<p>“Opie- Im not going back to address all your post- but I didn’t call you racist- but you are looking at teacher behavior from another perspective from me and from some others on CC.”</p>
<p>Actually em, you did at the very end of your last post. Or at least you implied it in a backhanded manner. I didn’t catch it the first time, but the second time I did. Kinda a low blow don’t cha think? </p>
<p>“I am coming from a district where the lack of accountability goes from the teachers all the way to the superintendent. I quit my job midway through my daughters elementary career in an attempt to get her an appropriate education by volunteering in the building everyday so the school didn’t see me just as someone who wanted more but as someone who was working alongside of them for the school community.
Didn’t work until she changed schools.”</p>
<p>Have I not shared empathy for your situation in Seattle? I could go back and find an awful lot of comments in your favor about the situation in Seattle. It is a terrible school district and will be as long as it is soo large and has such a large board. The Seattle school district should be broken into at least 4 parts as it is unmanageble in it’s current form. the fix starts at the top. The people who make up the school population in Seattle should demand smaller districts to allow for more local control. Would it cost more? To start, yes. But losing that disconnect between parent and SB would be worth it.</p>
<p>This has been my position about seattle for some time, can you find where I have said anything different? </p>
<p>“I know that you have heard all this and more from myself and other parents- but somehow your take on it comes off as “our fault””</p>
<p>I’m sorry often times it is…I can’t change that aspect. </p>
<p>“I realize that parents in Marysville may be quite angry with teachers even now, a few years after the longest strike in state history ( which was illegal), this could be where your defensiveness of the teacher union and teacher responsibilty comes from.”</p>
<p>Actually you couldn’t be further from the truth about that aspect. The community is pretty happy overall. The super that replaced the bad one was a finalist for super of the year… nationally. One of four. So things are pretty good. I’ve worked with him and find him exceptional in that he’s a listener, not a talker. Big improvement. Parents,teachers, fellow administrators enjoy that aspect. Two way communication… what a novel idea. </p>
<p>As far as how the community felt about the strike, well within a year of it’s end…ALL the school board members were gone. Either voted out in landslide votes (85-15) or declined to run again. The super was fired and several high paid cronies were sent packing. I think the community spoke. You may not like your teachers, but our community does like ours. Are there a few people who don’t like things the way they are? Yup, but only a few. If you knew the history of their kids behavor within the district you might understand why they feel the way they do. It is far easier to blame someone else for a lack of parenting skills. (now before you undie bunch, that ain’t about you, your kids haven’t committed acts of violence against other students or teachers, but these have. A teacher should not have to teach in fear of harm.) </p>
<p>“However-if you can acknowledge that teachers can make a positive long lasting impact- why is it so difficult to see that the impact can also be negative and long lasting?”</p>
<p>I guess because my personal pov is if you let negative people in your life control your emotions they win. EVERY second you dwell on a bad person you’ve come across in your life is lost, they took it from you. Did we run across a few bad teachers, yes, we did. If you want I’ll explain how we dealt. But I would never give those few ANY time in my head. I would rather think of the many who helped my kids along the way. I am sorry if that makes you upset, maybe you should apply this concept to me. Nothing I write should ever bother you enough to do what you did. I shouldn’t matter that much. </p>
<p>"Anxiety is one of the most common disorders in children- with some kids it is quite severe. Exposure to even one traumatizing event, may have repercussions that are lifelong. "</p>
<p>Like being beaten by a gang? like going hungry cause their’s no food in the house? Having to hide under the bed, with an older brother pointing a rifle at the door because a bunch of guys are prowling the neighborhood? Wondering if your teenage brother is going to have to shoot the guys trying to get in? </p>
<p>There’s lots about me, you don’t know. </p>
<p>“If you haven’t had that occur to you, it may be difficult to have empathy that others may have that response to something that you barely paid attention to.”</p>
<p>Em, I am far from the lilly white tower you seem to want me to be from. But part of the problem is I tend to have empathy for both sides, which for you apparently and some others, is just too much. It’s easy to tell other people what’s wrong with them, it’s a bit harder to apply to yourself. </p>
<p>Sometimes you have to start with what did I do to create the situation? We demand understanding of OUR situation, but give no quarter for someone else’s situation. How dare that teacher’s be out of sorts! Her mother has cancer, she shouldn’t bring those emotions to the classroom, she should be professional damit. Yes, there are bad teachers, but there are also teachers who mommentarily are bad because somethings happening in their world that “we” would want some sympathy for. Where I am confused on the bad teacher debate, is what makes a bad teacher? One family, two families? How can a family worship a teacher for all the help they’ve provided and another hate the same teacher? Sometimes IT AINT the teacher with the problem. Is it?</p>
<p>I tend to speak up here for educators because of the one sided attacks that happen so often on an education thread. Often it’s like talking to someone whose been married 3-4 times…is it always the other person’s fault?? </p>
<p>“One of the things that we learn as we mature, is to be less egocentric and more empathetic to others perspective.”</p>
<p>Couldn’t agree with you more, yet I am attacked for doing just that. Maturity means accepting someone else’s opinion as theirs. It doesn’t have to be the same. </p>
<p>"Ive come across teachers taking advantage of the classroom environment before, but threats by teachers to students are disturbing.
<a href="http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/07/...teacher001.cfm">http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/07/...teacher001.cfm</a>"</p>
<p>The lake stevens HS teacher. Came from private sector and has taught for 11 years. He was dumb, but for the wrong reason. He gave a girl who wasn’t paying attiention an out. He lost his cool, he shouldn’t have. In doing so, the attiention shifted from a kid who wasn’t paying attiention in class into making her a victim. I guess you might not see it that way. </p>
<p>She’s getting attiention for not paying attiention in all the wrong ways. He hurt my feelings.whaa whaa… I wasn’t paying attiention so he called on me and I couldn’t answer the question, so he became upset with me. I turned on my tears (they always work with daddy) and they still didn’t work, my friends bought my tears and spoke up. Then he made the mistake, I’ve got him, I’ll tell mom, she’ll get em. </p>
<p>I guess it’s different parenting skills or something. If my kid came home from something like this, as soon as he/she spit out the I wasn’t paying attiention part, It would be over. Why weren’t you paying attiention? He made you cry? He told you weren’t working to your best abilities? GEE, was he wrong? I mean after all you weren’t paying attiention. </p>
<p>I guess I would be more outraged that my kid wasn’t paying attiention, than they got caught and chewed out for it. I would actually make them apologize to the teacher and I would ask every day about that class and what happened in it. </p>
<p>I guess we have different outrage meters, no?</p>