You would be astounded how many parents go totally beserk if they feel the teacher has even looked at their precious little one in a way they don't approve of. Last year, some of my kids told me that a boy in my class had used some inappropriate language on the playground. He denied it. There were several witnesses from the room next door. I had them come over. Their stories differed and I couldn't use class time to sort it all out, so I asked them all to please go write their own accounts of what happened, and just use the first letter of the "bad" words and return them to me. Shortly after school was over, I got a call from a woman who was yelling and screaming about the way I had traumatized her son. She said I was abusing her child by asking him to write bad language, that I was a lazy inept teacher because it was my job to simply know what happened out on the playground and that I was using her son as a pawn to do my work for me. The next morning the father came to my room early before school and acted much the same way. He accused me of jeopardizing his son's safety in that if the boy "told' on others, he could be ostrasized, teased, and bullied, just as the father had when he was in school. He said in no uncertain terms that his children would never be allowed to tell on others and would not be writing or telling accounts of what happened to anyone. They then went to the school superintendent and demanded that a big meeting be set up with me, the boy, his parents, the principal, and the superintendent, at which I would cite a long apology to the boy for humiliating him. My principal was out on medical leave and some retired lunatic was filling in. When this sub administrator told me this, I told her with a huge smile that i would be happy to go to the union and have her sent quickly back into retirement.
Now believe it or not, these kind of things are common occurences at schools. I have several incidents a year that are just as bizarre. I can guarantee you that any such requirement would have a kazillion parents going ballistic. And to be fair, think about a six year old who gets in trouble and when talking to the teacher about her behavior, starts thinking about the fact that the teacher has a gun. I am sort of an old style teacher, I am strict and expect good behavior and hard work. My test scores are far higher than others in similar classrooms and socioeconomic neighborhoods. Nevertheless, it has taken me years to learn how to walk a very fine line wherein children know that I don't tolerate misbehavior and at the very same time they feel secure and unthreatned by me. It is not easy to demand that a rowdy, obnoxious, sometimes cruel boy settle down and behave, and yet be doing that task right in front of very sensitive other children who are cooperative, without making this second group of kids feel frightned by my demeanor. Keeping 34 nine and ten year olds focused, on task, and above all interested in learning, every moment, all day long, is not at all an easy task.
Now here's another rub. Everybody and his brother have an idea of what teachers should do and be. I get better test scores than average. A lot of people want us to be evaluated and have pay based on our scores. You have no idea how bad the politics already are of who gets what kids, of how they are placed in this or that teacher's class. Parents always have their favorites. It would be so easy for a principal to just put all the bad kids in the class of a teacher he/she didn't like and set that teacher up for bad test results. Further, no matter what anyone says, on a broad scope, the socioeconomic level of a family has a direct correlation with performance. When I was a young teacher, I taught in a very rich county. As an inexperienced teacher, my students made astronomical scores, despite my inexperience. While now, my scores are outstanding for my area, they are nowhere near those I got as a beginner. Now, all this being said, about 10 years ago, there was a big push for toothbrushing at school, because it wasn't happening at home. Now, they tell us, kids will be tested in physical conditioning and it will count on the schools' test scores. I cannot control what kids eat at home; I can't even control what the parents send to school for them to eat. I can take them to P.E., but to be physically fit, the parents need to feed them properly, make sure they sleep properly and get other exercise. NCLB says that by 2014, if I have a child in my room with brain injury and an IQ of 50, I still have to have that child on grade level in Math and Reading; otherwise I am a failure. Liberals in the government want me to become the kid's parent. Conservatives in the government want me to be God. I just can't do either one.
My daughter is adopted from China. We were members of Families with Children from China, a great organization. Unfortunately, our local and area chapters are run by ultra-liberal idiots who feel that we should be endlessly taking our daughters to therapists to deal with the fact that they are adopted. This is a real issue, and I have held my child and cried with her many nights when she wondered why the communist government made it such that her mother had to give her up. Nevertheless, I refuse to raise my daughter to be a victim. She has been raised to know that eyerybody has difficulties in life, and that you can choose to be a victim, or...a victor. We have chosen the latter. So what has all this to do with school? We have a very long Social Studies curriculum at 4th grade. Near the very end, is mentioned the Chinese Exclusion Act which at one time excluded Chinese immigrants. These Families with Children from China leaders got on this big soapbox demanding that all 4th grade teachers reach that part of the curriculum and teach it in depth or face a big letter writing campaign to all kind of authorities as well as bring lawsuits for neglecting to teach all students how the Chinese had been discriminated against. Now I do teach students in depth about the sins this nation had in slavery treatment of Native Americans, but in the entire scope of history, the Chinese Exclusion Act is a tiny aspect. Nevertheless, every special interest in existence wants to tell me what my job should entail and how I should do that job. Earlier this year, we got several long letters of complaint that nothing at all was included in our CA history texts about East Indian Sikhs. Well, there is virtually no involvement by East Indian Sikhs in the overall history of California.
Now someone wants to instruct me to keep a gun on myself while I teach little children. Well, join the club. You and everybody else wants to tell me what to do and how to do it. As I said before, I am neither pro-gun nor anti-gun. But guess what, my attitude towards everybody who wants to tell me how and what to do in my job is this, "I am a professional teacher and I am d***ed good at what I do. Virtually nobody could do the job I do. Most people don't have the slightest clue of how hard it is or what it entails. I know what I am doing, am now going off to do my job, and I am going to go do it the right way, my way. If you don't like it, Oh well..."
