"Bad Teacher" barks up the wrong tree!!!

[JanaDee]

How's this......had my child not told me about it, I would have walked in, saw the grade and have been angry with him for getting a bad grade. The fact that he was ashamed of the grade, asked the teacher not to display it is what upset me. Her disregarding his feelings and mistreating him on several occassions is the problem here. Besides, since when do grades get displayed at an open house? Out of the 8 years that my kids have been in school, I have NEVER seen a grade at Open House. Those are left for parent teacher conferences. Just sayin.......

Open House is to display a child's best works/projects. I have never seen a grade attached to projects during Open House.

I consider grades to be like an adult's salary. It is none of your business, until/unless I share that information with you.

 

[GRUMPY PIRATE]

WOW.

this gives me insight on why we have children graduating from a high school that cannot read or write at a high school level, and have very poor coping skills when they fail at something.

 

[traviesojmt]

My DS is a junior in high school and my DD is in 5th grade. In all of that time, there has been only 1 really, really bad teacher. She was awful. She was mean and a yeller. Everyone knew it too. Heck, she would yell at parents. My normally school-loving student absolutely hated school that year. My DH and I sat him down and told him that as his parents who loved him, our first instincts were, of course, to remove him from the class. BUT, we weren't going to. We told him that in every aspect of life, he was going to meet/work/deal with people who he didn't like or get along with. He was fortunate that he only had to deal with this teacher for 1 school year. We told him that he could come home everyday and rant and rave to us and we would listen. We validated to him that we knew she was awful but it didn't mean we would run from it. After that, every teacher would seem like cake. You know what, as a junior, he now compares every teacher with that 5th grade teacher and they all seem like cake by comparison. I do know there are times that a change might be required, but I think we are often too quick to make that change for our children.

Regarding grades, I am a "suck it up buttercup" type of parent. I would have been more concerned about why my child had made a 44 on a project. Honestly, my kids always seems to generally know what other kids make on tests/projects in school. Heck, just to freak out some of the parents on here, my DD's 5th grade class exchange papers to grade. Having papers on her desk with the grade showing wouldn't have even made my radar.

 

[cari12]

It wasn't the failing grade that motivated her to speak with the principal, it was the teacher's disregard of the student's privacy and her delight in humiliating him that caused the OP to react.

I didn't misunderstand. But just because the teacher did not change her plans because he asked for special treatment does not mean she took delight in humiliating him. OP is reacting as if he was singled out and humiliated, he wasn't. The whole class was to display this project regardless of grade.

 

[Liberty Belle]

WOW.

this gives me insight on why we have children graduating from a high school that cannot read or write at a high school level, and have very poor coping skills when they fail at something.

Really? And that's funny to you?

No, grades are supposed to be confidential. My son works best with positive reinforcement vs humiliation or shame, too. He is in 5th grade and reads at a 12th grade level. He doesn't write too well, but he has a writing disability. And his coping skills have come a super long way. He's doing great now, because he had a wonderful teacher last year who understood him. This year he has a teacher whose personality clashes with him, but he's able to deal with that and do well because of the help his understanding teacher gave him last year.

You can't shame things into many kids.

 

[Ginger Renae]

In my elementary school, there was just one 6th grade class. It was an extra large class - 60+ kids, two teachers, two classrooms, etc. One day, I forgot to return an "F Report" for a missed assignment. The teacher at the back of the room called out to the other teacher, "Mr. D - Ginger didn't return her F Report! Please call her mother at lunch!" The room was quiet and she practically yelled it. Every student heard. Was it embarrassing and humiliating? Yeah, pretty much. Did my mommy run down to the school and demand my removal from the class because my teacher embarrassed me? Of course not. She told me if I didn't like to be embarrassed, I need to get better grades. End of story.

If half of your son's class received failing grades on the project, I don't know why he was so embarrassed anyway. You were obviously harboring a lot of animosity towards this teacher before this issue so that's why you over reacted.

I could never be a teacher in today's world.

 

[smitch425]

How's this......had my child not told me about it, I would have walked in, saw the grade and have been angry with him for getting a bad grade. The fact that he was ashamed of the grade, asked the teacher not to display it is what upset me. Her disregarding his feelings and mistreating him on several occassions is the problem here. Besides, since when do grades get displayed at an open house? Out of the 8 years that my kids have been in school, I have NEVER seen a grade at Open House. Those are left for parent teacher conferences. Just sayin.......

Our open house here is two days prior to the start of the year, and it is called "meet the teacher" day. This is also the day the class lists are posted. I clearly remember open house when I was in 3rd grade, and I definitely had a project and grade displayed.

Why should your son receive special treatment. I can't imagine any of the kids actually wanting a failing grade displayed, but if it was an entire class thing, then the entire class should be treated equally, right?

