The Stepford Teacher
Dec. 3rd, 2004 11:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciroccojSo, our meeting with Daniel's English teacher, Mrs. I. Where to begin?
First, a bit of my history with this lady. Short version: our first meeting in October featured exhortations against Dungeons and Dragons because "it's such a harmful influence," disapproval of The Hobbit and Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang because they're "much too advanced for this age level", and a promise that she would find Daniel "more appropriate books." She also worried that by homeschooling him one day of the week I was preventing him from learning social skills and by allowing him to keep his hair long we were harming him in some way. The meeting ended with her hoping we could, together, get him to "toe the party line."
Conclusion: Blessed Is the Norm.
It is now December, and things have not been going well as far as she's concerned. She began the meeting by glaring at us balefully, silently, for an uncomfortably long time before beginning her litany of complaints wrt Daniel.
To wit: He does no work in her class. He never listens, his organization is atrocious, his fine motor skills minimal, and she cannot get him to do even the simplest things. Furthermore, he doesn't fit in with the other children. He doesn't look like them, doesn't talk like them, doesn't like any of the things they like. He's a misfit. He sticks out like a sore thumb. The other children avoid him. This is not good for him - he needs to fit in, he needs friends, he needs to be like the other children. Instead, it's like he's trying to "fit a square peg into a round hole."
***
OK. I had no idea he wasn't doing any work in her class, but frankly, it doesn't surprise me. He's reading books on his own now (read 4 chapters of Magic Treehouse: Dolphins at Dawn while we were talking to her, in fact). Filling in three pages of phonics work ("Which of these words have the long 'o' sound? Go, no, to, so") is not exactly brain surgery to him.
However, this is of course a problem. I don't want my kid refusing to work because he just doesn't feel like it. He has to learn that sometimes you gotta do the dumb stuff you gotta do, just because. It's a simple and basic life skill, and we are both quite willing to work with Mrs. I. on this.
The not fitting in with other children part... it is something I worry about, and Daniel does say that sometimes he's lonely at school. And he does need better social skills, which we work on with him. But I also consider the fact that schoolmates invite him to their birthday parties and homes, and wave and smile and say hello whenever they see him at the grocery store, and... it's hard to believe that he's totally shunned by everyone around him. Especially when he says that he's not. A little lonely sometimes? Yes. Isolated and reviled? Not according to him. And even the loneliness is, according to him, often self-imposed - ie the other kids all want to play soccer and he doesn't, so he goes off and plays on his own.
Now, as to the hair issue... oh, never mind. Nothing I can say there that I haven't already said a million times.
***
So. She talked, and we listened, and we talked, and she... well, she talked some more, and I think Chris nearly bit through his tongue but was remarkably polite and mindful of the fact that Daniel must deal with her on a daily basis and it probably wouldn't help him if his dad called his English teacher a narrowminded reactionary witch and a miserable ho-bag to boot.
Oh - no, sorry, I was the one who wanted to say that last part.
***
I'm probably going to go on about this for a while, BTW, in this post and a few others. She just struck me as so completely opposed to everything I believe in with respect to children that's it's hard to believe we exist in the same world.
For example, "I don't know what your childrearing philosophy is..." was repeated many times throughout this, usually followed by yet another example of Daniel's utter failure to comport himself as a functioning member of society. The implication being that it was our childrearing philosophy that was causing this horror show that is Daniel.
And after the first few times, what I really wanted to say was, "Our childrearing philosophy involves treating him like a human being and giving him clear limits in important areas (safety, health, manners, morals, hours in front of the TV) and letting him figure out his own way with most other areas (clothes, hair, reading material, games)." I tried to find a non-snarky way of saying that, but I don't think it came through. Even when I pointed out that both of us were essentially raised that way and we seem to function as members of society, it didn't seem to make much of an impression. Because she was right, you see. She knew what he needed - what every child needs, in fact. Which is to fit in. To belong. To be accepted as being just the same as everybody else.
If he was her own child, she said, she would first of all cut his hair. Then take away D&D until he was an adult, or at least in his late teens. And get him more appropriate reading material, like what the other kids read and not this strange stuff with elves and magic and all of that. And definitely don't let him dress himself or make all of these other decisions about all sorts of areas of his life, because "that much choice just confuses children. They need structure, they need limits."
