<p>I’m absolutely NOT outraged. I just don’t get outraged by message forum debates.</p>
<p>I don’t deny teachers, like anyone, are capable of bad acts. </p>
<p>What I do dispute, however, is that any sub has the POWER to destroy a student’s permanent record for asking a question such as “Why would you ask that?” or “Why do you want to know?” Subs do NOT have that kind of power, nor would a response of that kind generate any kind of punishment from a school administration. Really cobrat. You’ve gone beyond the pale. And unlike you, I actually do have experience in a school environment, both from the point of view of a sub and a full time teacher in a public school system. Not recently, of course, but at least I have worn those moccasins.</p>
<p>Onward. Thank you for the apology. I don’t generalize subs as crazy. I know a lot of wonderful ones and, as I mentioned, I used to be one. They do not get compensated enough for what they do.</p>
<p>The sub in the OPs story rings a bell for me and fits the profile of a sub who feels the need to prove that he is so very overqualified for the position because he recognizes the nationality of names and is fluent in international Fox news. Needs to one up the students.</p>
<p>Schools are extremely cautious about political correctness and cultural competence. This sub’s questions would most certainly be frowned upon (based on my experience as a teacher).</p>
I have often thought this, lookingforward. Based on his past comments of a dysfunctional relationship with his parents and being a bit of a third shoe, it seems perhaps the parents cafe is a good place to act out the unresolved parental issues/ feelings. Sabotage conversations, be the center of attention, etc. After all, negative attention is better than no attention at all.</p>
<p>That, or Pizzagirl pegged him to a T in posts 499 and 500. Or probably a comination of the 3. </p>
<p>Is there ANY chance we can get back to topic and stop letting this be the next thread that has derailed into the Cobrat show?</p>
<p>Because in certain situations which involve teachers/supervisors being the cause of an issue with their student/employees, doing so isn’t considered prudent based on past news reports, documented court cases, and common sense. </p>
<p>Especially in cases involving inappropriate behavior vis a vis employees such as “creation of hostile work environment”, discrimination, or harassment covered under the EEOC policies, I don’t know too many people who would be naive enough to recommend going back to the teacher/supervisor who initiated the problem. </p>
<p>In fact, some employers such as my friend’s public sector work environment make it SOP that in such cases, it should bypass the supervisor who’s involved to safeguard the employees reporting the incident. </p>
<p>Thank goodness he was able to use that when a supervisor made derogatory remarks about his European ethnicity and tried to falsely accuse him of goofing off by not completing his assigned workload. Things got so bad that even with being able to bypass his supervisor, union representation, colleagues willing to back him up despite her pressuring them to lie, and plenty of documentation, he was stressed for several months. </p>
<p>The stressful period ended when the investigation concluded that there was no substance to her accusation and it was completely fabricated. To avoid possibilities of further retaliation, the SOP included taking performance evaluations out of her hands. Her supervisor ended up doing my friend’s quarterly performance reviews along with reviewing and correcting previous negative reviews done by her. Not too long afterwards, his now former supervisor was fired, in part, due to her actions against my friend.</p>
<p>Cobrat-
Perhaps therapy is a better place than the cc parents cafe to work out your past hurts and scars from teachers/supervisors/parents. Either work it out, or let it go. Its poisoning you, and the threads here. </p>
<p>If there really is a cousin/roommate/friend of supervisor (or more likely they are fractionated fantasy characters of you) who felt wronged, then let them work through the legal arena (EEOC or file suit). This forum is NOT the place to do it. And one bad apple does NOT spoil the whole bushel. If a supervisor was fired for some inappropriate behavior, well and good. But this does NOT make every supervisor, parent, teacher, substitute teacher some evil forboding, potentially damaging, power-wielding monster. These extreme thoughts are starting to become gravely concerning</p>
<p>I agree the issue OP raised is an important one for us to keep talking about. I also feel some qualified posters have been a bit squeezed out. </p>
<p>Many of us are curious about nationalities or where families originated- and the cultures (I want to say, “cultural richness”) behind that. Does it offend some to be asked? Clearly. How do we work through this? What’s right?</p>
<p>Can we please forget the hypothetical extremes being projected? Can we just ignore the wild speculation? We’re not in denial. We made it to 500+ posts because we ARE interested. Just not in one person’s pronouncements.</p>
<p>Forget whether one poster can envision doomsday and is locked on that. Ignore the justifications of the sidetrack. He made his point.</p>
<p>Thirty pages, Niqui? This is only pg 13 in my settings. </p>