 

["Cinder" Ella's Mom]

Thank you, finally someone understands. The nay sayers must be teachers. This was just WRONG on all levels. Open house is supposed to be a time to meet the teacher, see the classroom, etc. Not a time to discuss grades. Display the projects but eliminates the grade for it. The grade was on a separate piece of paperm sitting next to the paper mache project
for crying out loud!

Why would you think the naysayers are teachers? I don't know of any of my colleagues who would post grades for other parents and students to see...especially after a child expressed his embarrassment. That is just wrong. I suspect that the teacher felt your child didn't put the effort in and wanted to make you aware of the grade when you came to Open House (so you could then handle the bad grade/effort with your child). IMO she went about this in a very wrong way. Why not put all work in a folder on or inside the desk? Or save it for conferences to discuss it? Frankly, a 44% would compel me, as a teacher, to call home if it were on a large assignment. Open House is the time to showcase students' best work, not their difficulties.

 

[GRUMPY PIRATE]

Really? And that's funny to you?

No, grades are supposed to be confidential. My son works best with positive reinforcement vs humiliation or shame, too. He is in 5th grade and reads at a 12th grade level. He doesn't write too well, but he has a writing disability. And his coping skills have come a super long way. He's doing great now, because he had a wonderful teacher last year who understood him. This year he has a teacher whose personality clashes with him, but he's able to deal with that and do well because of the help his understanding teacher gave him last year.

You can't shame things into many kids.

yep, it is funny.

because that is creating a "forest for the trees" situation and then you can't figure it out.

we are slowly creating a generation of what was once termed "mommas boys" that cannot handle stress in the smallest of forms.

then when the enter the real world, they can't figure out why the center of the universe is not where they are standing.

 

[Lorelei Lee]

I didn't misunderstand. But just because the teacher did not change her plans because he asked for special treatment does not mean she took delight in humiliating him. OP is reacting as if he was singled out and humiliated, he wasn't. The whole class was to display this project regardless of grade.

Frankly all of the students were treated poorly by this teacher. OP indicates that there were issues, other than this latest humiliation, that made her decide this teacher and her son were not a good mix. I doubt the principal would have pulled her son out of this class over just this incident.

My daughters went to the same elementary school that my sisters and I attended. When my older daughter was in second grade she wound up with Ms. S, who had been my younger sister's favorite teacher. Over the years Ms. S had changed quite a bit, she was absolutely horrible. About two or three years after my daughter had Ms. S, she was promoted into an administrative position because the school was tired of hearing the parent complaints.

None of us wanted our child in that class, and if given the opportunity we would have pulled our kids out. I do believe some of the parents asked for their kids to be transferred. Not one child was allowed to transfer out.

On the other hand, my younger daughter had a 3rd grade teacher, a lovely woman, but she did tend to yell at the class a lot. I never did hear the whole story, but one child who got yelled at was allowed to transfer to another class. It was a big deal when the girl was allowed to transfer.

 

[Lorelei Lee]

Really? And that's funny to you?

No, grades are supposed to be confidential. My son works best with positive reinforcement vs humiliation or shame, too. He is in 5th grade and reads at a 12th grade level. He doesn't write too well, but he has a writing disability. And his coping skills have come a super long way. He's doing great now, because he had a wonderful teacher last year who understood him. This year he has a teacher whose personality clashes with him, but he's able to deal with that and do well because of the help his understanding teacher gave him last year.

You can't shame things into many kids.

Exactly. My daughter is successful in spite of the shaming, not because of it.

 

[jrmasm]

[QUOTE="Cinder" Ella's Mom;50083076]Why would you think the naysayers are teachers? I don't know of any of my colleagues who would post grades for other parents and students to see...especially after a child expressed his embarrassment. That is just wrong. I suspect that the teacher felt your child didn't put the effort in and wanted to make you aware of the grade when you came to Open House (so you could then handle the bad grade/effort with your child). IMO she went about this in a very wrong way. Why not put all work in a folder on or inside the desk? Or save it for conferences to discuss it? Frankly, a 44% would compel me, as a teacher, to call home if it were on a large assignment. Open House is the time to showcase students' best work, not their difficulties.[/QUOTE]

Unless perhaps the teacher feels that 50% of the class has a crappy attitude and problems listening and following directions. She might displayed those projects for a reason.

Just a thought.

 

[Lorelei Lee]

Unless perhaps the teacher feels that 50% of the class has a crappy attitude and problems listening and following directions. She might displayed those projects for a reason.

Just a thought.

That's what parent teacher conferences are for.

 

[jrmasm]

That's what parent teacher conferences are for.

