<p>Lafalum,
Your kid’s fifth grade teacher sounds like my daughter’s 1st grade teacher. My daughter woke up daily in tears and complaining about every possible sickness she could come up with , to avoid going to school.
I don’t understand why school administrations put the needs of such teachers…those who crush the small children’s spirits above those of the kids.</p>
<p>Actually, lje62, we were lucky. Neither of my kids had the evil 5th grade teacher. She was in the room next to D, though, and D said they could hear her yelling thru the wall. D had a wonderful teacher - young, energetic and positive. The year after D had her, she was diagnosed with leukemia, 6 weeks after her wedding. She died 2 years later. So sad…</p>
<p>Not that “young” teachers are always the best. The best teacher either of my kids ever had in elementary school was my son’s 4th grade teacher, who retired 2 years after she taught him. She had raised 6 children and KNEW kids, she understood how to motivate them to achieve more than they ever thought they could. My son would get assignments back with comments like, “This is good. What about x? What would happen if y?” She always had interesting projects going, and talked about what “we” were working on - not what “the students” or “they” were working on - she joined in as part of the learning experience. What a wonderful teacher.</p>
<p>But the next year, he had a very demanding 5th grade teacher who didn’t balance her high standards with the reality of the age she was teaching. He was STRESSED out all year. The kids had a book report “project” due every month, the grade did a major architecture project, and there was a grade-wide science fair. The architecture project rotated between classes, but the science fair was the same day for the whole grade. It turned out that S had a book report project, the architecture project, and the science fair all within 2 weeks. When I commented to the teacher that it seemed like an awful lot of work all at once, she said, “That’s how life is, they need to learn to deal with it.” I thought - but they’re only 10! I didn’t say it out loud though. I should have. One other teacher cancelled the book report for that month, and another postponed the due date for a week. Meanwhile, the architecture project was one of those inappropriate elementary assignments that requires parental help for the kid to to a decent job on it (foam core or wood, exact-o knife, hot glue gun, etc). And my D was making her First Communion that month - plus our family going to Disney over the vacation week with D’s dance studio. I don’t know who was more stressed - DS or me!</p>
<p>In the middle of fourth grade, I discovered the Childhoods of Famous Americans biography series in the school library. I took out a book from that series each week for the rest of the year. I missed the books over the summer (our public library didn’t have them), and I was greatly looking forward to the beginning of fifth grade, so that I could read the rest of the books in the series.</p>
<p>On our first trip to the school library in fifth grade, I eagerly brought my Childhoods of Famous Americans book to the check-out desk, only to be told that I was no longer allowed to take out those books. They were considered “too easy” for fifth graders; we were supposed to read books that were more of a challenge.</p>
<p>It’s hard to think of a better way in which a school could discourage a child’s genuine interest in reading.</p>
<p>I saw similar situations with my own kids throughout their school years. A child’s genuine enthusiasm for learning could be an asset to a teacher, yet often, such enthusiasm is discouraged because it doesn’t fit the “program.” </p>
<p>For my son, it wasn’t reading that was discouraged; it was writing. Toward the end of kindergarten, he had started to write things on his own initiative as part of everyday play, labeling his drawings and making little notes to himself on pieces of paper. Then his teacher insisted that he switch from the way he was holding a pencil to the “correct” position, which he found physically painful, and told him that he could not be promoted to first grade unless he made the switch. He switched, all right, because he didn’t want to repeat kindergarten, but it was more than two years before he wrote a single word outside of required school assignments.</p>
<p>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!</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>One son developed a school phobia in first grade and had to physically be dragged into school almost every day. The reason? He was totally bored. He had taught himself to read before starting school and the teacher was unwilling to accomodate him until he was tested. That took until mid-winter because the school psychologist was “too busy.” The teacher told me I shouldn’t have taught him to read. Eventually the principal took him out of class and let him use the library on his own for most of the school day. Then 2 other children joined him and the principal spent about 1/2 hour a day with those kids. On the principal’s retirement I thanked him for taking that extra step. His answer–“I don’t remember doing that.”</p>
<p>My oldest son was a troubled child. He has a chromosomal disorder that has plagued him his entire life. It wasn’t diagnosed until he was an adult. In the meantime, despite psychological testing, IQ testing, every kind of testing but chromosomal because no one ever thought of it in those days, it was a mystifying situation. He looks normal.</p>
<p>Elementary school wasn’t bad, middle school and high school were nightmares for him. And, sadly, for his siblings who followed. Many teachers, recognizing our last name, tried to make my other kids miserable just because they came from the same family. I could never understand how these people could not differentiate and give the younger kids the respect they deserved and earned.</p>
<p>My S was also reading in preschool. Fortunately, he was allowed by his teachers to roam the classrooms & get books to read while he was in kindergarten. He loved going to the 2nd grade & choosing books about performing magic tricks & playing chess. </p>
<p>In 5th grade, we went on a trip & the teacher assigned him literally an inch of homework. He was annoyed but finished it all in the six-hour plane ride. He ended up totally bored & having nothing to do for about a month after he came back until the rest of his class caught up with him. That teacher finally let him & two of his classmates go at their own pace for the math book. They raced each other & plowed through the book in less than a month & were the only students ever in the history of the school to finish the math book. S was so gleeful that he had no math homework for the last month or two of school because they had completed the math book. I believe the three of them are all now majoring in engineering and pre-med.</p>