<p>
</p>
<p>My point exactly. In what other business can employees say, “If you don’t
like what I’m doing, too bad”?</p>
<p>motherofthreeboys - I intervened when my daughter was 6. I asked to get her moved to another class because she was so sad everyday going to school. For a 6 year old, a year is a long time. Unlike adults, a 6 year old does not have the same ability to cope. </p>
<p>geomom - I have been fortunate to work for people I like and do the kind of work I like.</p>
<p>motherofthreeboys – I intervened for S in 11th grade. Of course we tried to let our S solve the problem himself first, but the teacher was bullying him and he got nowhere. S worked with his advisor to set up a meeting outside of class, few days before a paper was due. The English teacher canceled at the last minute, wouldn’t reschedule. S told his advisor about the missed meeting. Next time he saw the English teacher, he was asked “why did you tell Mr. XXX I blew you off?” S replied “I didn’t use those words”.</p>
<p>S secretly recorded (using his laptop microphone) some of the in-class misbehavior of the teacher. We wouldn’t have believed it if we didn’t hear it for ourselves. Again, foul language, ridiculing students, etc. Totally unacceptable.</p>
<p>S came home dejected for a few months, til we finally caught on to how this one teacher was affecting his entire life, not just the one class. Could have ruined his entire junior year if we hadn’t stepped in. No, definitely not worth “toughing it out” in this case.</p>
<p>By the way, S was able to recognize a different high school teacher with a “Teacher Recognition Award” as part of his Presidential Scholar selection. What a wonderful, unselfish, supportive man that teacher was–the exact opposite of the English teacher. S had many more great teachers, only one truly rotten one.</p>
<p>sometimes, it is VERY important for parents to be overly involved…</p>
<p>there is this awful typing class at my school with the most ridiculous grading system…hw, classwork, tests, and participation all count euqally. if you get an A for one part, the teacher gives you a four, if you get a B, then the teacher gives you a three for that part. So, what this means is that if you get Bs in all the sections you end up with a 9/12 which is a 75%. </p>
<p>the teacher knows it’s whack and wont change it. harassing parents are needed. </p>
<p>although in most cases parents should let their children handle annoying teachers.</p>
<p>Renee,</p>
<p>You weren’t at all defensive or confrontational! I appreciate your input.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Because I don’t like to interfere with the workings of the school. I suspect a teacher or two might not like it very much if I were letting an administrator know that my kid doesn’t have assignments in when it’s the teachers who are supposed to do that. (Kind of like ratting out the teachers, isn’t it? Ugh!) </p>
<p>Because sometimes the teachers make errors in the online system – this is the first year they’ve used it, using it is not in their contract, so they are not required to use it – and I don’t want to do anything (such as rat them out to an administrator) that discourages them from using it; I don’t assume that everything in, or not in, the online system is the gospel truth. (The English assignment my son turned in the second week of January – has the teacher really not looked at it yet? It’s not marked missing, and there’s no grade for it, either. Maybe she forgot to put those grades in; I trust she’ll do it eventually!)</p>
<p>And also because, though I can work with him at home, give him a place to to his homework, provide support and the occasional (or frequent) application of a cattle prod, his homework is between him and the school. I care that he does it and hope he turns it in; beyond that, I can’t do much more. </p>
<p>I’ve never challenged a grade a teacher has given him; I think I have encouraged him to question one once (IIRC, the score wasn’t added up correctly). He advocates for himself pretty strongly – not always in the best way, however! – when he feels something, a grade, an answer, is unjust or wrong; he rarely needs my help in that regard!</p>
<p>Where he does need advocacy is in helping the admin and teachers understand why he does what he does sometimes and how he thinks. That, yeah, his dad and I do when it’s needed; thankfully, it’s not needed as often these days!</p>
<p>I will play devil’s advocate. Most of the time I agree that hovercraft parenting is a mistake for the parent and the kid. Sometimes, however, “laissez faire” goes too far. My eldest used to complain about a particular teacher’s abusive conduct. Because he could handle himself with anyone we left it alone. When the second child had the same teacher and we saw the pattern repeating we started paying attention. The more we paid attention the worse it got. Eventually, without going into details, we consulted with other parents who were also experiencing the same issues but no one spoke out. Now that teacher is being investigated and may be dismissed. Had no one “hovered” or spoken out this teacher’s inappropriate bullying would have continued unchecked.</p>
<p>…more on the extreme of parent violence (rather than the milder bullying topic of this thread) toward British teachers…</p>
<p>Seems like quite a problem in the UK and its getting worse.</p>
<ul>
<li>circa 2000: [BBC</a> News | EDUCATION | Heads fear violent parents](<a href=“http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/704042.stm]BBC”>BBC News | EDUCATION | Heads fear violent parents)
</p>
<ul>
<li>circa 2001: [BBC</a> NEWS | Education | Violent parents in ‘school rage’](<a href=“http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/1351084.stm]BBC”>BBC NEWS | UK | UK Education | Violent parents in 'school rage')
</p>
<p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>a 2002 story on one teacher’s tale of abuse: [BBC</a> NEWS | Education | Daily abuse teachers are facing](<a href=“http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/1894931.stm]BBC”>BBC NEWS | UK | UK Education | Daily abuse teachers are facing)
