Big Fat Soapbox

Hi guys!

How's everyone surviving the beginning of the school year?  This household is doing okay- except for the fact that Roo's sleep schedule is all messed up due to the 20 million hours she spends in the car with me while I drive everyone here, there, and everywhere.  I'm also planning on hitting my therapist mother up for a prescription of Xanax to help me deal with the hell that is my daughter's school parking lot.  900 cars + 1 driveway= extreme parking lot rage. (That's a new medical condition that I'm taking the liberty to invent right now.  It feels valid enough.)

By the way, me on a pms day in the middle of that mess?  I believe there may be char marks on my dash from where I shot flames out my nostrils.

But enough about that.  I wanted to write tonight about parent teacher relationships.  This is a post that's been floating around in my head for a while, but it's proven to be difficult to write.  There's not a lot of funny in it.  In fact, if you'll forgive me, I've got a bit of a soap box to get up on.

But first I have a story to tell you.

Once upon a time, a long loooooooong time ago in the year 1981, there was a little six year old girl who had the meanest 1st grade teacher in the whole entire school.  Maybe even the district.  She never smiled, she was short tempered, and she once yelled at the little girl because she had tripped over the teacher's feet and inadvertently put a run in her stockings.

It wasn't that this teacher picked on this particular little girl.  In fact, this little girl was probably one of her more favored students.  It was just that this teacher was...... a sourpuss.  She was like this with everybody.  So, because of this, the little girl knew to take the mean teacher's coldness with a grain of salt.  She didn't love her teacher, but she did leave first grade knowing everything she was supposed to have learned.  She survived.  And at the very least, the bar was set low concerning her expectations for her future teachers.

Thankfully, her future teachers turned out okay- give or take a few wack jobs.

One day, after the little girl was grown and had become a teacher herself, she had a conversation with her mother about her elementary school years.  She brought up the mean old first grade teacher and was very surprised to hear her mother say, "Oh, that woman!  She was one teacher of yours that I really didn't like."

"What???" she cried. "I never knew you didn't like her.  Why didn't you ever say anything?"

And her mother just looked at her, shrugged, and said, "What would that have taught you?"

Jjjjshshhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. (That's the sound of a needle being pulled off a record)

Okay.  So let's talk.

As the above story illustrates, I never had a clue if my parents harbored any negative feelings towards my teachers.  They were very careful to present the idea of a united front -however much of an illusion that might have been. I knew that if I complained about a teacher to my parents, their response would be "Okay, well... how are you going to deal with it?"

*Just to be clear, the kinds of complaints I'm talking about are things like "The teacher gives too much homework." or "The teacher grades unfairly."  I'm sure if I said something like, "Mr. So and so is inappropriate with the girl students.", they would've been down at the district office the next morning.

My parents kind of took a hard knocks approach-which I don't think is bad.  Kids are tougher than we like to believe.  I survived my witch of a 1st grade teacher unscathed.   My mom related that it was disappointing for her to see me start off my education with someone so cold, but she didn't change my class because there were 19 other students in there with me, and who was she to feel like her child was entitled to something better over the other kids? Back then, I don't think parents worried so much about making sure their children felt "special".  And let's face it, lately the word "special" has become a euphimism for "entitled".

Entitled children are a pain in the butt.

Not only that, but they are everywhere.  You can tell who they are by taking a look at their parents.  Just in this first week of school, I have heard earfuls of negative talk towards the teachers.  At Back To School Night, I was conversing with the mom of a student in PG's classroom who told me in hushed tones that the teacher is still half in love with her first husband, even though she's on her second.  And I thought to myself, "This is just all kinds of ugly."

Another example- a Facebook friend wrote that she came back from Back to School Night with a headache from the other parents who chose to spend the time arguing with the teacher about what their children do and do not need to be learning.

(Just so you know.... teachers don't get to choose what they teach.  They have things called "Standards" that are handed down from the state and the federal government.  So, if you don't like what's being taught, please don't blame the teacher.  He/she is only doing their job.  Write a letter to the Department of Education.)

And at least once I year Mr. C gets called into a parent/principal meeting with a parent who is angry about the fact that their child is failing a class.  When Mr. C explains it's because the child has not turned in any work, the parent usually wants to know why they weren't informed of their child's failing grade.  And that's when Mr. C holds up the progress report that was sent home in the previous week and says "This is how I inform you.  It's a progress report- to let you know halfway through the semester how your child is doing."

Dummies.

  I always wish that Mr. C would just call them that to their faces, but he never does.  He's always very professional and boring.

I know I'm coming down pretty hard on parents right now.  Trust me, I'm not saying that it's always the parents.  I know that teachers can be a pain in the butt too- I was one once, so I know.  But here's the thing.  If my parents had let me know that they didn't like Mrs. D, I would've been less inclined to take her seriously.  I would've thought "Well.  If my parents (who are my whole 6 year old world) don't think this woman is on her rocker, than why should I give her my best?" As it was, I didn't like Mrs. D, but I sure did recognize her as an authority figure.  As my teacher, I had her up on a bit of a pedestal- which is where I think teachers belong.

Teachers and parents are supposed to be partners.  I know it's hard for us parents to give up some control and let another adult into our child's life, but it must be done.  In the long run, that's what it's all about anyway- letting them go to experience the ups and downs of life.

So that's why, when PG's teacher sent home a form explaining classroom rules, expectations, etc.  and stated her preference for school spirt shirts to be worn only on Fridays, though there's nothing in the uniform policy that says they can't be worn any day of the week, my first thought was: "Pssssh.  What do I care what your preference is?"
And then I remembered the lesson my parents taught me.  I need to present a united front with her teacher, no matter how silly or nit picky I believe it to be.  If her teacher has a little quirk about uniforms, and all she's asking is that I save the school spirit shirts until Friday, then is it really so hard to oblige her?  Because there's a bigger lesson for PG in this about respect.  All I have to do is swallow my pride, and my daughter's teacher will stay up there on that pedestal- which is where both PG and I need her to be.

You all have a good night!