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.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 08:40 pm (UTC)Mrs I., meet Professor Umbridge. Professor Umbridge, meet your soul mate.
I happen to have Order of the Phoenix next to me. :)
Is there anyway you could get him transferred to another class? I suppose, though, that he'll be faced with people like her forever, so...
no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 08:44 pm (UTC)I recommend Homicide therapy.
*hugs*
no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 08:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 09:18 pm (UTC)::giggling madly::
Does that mean that our Cirocco gets to go and take out the evil teacher?
no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 11:24 pm (UTC)::glares at Ebil Miss I plushie and sets it on fire::
Reactionary witch. :P
no subject
Date: 2004-12-04 01:29 am (UTC)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.
Yes, one sometimes must do the drudgery, in order to reap life's rewards. In order to wear clean clothing, one must launder one's clothing. In order to have a fabulous stir-fry dinner, one must chop the vegetables.
The only thing your son is learning from doing stupid repetitive tasks because a school authority figure has demanded it of him, is that Life is truly about doing stupid repetitive tasks for authority figures. The reward is the approval of the authority figure, rather than gaining knowledge. The authority figure's disapprobation is the only negative consequence to failing to complete three pages of phonics work, far beneath his level.
It's why school is, unfortunately, so very often a really abusive experience for children. Because of people like this teacher.
From where I'm sitting, you are about to tell your intelligent and sensible son that he is wrong to be true to himself, and right to cowtow to authority blindly, because the authority is powerful and can make his life painful.
You haven't, judging from this post, been doing this in the past. This is a departure from your previous messages to him that long hair, pastimes like D&D, and a million other little things. Your "parenting style" and mine seem quite similar. we freely and happily admit to being weird granola type people. But we are also disciplinarians. The two are not contradictory, not to us. I'd use the term "Authoritative Parent" instead of disciplinarian, but it amounts to the same thing. I consider my children's preferences, inclinations, and temperment when guiding them; I'm also the final authority in their lives (in partnership with Estel, of course.)
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. I see what you're saying here. Sometimes you just have to do what you're told.
But.
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.
That's just it. He's refusing to cooperate, because the classroom situation is NOT meeting any purposeful goal. It's a disrespectful waste of his time. He's being judged on his appearance and interests, and found lacking, which is a tremendous insult to any human being. And he's not being provided with stimulating knowledge in the classroom situation. He's beyond the level at which the class is being taught. What is his motivation to behave in class? No matter what he does, this teacher will dislike him. Why waste his mental energies on anything beyond daydreaming?
If your son was an adult already, and this were a job he held, would you advise him to quit and seek a better employment situation? One that was neither abusive to his personal life nor soul-crushingly dull?
It's extremely presumptuous of me to "butt in" to your parenting like this. I really shouldn't do so. But I homeschool to protect my kids, in part, from learning that life has to be this way, that obedience to authority is the point of education. The teen years are soon enough to learn the harsh realities of how much of one's life must be spent on unpleasantries like tax forms and "effectiveness training" seminars.
Anyway. Apologies for getting all ranty, here. :-) I mean well, I just have trouble keeping my trap shut on the whole educational philosophy thing.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-04 02:19 am (UTC)Good god, I hope so. Hell of a way of expressing her ickle self, and no doubt much appreciated by any other thinking set of parents who have to put up with that woman.
Thanks for sticking up for your kid. In my next life, can I be one of your kids?
no subject
Date: 2004-12-04 05:04 am (UTC)Too busy right now to respond fully to all the points you've made here, but I will say this: thank you, and no, you haven't offended me :)
One of the first things that my friend Sarah did, way back at the beginning of our friendship, was to politely point out that in her opinion I was sometimes "too punitive" with Daniel. It gave me food for thought and caused me to re-evaluate some of my childrearing practices. And it made me think that here was somebody I really wanted to get to know better. A person who was willing to put a very new friendship at risk out of concern for a child who wasn't even hers? That's somebody I definitely wanted in my life, and in my children's lives. It takes a village to raise a child, in large part because parents sometimes need reality checks when they're too close to an issue to really be able to look at it objectively.
