant to her. Meanwhile, I have the responsibility of ensuring that my child is ready for adulthood, so I see the impact of poor decisions later on.

Who's responsible? Me. Period.