The Truth Hurts

One of our duties as teachers at Helen Doron is to write weekly comments. This is something we write online on the schools website and the parents all have access to view only their students comments. As teachers, we are supposed to be writing about the students behavior, the progress they are making academically, and any other important details. The point of the comments, or so I thought the point of comments, is to let the parents know if their child is misbehaving or if the student is having trouble with any certain subject. As it turns out, the real point of comments is to tell every parent their child is a perfect angel and there is no room for improvement because their child is that wonderful. Therefore, even if the student is constantly talking, never listens to the teacher, has to be reminded 13 times in a 2 minute span to pay attention to what we are doing, the parents (well really the mom's) want to hear, "Ian is a wonderful student. He is always on task and never talks out of turn. He never needs reminders to stay in his seat or to stay focused on what we are doing." It makes for a very frustrating duty.

Some of the mom's don't make a big deal out of the comments. But there are 3 or 4 mom's that make my job very stressful. They put all the blame on Sheena and I for their child misbehaving. They either don't believe their child is acting out or they think it is our fault they are acting out. One of the mom's seems to think it is our fault her child has emotional melt downs every other day and bursts out in tears because he spelt move "mave" and had to use his eraser. I can see how that is my fault! She also doesn't believe in discipline. She completely flipped out when Sheena disciplined him. He was misbehaving and not listening to Sheena so she told him he has to listen or he will have to go out in the hall until he can focus. Well his mother thought this was completely out of line and called Sheena and yelled at her. Now, we can no longer scold or discipline Brian nor can we write anything resembling the truth in his weekly comments.

Another aspect of the weekly comments Sheena and I have to deal with is the teachers the kids had last year. The teacher who taught our students last year didn't write truthful comments. They would tell the moms how wonderful and perfect each student behaved even if it was far from the truth. Since the mom's all thought their child was acting perfect last year, it is a shock to them to hear something completely different. And once again, Sheena and I get blamed for their child misbehaving! Yes, it is my fault I am trying to teach your child while he is running around the room and playing "short track speed skating" during our Language Exercise! Seriously!!

Thankfully "weekly comments" has been changed to bi-weekly comments and I won't have to deal with it as much as I do now. But when we get told by parents to not disciple their child, what are we supposed to do? How do we control and teach a classroom of 8 kids when 2 of them are either climbing on the table, staring off into space, have their finger up their nose, or are annoying the other students so much the other kids are telling them to be quiet and pay attention?

I would love to see these few "special" kids in two years once they are out of the cushy private schools and in elementary school. They don't cater to bad behavior in the real world.