Eh, I can't say. Not without knowing what's going on in the classroom. If half the class is having a problem following basic classroom behavior, seems to me that addressing the situation to a group of parents makes some sense.

But since neither of us knows what's going on, we can't say either way for sure.

 

[mhsjax]

As a parent of a 5th grader, I wouldn't have paid any attention to anyone else's desk. I also would have told my kid that if she didn't want to feel embarrassed then she should have gotten a better grade. Fortunately, she is a straight A student so I haven't had to cross that bridge...yet. I hope you got what you wanted, but be prepared...this is only the beginning. Teachers do things like this all of the time. There are a lot of school years left. You are not going to be able to protect them from embarrassment their whole life. They need to be responsible for their own actions, and 5th grade is well past that stage in our house.

If you have teachers that do this all the time, then I feel sorry for you. Around here teachers have more class than that. They put work in a folder during open house that the parents open. No teacher that had any class or decency or a brain in her head does this. Oh and I have 3 A/B honor roll kids in AP classes. So statement is VERY untrue. But on the off chance it is, bad teacher and bad school system.

 

[mjkacmom]

I, too, would not be happy that grades were displayed. I wouldn't have said anything at the time, but I would've contacted the teacher, and asked her reasoning for it.

Dd17 had a bad first grade teacher (it seems like all of the student who have her are the oldest - everyone knows to request someone else for first grade, so your child doesn't end up in her class). We knew it, she knew it, and we told her better luck next year (I've never heard of students being allowed to switch classes after the first day - never happens here for any reason).

I remember when I took her reading book out of her backpack, and placed it on our table, to remind her to do her reading. My 1 year old wrote on 3 pages! I wrote a note to the teacher, telling her what happened, offering to pay for the book. Instead, she took the book away, and would only let dd take home copies of the pages, for the rest of the year. This was around the same time that my twins were born, and I sent in a note, explaining the turmoil going on at home (kids were staying with the grandparents, who were not used to having a 6, 4, and 1 year old in their care full time), asking for patience.

Dd17 still complains about that teacher today - lol! She did set the bar low, and dd was pleasantly surprised with her other teachers.

Oh, and the time that ds's kindergarten teacher wouldn't let him go to the nurse when he said his stomach hurt - he puked all over the class, and was embarrassed. When I asked why, the teacher told me she thought he was faking, because his older sister used to fake being sick.

Eh, what can you do. Kids are going to have some bad teachers, some bad employers - such is life.

 

[sunshinehighway]

While I was reading this I kept expecting you to say it's a joke or something. I honestly thought you were making a tongue in cheek thread about over the top parents and their teachers. Guess not. This wouldn't even have been a blip on my radar, except for the fact that I would be asking my child why he got a 44%!

I thought it was going to be a joke too.

I don't know how the Op can be so sure the teacher delights in humiliating her child. Maybe the teacher was wringing her hands and laughing a sinister laugh when she told the boy she was displaying the bad grade.

I doubt most parents care enough about the grades of other students to look at their project grades. It sounds like the Op doesn't have a positive opinion of the school because of previous problems and is looking for things to be mad about.

It's also weird that this happened last month and the kid has a new teacher but the Op is still so upset that she felt the need to start a thread about it. Oh and it's strange to bring up the problems from kindergarten considering the kid is now a 5th grader. Why would a parent leave their child in a life threatening situation in kindergarten but immediately go to the mattresses over a bad grade being displayed? It's not like her kid was singled out if all projects were displayed and half were bad grades.

 

[rgf207]

Yeah, um, not seeing the outrage. Sorry.

I'd be more concerned about the 44.

This

 

["Cinder" Ella's Mom]

If you have teachers that do this all the time, then I feel sorry for you. Around here teachers have more class than that. They put work in a folder during open house that the parents open. No teacher that had any class or decency or a brain in her head does this. Oh and I have 3 A/B honor roll kids in AP classes. So statement is VERY untrue. But on the off chance it is, bad teacher and bad school system.

I completely agree. My kids' teacher do not do this nor would I or any of my colleagues. You don't become a teacher (most of us anyway) because you want to shame kids. There are so many better ways of helping kids and/or correcting behaviors. Good teachers know this.

 

[luvsJack]

Eh, I can't say. Not without knowing what's going on in the classroom. If half the class is having a problem following basic classroom behavior, seems to me that addressing the situation to a group of parents makes some sense.

But since neither of us knows what's going on, we can't say either way for sure.

Perhaps it doesn't have anything to do with the attitude of the class. Perhaps the reason that 50% of the class failed is that the teacher failed to teach the material? Or maybe its the way she grades? Or maybe she didn't give directions clearly enough?

If that many students in a class fail, then something needs to be retaught or redone.