<p>Agree with lookingforward. Hope the OP comes back. And if the side attempts to derail the thread need to be ignored, one has to wonder, sadly, if that is a familiar experience.</p>
<p>I do not have time to read the 25 pages of this thread. But I will share one dialogue that happened in my undergrad physics class back in the dark ages. The prof was taking attendance by last name.</p>
<p>prof: smith?</p>
<p>Smith: present</p>
<p>Prof: jones?</p>
<p>Jones: present</p>
<p>Prof: Wong? Where are you from?</p>
<p>Wong: Cleveland</p>
<p>No offense taken and everyone just burst out laughing.</p>
<p>As an aside, I substitutes five whole times after I retired from my job at an elementary school. I will never do it again, unless it is a favor for school secretary if she honestly is stuck. As a substitute, I was expected to man the ship, do the sub plans, make sure no one got lost or hurt, and generally follow the rules and routines of the school.</p>
<p>Cobrat…just tell me…how many days have you spent substitute teaching? If you have already answered this on this thread, just ignore this post.</p>
<p>@jym It’s 34 on mine. But I’d say after the first hundred posts this thread went spiraling towards its death. </p>
<p>There are some bad subs. I’ve had more bad than good. </p>
<p>I had this one science sub that literally believe girls couldn’t perform as well as guys. Man, whenever he taught he always managed to unknowingly put his foot in his mouth. We never ran to the district about it. We’d rather prove him wrong in class and watch him backtrack. Much more fulfilling and entertaining.</p>
<p>Then there was one sub who INSISTED that the rigor of her son’s course selection was more than any of the student’s in the class. She was a hoot. If we complained about a test to a friend (AKA she wasn’t in the conversation) then she pop in and testify to her son’s difficulty in AP Lit and how it a “greater struggle” than what we were experiencing. We didn’t know how to deal with her…:D</p>
<p>I find it interesting ZM, Jym626, and company harbor such pollyannish views about those who hold supervisory positions…including teachers even after there’s a demonstrated issue. </p>
<p>OP asked whether her feelings of her sub acting inappropriately was correct. Some of us answered yes. </p>
<p>Others tried to insinuate that she’s “oversensitive”, “mistaken”, etc and emphasized the sub’s “good intentions”. </p>
<p>I’m sorry, but I not only disagree with the latter camp, but also feel they are woefully naive of the realities students like OP and some of her classmates face in their day-to-day lives…and too easily willing to believe in the sub’s “good intentions” even though the totality of that incident doesn’t demonstrate that and makes me wonder about those in the latter camp. </p>
<p>Especially considering most seemed to downplay his politically loaded question and uncalled for insult while discussing the irrelevant topic of idioms for around 30 minutes. Any “good intentions” theories should have been tossed out with the trash by this point.</p>
<p>Niquii, imagine this scenario: You walk into your 7th grade history class only to see that your teacher is sick and a sub is sitting at her desk. And the sub is…</p>
<p>Your older sister. :eek: Yep, happened to my baby brother. His just graduated from college older sister was his sub and he had to be mortified beyond belief for obvious reasons.</p>
<p>Your ignorance about what we know, think or feel is astounding, cobrat. </p>
<p>Now,as for the sub, I love thumper’s student/classmate’s response. Spot on. But not everyone is that quick on their feet. That said, as EPTR said “Schools are extremely cautious about political correctness and cultural competence”. It is truly sad that teachers are now having to avoid touching, let alone (heaven forbid) hugging the little elementary school kids, that they have to be worried that someone is going to accuse them of a “bad touch”. It has been drilled into students that they should report if a faculty or staff member makes them feel uncomfortable, and while ideally it would be nice to tell the person directly, a student may not feel comfortable doing so, and that may not be the school procedures. So if the OP really felt uncomfortable and singled out, she should have discussed it with her parents and considered reporting it to administration.</p>
<p>I had one high school sub who was a retired math teacher notorious among older alums for handing out quiz/exam grades of -(2^1/2) while he was an active teacher. While he was a bit grumpy and wasn’t very patient with us during the lesson, it had a bit of the “met someone famous, OMG!” moment in a really weird way.</p>
<p>“Racist” means holding onto negative views of someone not based on who that person is as a person, but on only seeing their race. It is not “racist” in and of itself to inquire where someone is from. It may be insensitive, inappropriate, unwise, whatever, in the context, but that act in and of itself isn’t racist. </p>
<p>Now, if the sub had said - “Wow, you’re from Nigeria, well, like all Nigerians, I’m sure you’re a poor student” or “Your people don’t belong here in America” or something of that nature, or otherwise indicated that he felt the OP’s Nigerian background “made” her bad in some way – that’s a different story.</p>