Bad school memory- from light to heavy

HImom
Sat, 15 Nov 2008 12:58:35 +0000

My D was told she couldn’t borrow the books she was interested in because they were “too hard” but had to borrow the ones the teacher wanted her to (the ones I had read to her & her older brother years prior that she had absolutely NO interest in). She started reading late in 1st grade–the books the teacher wouldn’t let her borrow!

Our D had a teacher who had no clue what was age appropriate. One day, she assigned “extra credit” math homework. It took my S who was 2 grades older & doing math several grades above level 3 hours to complete the brainteaser problem that was due the next day–D had no clue even where to begin on the problem & she already had a shaky relationship with math. I asked the teacher whether it might be better to assign problems that the kids had some chance of figuring out but my feedback was unwelcome.

That same year, we were urged to get more involved in working with our teachers so I offered to help teach our 4th grade about coconuts & how important they were to the island culture during a day when all the teachers would be out for “professional development.” I got parent volunteers, brought in the materials, got the kids involved and everything. Later that year, I organized an astronomy class where we had university students and faculty come & instruct the grade on astronomy and have a “star party” where we used donated funds to buy pizza for whomever wanted to come & learn about the stars & how they were important for navigation (the grade was supposed to be studying Hawaiianna). Not one faculty member showed up–the principal came & was embarrassed that none of the faculty cared enough to come–nearly the entire 4th grade & their families came & had a great time.

We also taught the 4th grade how to use the internet safely and responsibly because the teachers refused because they were having a feud with the librarian.

The teachers criticized us parents, saying having us help created too much work for them and did NOT appreciate anything we did (their idea of the kids learning was having them teach themselves or one another with the teacher just there to break up any fights–honestly). We left the school after that year, as the school was imploding due to lots of internal strife among the faculty.