***
Well she's right about that last part. They do need structure and limits. But I guess we disagree on exactly what that means.
For example, here's one thing that really bugged me the more I thought about it afterwards: she didn't seem to have any idea how to work with him in terms of doing school work. As in, she would tell him what to do, he wouldn't do it, and she would observe that he didn't do it and wonder how we were raising him that was making him act like this. As for actually getting him to put pencil to paper... uh... I guess she was too busy trying to figure out the link between D&D and his lack of cooperation to do much about it.
Here's a few child-centred ways of dealing with that kind of behaviour, which I learned at Queen's Teacher's College:
Back in the real world of 40-minute classes with 30 kids in suburban Canada in 2004, here are some other coping strategies:
***
For the record: we freely and happily admit to being weird granola type people. But we are also disciplinarians. The two are not contradictory, not to us. We want our children to (as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
medee6040 said once) "express their ickle selves," but that is not the same as being antisocial little savages with zero self-discipline. E.g: You're in class. Your teacher says fill in page 13. You bloody well fill in page 13, and do it right, and then you go on to your daydreaming about Mialee the Elf-Wizard.
This is what Daniel gets at home, and he (mostly) responds well to it. I see no reason why he cannot be held to the same standard of behaviour in his English class. And most of all I don't see why it's any business of hers what he's daydreaming about or what his hair looks like, when he's supposed to be in her class to learn how to read and write in English.
***
Oh bugger all, now I'm pissed off again. This writing thing was supposed to be cathartic. Nuts.
I think I need either L&O or H:LOTS therapy. Possibly LOTR. With a hefty dose of reminders of what his regular homeroom teacher had to say about him that (mostly) balanced out the unpleasantness of Mrs. I.
First, a bit of my history with this lady. Short version: our first meeting in October featured exhortations against Dungeons and Dragons because "it's such a harmful influence," disapproval of The Hobbit and Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang because they're "much too advanced for this age level", and a promise that she would find Daniel "more appropriate books." She also worried that by homeschooling him one day of the week I was preventing him from learning social skills and by allowing him to keep his hair long we were harming him in some way. The meeting ended with her hoping we could, together, get him to "toe the party line."
Conclusion: Blessed Is the Norm.
It is now December, and things have not been going well as far as she's concerned. She began the meeting by glaring at us balefully, silently, for an uncomfortably long time before beginning her litany of complaints wrt Daniel.
To wit: He does no work in her class. He never listens, his organization is atrocious, his fine motor skills minimal, and she cannot get him to do even the simplest things. Furthermore, he doesn't fit in with the other children. He doesn't look like them, doesn't talk like them, doesn't like any of the things they like. He's a misfit. He sticks out like a sore thumb. The other children avoid him. This is not good for him - he needs to fit in, he needs friends, he needs to be like the other children. Instead, it's like he's trying to "fit a square peg into a round hole."
OK. I had no idea he wasn't doing any work in her class, but frankly, it doesn't surprise me. He's reading books on his own now (read 4 chapters of Magic Treehouse: Dolphins at Dawn while we were talking to her, in fact). Filling in three pages of phonics work ("Which of these words have the long 'o' sound? Go, no, to, so") is not exactly brain surgery to him.
However, this is of course a problem. I don't want my kid refusing to work because he just doesn't feel like it. He has to learn that sometimes you gotta do the dumb stuff you gotta do, just because. It's a simple and basic life skill, and we are both quite willing to work with Mrs. I. on this.
The not fitting in with other children part... it is something I worry about, and Daniel does say that sometimes he's lonely at school. And he does need better social skills, which we work on with him. But I also consider the fact that schoolmates invite him to their birthday parties and homes, and wave and smile and say hello whenever they see him at the grocery store, and... it's hard to believe that he's totally shunned by everyone around him. Especially when he says that he's not. A little lonely sometimes? Yes. Isolated and reviled? Not according to him. And even the loneliness is, according to him, often self-imposed - ie the other kids all want to play soccer and he doesn't, so he goes off and plays on his own.
