4th grader - Teacher Troubles/should I inquire additionally?

[lavenderdove]

OK, 4th grade means these boys are 9 or 10 years old, not babies. They should be well able to sit in a room for a recess and be fine with it. They are inside a school, not out 'lost' on the street.

 

I think you are being WAY overprotective here with your son at age 9-10 years old. He's not a toddler. Your son had better be able to function on his own in that kind of setting at his age, unless he has a major mental disability which i assume he doesn't. Children at this age are not served well by parents who hover over them and treat them like they're the center of the universe and need to be coddled like an egg and as if the teacher needs a reprimand every time the 'baby' has a bad moment.

 

Leave this young teacher alone unless she is abusing your child physically. Things can get very hectic when managing a large number of rambunctious children, and you have no clue what she was dealing with outside that may have distracted her (kids fighting, a child who falls off the jungle bars and needs medical attention etc.) Or she may have not been feeling well and a bit off her game that day, but the kids were safe and in no danger at all from this, and she did apologize to the children as a responsible action. And more importantly, at 9 or 10, you need to stop coddling your son and expecting them to treat him like a toddler in terms of watching him every second of the day as if he were in danger. In this situation he just wasn't the least bit in danger, so you need to back off and let him learn to deal with these kinds of things without Mommy rushing in and treating the teacher as if she'd left your kid alone on the railroad tracks. Your son needs to develop a sense of confidence in himself and his ability to handle himself in various situations, and frankly rushing to to spank his teacher because your kid might have been a little sad he didn't get recess that day is way over the top.

[prettymommy]

I am going to chime in here too with the peanut gallery. Being a mother of a 4th grader myself, as well as surrounded by a family of career educators (twin sibling, sis-in-law, boyfriend, grandmother, and BFF).....

 

You are making a mountain out of a mole hill. Sorry to be so blunt, but that's how I see it.

 

One of the first things my son's teacher relayed to all parents is that 4th grade is the year that students are increasingly responsible for organizing and managing their work. This is in preparation for middle school in another year or two. It is the CHILD's responsability for doing homework and assignments in a timely manner- not the teacher's, not the parent's. This is so they learn how to manage their time in order to start handling more complex assignements- a skill all children need to learn in order to be successful adults one day.

 

You cannot be there for your son his entire life, making sure he does his work on time. If you continue to coddle him now, you are only going to inhibit his growth, and have a larger mess on your hands when he gets older. Allowing him to FAIL, without interference, may actually teach him more than hand-holding him through his work. It's in our failures we learn the most, not our successes. So I think you are being entirely unfair to the teacher about your son and his project; it was your son's responsability to ensure he was completing the assignement, not the teacher. She has 29 other students just as important as your son to worry about as well. If your son was struggling, sure, his teacher could've noticed, but it was also your son's responsability to ask for help. My son does the same thing, and I tell him he needs to ask for help if he is struggling- that there is nothing wrong in asking for help- but if he fails to ask for help b/c he's too embarressed or whatnot, then he only has himself to blame if he does not do well. So I don't see how any of this is the teacher's fault.

 

As for being left alone.... your son was with 2 other boys. He was not alone. At 9 or 10 years old, boys should be trusted to be left on their own for a bit without adult supervision- especially if they were already inside the building- a safe and secure place, I am assuming. I remember back to my childhood, and my folks use to let me brother and I walk to and from our home to the bus stop at 8 years of age, and by 11, we were staying home by ourselves. If you travel to abroad, you'll notice many children walk home on their own from school, often at great distances, without any adult supervision. So again, I think this is not a big deal, and really, may even be a compliment to your son that his teacher thinks he is responsible enough and can be trusted to be left unsupervised with a couple of his peers for a short period of time.

 

Finally - as for the spelling- a teacher is not perfect, and if you expect one to be- then you have serious unrealistic expectations. Do you have any idea the work load of a teacher? My brother, boyfriend, BFF.... most of their nights and weekends, after having already spent 8+ hours in a classroom, are spent grading papers and prepping lesson plans for the next day or week. How many people do you know work 50-60 hours a week for $40-60K a year??? So you really should cut the woman some slack. I think it is fine you bring what is probably an oversight on the teacher's part to her attention, but then let it go. I'll be honest.... it's stuff like this (hoovering parents) that drive teachers up the wall, and honestly, make many of them want to leave the profession b/c they feel they spend half of their time managing parents and their unrealistic expectations and trying to instill behaviors in children that should be taught at home, then actually teaching. I hear it all the time from my family.