</p>
<p>***comment, I think we are talking more about the “pushy” parents on this thread :)</p>
<ul>
<li>Nov 2007: [BBC</a> NEWS | Scotland | Tayside and Central | Teacher attacks reach record high](<a href=“http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/7078760.stm]BBC”>BBC NEWS | UK | Scotland | Tayside and Central | Teacher attacks reach record high)
Of course, some of this teacher abuse is by students, not parents.</li>
</ul>
<p>Our school has not yet implemented an online grade posting system. Probably a good thing, because I’m afraid I’d check it almost daily and get on my daughter’s case about every little grade instead of letting her handle her own life. As things stand, I figure it’s HER work and it’s up to HER to tell me when there’s a problem. We get progress reports halfway thru the marking period, so if there’s a problem I’d hopefully have time to help her figure out how to resolve it before the bad grade ends up on the report card.</p>
<p>The only time I email teachers is when my kid is sick, to get their work.</p>
<p>Seriously, do the parents in the OP’s article plan to harass their kids’ college professors? And their boss at work? It’s time some people in my generation quit viewing their kids as an extension of themselves, and let their kids grow up and learn from their own mistakes (I know, much easier said than done, and I have been one of the guilty parties - but never to the extent of harassing teachers!)</p>
<p>I agree that accosting teachrs i never a good solution and helicopter parenting only leads to a lack of maturity. However, it is important to qualify this belief, as others have mentioned, and point out that it is sometimes Necesary for the good of all for parents to step in.</p>
<p>My parents do not intervene on my behalf as a general rule, nor would I excpect them to. Its my education and my business. They don’t even check my grades online (they say that’s because I check them hourly anyway, and they would know if they were below an A because I would be completely freakig out). The only time that they have intervened was last year, when the situation had gotten severly out of hand. My math teacher at first seemed merely inexperienced. For the first semester I handeled it myself, got tutoring, and was alright. However, the situation continued to deteriorate. I saw my friends being destroyed by stress, and he completely lost control of the class. My parents were concerned about the education I was getting and the fact that the class, which was made up of strong students, barely had any As, suggesting that there was a problem in the teaching or the grading. They tried to get him to examine how his ideas were working. He didn’t listen. From there, things got worse. He started flipping out at the class, eventually cursing at us. It was kind of scary. At one point the counselors and the principle came in to talk to us. At the same time, the students were becoming less and less reasonable as well. The situation was getting way out of hand, so, eventually, the parents set up shifts sitting in on the class. This could be called helicopter parenting, I suppose, but it forced both him and us to stay reasonable. A bunch more highly ludicrous stuff ensued after that, and our parents supported us through it all.</p>
<p>In situations like that, in which there are severe concerns about teaching and safety, rather than just quibbling over grades, it is important that parents feel justified in supporting their students. When you are 15, you’re nearing adulthood, but there is a reason that you are still under your parents jurisdiction. Sometimes they know how to handle a situation more appropriately. They are also more respected by other adults. We had expressed our concerns, as students, to the principle, but nothing was done to change the situation until our parents had stepped in. And if they hadn’t stepped in, I don’t even want to know what would have happened.</p>
<p>haha i live in howard county and i love how they have coined our society as “a fertile ground for demanding parents.”</p>
<p>but whatever, our teachers are annoying and deserve all the “harrasing” they claim to be getting.</p>
<p>This is completely ridiculous. However, I have not seen anything like it in my school district. There are overbearing parents, but mostly towards their children. In addition, most of the teachers I have had are ethical and strong enough to not give in to this sort of pressure. The administration, however, is a different story. Case in point: there was a student a few years back who send everyone in his class the answers to a particular test. The teacher found out about it and reported it, but the student’s parents came in and talked to the school district. The scholarship programs the student applied to were never informed of this incident, nor were the colleges he applied to. The teacher, in protest, resigned from his teaching post.</p>
<p>I suspect that the reason special ed teachers get the worst of it is because it is so common for special ed kids <em>not</em> to be given their accommodations. This is especially true of kids in regular classes.</p>
<p>
No problem with selective involvement at all. While I do not teach I am a youth coach for multiple sports and over the last dozen years I would say parental involvement went something like
- 50% have never raised an issue
- 40% raised an issue once or twice over multiple years
- 7% raise issues on a regular basis (multipe times a season)
- 3% raise issues all the time (virtually every week)</p>
<p>When I finally bail from coaching guess which parents will be the ones that drive me away. It’s really too bad such a small minority can use up so much time and energy and sap the passion and energy for people trying to help our kids.</p>
<p>2collegewego:</p>
<p>Similarly, teachers hear from the parents of gifted kids because in so
many schools the curriculum is completely inadequate for these kids.