Now, as to the hair issue... oh, never mind. Nothing I can say there that I haven't already said a million times.
So. She talked, and we listened, and we talked, and she... well, she talked some more, and I think Chris nearly bit through his tongue but was remarkably polite and mindful of the fact that Daniel must deal with her on a daily basis and it probably wouldn't help him if his dad called his English teacher a narrowminded reactionary witch and a miserable ho-bag to boot.
Oh - no, sorry, I was the one who wanted to say that last part.
I'm probably going to go on about this for a while, BTW, in this post and a few others. She just struck me as so completely opposed to everything I believe in with respect to children that's it's hard to believe we exist in the same world.
For example, "I don't know what your childrearing philosophy is..." was repeated many times throughout this, usually followed by yet another example of Daniel's utter failure to comport himself as a functioning member of society. The implication being that it was our childrearing philosophy that was causing this horror show that is Daniel.
And after the first few times, what I really wanted to say was, "Our childrearing philosophy involves treating him like a human being and giving him clear limits in important areas (safety, health, manners, morals, hours in front of the TV) and letting him figure out his own way with most other areas (clothes, hair, reading material, games)." I tried to find a non-snarky way of saying that, but I don't think it came through. Even when I pointed out that both of us were essentially raised that way and we seem to function as members of society, it didn't seem to make much of an impression. Because she was right, you see. She knew what he needed - what every child needs, in fact. Which is to fit in. To belong. To be accepted as being just the same as everybody else.
If he was her own child, she said, she would first of all cut his hair. Then take away D&D until he was an adult, or at least in his late teens. And get him more appropriate reading material, like what the other kids read and not this strange stuff with elves and magic and all of that. And definitely don't let him dress himself or make all of these other decisions about all sorts of areas of his life, because "that much choice just confuses children. They need structure, they need limits."
Well she's right about that last part. They do need structure and limits. But I guess we disagree on exactly what that means.
For example, here's one thing that really bugged me the more I thought about it afterwards: she didn't seem to have any idea how to work with him in terms of doing school work. As in, she would tell him what to do, he wouldn't do it, and she would observe that he didn't do it and wonder how we were raising him that was making him act like this. As for actually getting him to put pencil to paper... uh... I guess she was too busy trying to figure out the link between D&D and his lack of cooperation to do much about it.
Here's a few child-centred ways of dealing with that kind of behaviour, which I learned at Queen's Teacher's College:
- remind him of what he's supposed to be doing
- ask him why he's not doing it, and perhaps give him alternate work that he is willing to do
- make the lesson more interesting for him
- encourage him to make up his own learning plans, with material that is more to his liking
- help him to make himself ink out of beet juice and paper out of goat hair or something, so he can have "ownership of the process of writing"
Back in the real world of 40-minute classes with 30 kids in suburban Canada in 2004, here are some other coping strategies:
- make him stay in at recess to finish his work
- sticker system, with clear rewards/punishments for work done/not done
- send work home for him to finish
- extra homework
- notes to mom, with requests to take away privileges at home unless his conduct improves (which mom has clearly stated she would willingly cooperate with)
- detentions
- you're the goddamn teacher, for christ's sake - do SOMETHING!
For the record: we freely and happily admit to being weird granola type people. But we are also disciplinarians. The two are not contradictory, not to us. We want our children to (as
medee6040 said once) "express their ickle selves," but that is not the same as being antisocial little savages with zero self-discipline. E.g: You're in class. Your teacher says fill in page 13. You bloody well fill in page 13, and do it right, and then you go on to your daydreaming about Mialee the Elf-Wizard.This is what Daniel gets at home, and he (mostly) responds well to it. I see no reason why he cannot be held to the same standard of behaviour in his English class. And most of all I don't see why it's any business of hers what he's daydreaming about or what his hair looks like, when he's supposed to be in her class to learn how to read and write in English.
Oh bugger all, now I'm pissed off again. This writing thing was supposed to be cathartic. Nuts.
I think I need either L&O or H:LOTS therapy. Possibly LOTR. With a hefty dose of reminders of what his regular homeroom teacher had to say about him that (mostly) balanced out the unpleasantness of Mrs. I.