 

So I really suggest you just sit back, continue to monitor things, and unless you start to see some signs of serious abuse or mistreatment, just let the teacher do what she spent four years in college, and most likely a couple in grad school, learning to do...

[teachermom]

Hi,

I am a teacher and a parent, so I can see both sides of this coin. As a parent I would be concerned. As a teacher I can tell you things often get hectic and things can get forgotten, though I can honestly say I have never forgotten a child. I would discuss this with the teacher, clearly stating that you are uncomfortable about what happened. I would keep a log of incidents (dates, times, what happened, who was involved, etc), and if this erratic behaviour continued I would speak with the principle.

Hope this helps.

[DN]

I got forgotten once when I was about ten. After the lunch break we were lined up by class in the schoolyard ready to file into the classrooms and I was caught talking. So I was made to stand by myself at the side of the yard. Off everyone went and the teacher forgot I was still there. It was over half an hour before he noticed I was not in class and of course none of the students dared tell him (this was late 1950's England, and the system was a tad more disciplined back then - for 'tad' read 'a lot')

 

He sent another kid to get me and blamed me for not following the class - but he had told me to 'stand over there' not 'stand over there and then follow on' so I did what I was told. I thought he was wrong but wouldn't have dared say so - I didn't tell my parents either because parents backed up teachers in those days.

[Snny]

Speaking from my three years of experiences as a teacher...it is TOUGH job with a rewarding experience. I recently found statistics now stating this: After 5 years, there is a 50/50 chance of a teacher staying or leaving the profession because of the amount of stress the job brings. This teacher is dealing with 30 kids... can you imagine doing that yourself when you were in your 20's... handling other people's children which some of them aren't going to respect you in the beginning and make your job 10x harder? That's what goes down in teaching... I am in my mid 20's and work for an urban school district that deals with 30-35 students per class (over 100 students a day) and it can be VERY stressful and exhausting- especially when I'm hashing out the behavioral and academic problems without a paraeducator, volunteer, or a co-teacher. It is so vital that parents and teachers partner up together and come up with ideas on how to help their children succeed in school. But when there are judgement calls in place (teacher is young, teacher is new, teacher doesn't have children of their own and is handling MINE), everything becoming one sided, and teachers and parents go against each other, it hurts the child's success in the long run. Instead it becomes a blaming contest when it's more productive to come up with constructive resolutions to help your kid grow. Going to a principal to complain about a recess detention when SHE APOLOGIZED in a professional way is out of line on your behalf. Your child has no right to disrupt the learning environment of other students.

 

I saw something about you offering to volunteer often... please don't do that. It can create conflict of interest in a workplace. You will indirectly challenge her position and take away the teacher's authority image as if she cannot manage a classroom. Kids will see that. They all know she is new so they are going to PUSH her (even the most well behaved can). It happens to ALL teachers when they start out because in a child's mind, they want to see how much they can get away with. This is something she is going to need to figure out through school system's resources. It will take time.

 

It's not our teachers responsibility to stay on our backs to make sure it's done - to do so is an unrealistic expectation. My boss doesn't stand behind me at work to make sure I'm cleaning the toielet properly - school is meant to start the process of teaching kids that they must manage their time wisely when given assignments.

I agree with this. However, the reality (especially in urban public schools) is that teachers are being evaluated for children's academic progress now. If there are a huge number of kids who are unmotivated... it can costs a teacher their job now. Some teachers are being forced to give up their planning, after school time, and lunches to tutor kids or to chase them down in the hallways to make up work before the end of quarter. If all parents were there for their children and worked as a team with the school faculty, this problem wouldn't exist. Unfortunately, not all parents can take time to help their children succeed OR they are still figuring out how to handle their children as they are physically and mentally developing (kids change when they hit puberty and it becomes a different ballgame for a LOT of parents when they are not prepared). Schools are changing and kids are given more leeway of turning in assignments in order to meet "success" and gain entry into college.

 

My point is... make sure your child is being responsible whether it's turning in assignments or seeing the teacher for extra help... and work with the teacher on ensuring he is following through.

[Galaxo]

I get the impression from your other threads you are probably not helping the situation with the teacher, maybe even making it worse. You seem very controlling, want it your way with no compromise, overprotective, and try to overstep your authority in relation to others. If you are going at the teacher like that I can understand why you are getting nowhere and the situation is not improving. You are making it very difficult for yourself and you are hurting, not helping your child if he sees you talking and acting the ways you yourself claim to be in these situations.