Even if the school acknowledges that the child is years ahead of the
curriculum, the answer to a (polite) inquiry is often a disinterested,
“We don’t accelerate.”</p>
<p>The parent is stuck between a child thirsting for learning and teachers
and administrators that view this as not their problem.</p>
<p>And what of the gifted special ed kid? Congratulations! A double whammy!</p>
<p>Geomom, my ex and I eventually told my son’s school to send him to the library during math periods to let him take distance education from CTY; we worked with the school for a year and a half trying to get S’s curriculum enriched, and though the school paid lip service to the issue, nothing changed until we walked in with the software and said, “Have him use this.”</p>
<p>I love distance learning! It’s such a great end run around the present
system. Now that our son is older he uses Open Course Ware
(and it’s free!).</p>
<p>I only intervened once when my son was sick. He had a corneal infection and could not see out of his one eye. He missed three days of school before midterms in junior year. I made him go in for review with his eye still shut, and his teacher for one of his electives told him he missed a test and to take it next period. When he got to the next period, the teacher gave them a quiz, so he didn’t take the test. At the end of the period, he told my son you still have to take the test when you can. Then it was midterms the whole next week and my son forgot since he had tests all week and only went in when he had one. When he got his report card, he got a 70 for the class! He had a 96 before that. The teacher told me that he gave him a 0 - which counted for 40% of his grade! He told me if my son didn’t come to school, he would have never counted that test but since he did come in, it was my son’s fault. After an argument he asked me what I wanted him to do. I asked if he could re-take the test since he was sick. He told me no! I let it go, and it ended up being a very important lesson in my son’s life. He learned that problems don’t go away just because you ignore them. It was a hard lesson, but that is how life is. If you mess up, you have to suffer the consequences. I know he will never do anything like that again or hand anything in late. Now that he will be in college next year, this lesson has served him well.</p>
<p>I only intervened once when my son was sick. He had a corneal infection and could not see out of his one eye. He missed three days of school before midterms in junior year. I made him go in for review with his eye still shut, and his teacher for one of his electives told him he missed a test and to take it next period. When he got to the next period, the teacher gave them a quiz, so he didn’t take the test. At the end of the period, he told my son you still have to take the test when you can. Then it was midterms the whole next week and my son forgot since he had tests all week and only went in when he had one. When he got his report card, he got a 70 for the class! He had a 96 before that. The teacher told me that he gave him a 0 - which counted for 40% of his grade! He told me if my son didn’t come to school, he would have never counted that test but since he did come in, it was my son’s fault. After a heated exchange he asked me what I wanted him to do. I asked if he could re-take the test since he was sick. He told me no! I let it go, and it ended up being a very important lesson in my son’s life. He learned that problems don’t go away just because you ignore them. It was a hard lesson, but that is how life is. If you mess up, you have to suffer the consequences. I know he will never do anything like that again or hand anything in late. Now that he will be in college next year, this lesson has served him well.</p>
<p>Part of the problem is due to the inaction or serving up of the teachers by the administrations. Most turn out to be basically gutless in these situations and will sell out teachers almost immediately. That is not to say schools or teachers are perfect, but the conditions for abuse are in no small part the fault of the Admin.</p>
<p>I admit that I have absolutely no problem intervening when necessary. The difference between me & the parents in the article is in what we deem “necessary.” My intervention in middle school ranged from classroom teacher all the way to public comments at school board meetings — but it was about curriculum, not teachers. My sole teacher intervention in high school for D had to do with a semester grade that surprised my D. D wouldn’t find out WHY she got it (no longer had the teacher after semester change). I simply asked her counselor to help D find out what happened — made it abundantly clear that I was NOT saying D shouldn’t have gotten the grade — just wanted to have her help D figure things out, because D worried but wouldn’t confront situation. In the end, counselor helped sort things out. She felt D got short end of stick, but grade remained same — and D felt better after having talked with counselor about it. </p>
<p>I am a sub teacher, mostly high school. Often, teachers tell me that they feel bad for me because my job is tough. I tell them that THEIR job is tougher! They really do get questioned by parents about grades & expectations. Unfortunately, some administrators will pressure the teachers to change grades, give kids a pass on things, etc. Teachers are pressured to make it easy to get an A, to give less homework, to expect less in terms of quality learning, to allow students to be disruptive, etc. The worst is students whose parents get them into AP classes & expect a nonperforming student to be “given” a good grade — to the extent that teachers are expected to give easy tests. Because AP is supposed to be COLLEGE work, I guess these parents will be doing the same when little Tommy & Suzy get to college? </p>
<p>It extends beyond grades, too. A teacher I know was the cheerleading coach at high school. Policy is that girls who miss practice don’t get to cheer in game. Girl missed, parent complained, coach said no (no “good” reason for missing). Parent went to administration, who acknowledged that student did not have valid reason to miss — but told coach that exception needed to be made, anyway. Coach decided that doing so would undermine her authority, so she quit. I have the utmost respect for her — wish the parent & administration did.</p>