So: thanks!
no subject
Date: 2004-12-04 06:37 am (UTC)LOL!! And now I want to re-read it. Darn.
Is there anyway you could get him transferred to another class?
I don't think so. I think she's the only grade 2-3 English teacher, and rotates her time among the different classes.
We have been brainstorming ideas, though. I would like him to learn to get along with stupid people, since they do make up the bulk of humanity, but she may be too much for him to deal with.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-04 06:43 am (UTC)Watched Wu's On First. It helped :)
no subject
Date: 2004-12-04 06:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-04 06:36 pm (UTC)The only thing your son is learning from doing stupid repetitive tasks because a school authority figure has demanded it of him, is that Life is truly about doing stupid repetitive tasks for authority figures.
Well... not quite, because he needs to practice fine motor skills and needs to learn to cooperate a little better, and he'd be doing both. But for practical purposes, yeah. You're right. Some people would say that that's exactly what he needs to learn, because that's what Life is all about, and some would say it doesn't have to be. Me? I'm not sure.
From where I'm sitting, you are about to tell your intelligent and sensible son that he is wrong to be true to himself, and right to cowtow to authority blindly, because the authority is powerful and can make his life painful.
Hm... I'm not sure I'd put it that way. I don't want him to kowtow to her, suck up and put a big smile on for her and do whatever she says. I do want him to not simply ignore her. I want him to understand that there are times in life when you have to do what authority says - drive slower than you think necessary, pay fees you don't agree with, fill in forms that make no sense - simply because that's what you have to do.
Unfortunately, this is at odds with what we teach in our home all the time: "Obey first, then ask." 'Obey first', because e.g. when we say "STOP RUNNING!" we want him to stop immediately, without having to justify ourselves with "Because there's a bloody big SUV hurtling towards you." But 'then ask', because he's entitled to explanations if there are any to be given.
I dunno. It's a fine line sometimes, between necessary social compromise and blind obedience to any authority no matter how stupid.
Your "parenting style" and mine seem quite similar.
Yeah, that's what it sounds like from your lj too.
He's refusing to cooperate, because the classroom situation is NOT meeting any purposeful goal. It's a disrespectful waste of his time.
Yeah, see, this is where Chris and I have been going back and forth. We want him to learn to cooperate and all that, but it seems like this is going too far. Chris pointed out exactly what you did: there's no way he'll make this woman happy, and no way he'll learn anything useful. What's the point?
If your son was an adult already, and this were a job he held, would you advise him to quit and seek a better employment situation? One that was neither abusive to his personal life nor soul-crushingly dull?
What I want is for Daniel to have choices. I want him to be able to, as an adult, look at a situation (eg, a job) and decide for himself whether to bow to authority or get the &*%$ outta Dodge. Boss wants him to wear a shirt and tie and fill out useless forms in triplicate. How much is this job worth to him? Are the shirt, tie and forms the only stupid things about it? Is this job a necessary step towards bigger and better things? Does he need the paycheck that badly? If any of those answers are Yes I want Daniel to have the self-discipline to be able to choose to cooperate and fit in as long as he needs/wants to.
And if the answers are No, then I want him to have the independence to tell his boss where to put his shirt and tie (politely, of course) and leave.
I mean well, I just have trouble keeping my trap shut on the whole educational philosophy thing.
Heh, me too :)
Between you and my friend Sarah, and Chris... I dunno. I told myself that I would keep Daniel in school unless things got bad, in which case I would drop out/drop down my courseload and homeschool him. Right now I'm kind of wondering what, exactly, "things getting bad" is supposed to mean, because it's looking pretty grim right about now. Daniel is not complaining, his homeroom teacher is wonderful, and the only one who seems really bent out of shape is Mrs. I... but still. I don't like feeling like I'm letting something bad go on too long just because there's no obvious wounds on Daniel's psyche yet.