It’s 12:00 a.m., and when most children are all snuggly buggly wuggly in their widdle beds getting lots of shuteye for their big days at school tomorrow, mine is still awake.
Apparently, her class got in trouble today for excessive chattiness and in a brazen show of authoritative take-that-ness, her teacher slammed them with — wait for it — 60 definitions and 60 sentences. On top of science homework and algebra equations, Girl Child’s whole night has been spent with her face stuck in a dictionary and a marble composition book leading up to now, the stroke of midnight. I am not amused.
Usually, I ride with the teachers. I know how hard it is to deal with one kid, let alone 27 or 30 of those little suckers and all of their behavior issues and funky hormone-fueled attitudes, and then have to worry about educating them on top of that. So teachers are generally right at the top of my list of people who get respect, right along with ministers, marathon runners, and folks who can work at Red Lobster and resist the lure of those impeccable cheddar bay biscuits.
But this time, I think Mrs. Wilson was out of line. Whenever you give your students enough homework to carry them into the next day, you’re setting yourself up for grumblings from parents. So I’ll be stopping by in the morning just to chat with her and let her know, politely but very clearly, that her punishment was a bit harsh. I’m not totally PO’ed. Just more than a little irked.
There have been very few instances in my daughter’s eight-year academic career when I’ve felt so led to confront one of her teachers. Really, only one stands out in my mind, when Skylar came home in the second grade and told me she didn’t want to go to the Old Country Buffet anymore — which, at the time, was her absolute favorite place to eat — because her teacher called her greedy and told her gluttony is a sin.
You know how, when cartoon characters get mad, they get those little squiggly lines over their heads to indicate they’re steaming mad? Yeah, that was me. I didn’t flip any desks or win the Andrew Dice Clay cussing classic award, but I think I got my point across that it would behoove her to not rain judgment on my or anybody else’s child’s for their perceived sinful eating tendencies.
I was fine with her sharing her opinion about healthy eating or overeating or conscious eating. But to flat out call the kid a glutton? Sheesh.
At the root of this latest up-all-night fiasco, Mrs. Wilson is an old school teacher who’s been behind the desk for probably as long as I’ve been alive. So I hope all of that experience lets her know that she shouldn’t expect Girl Child and her fellow students to remember anything about these words or their definitions, besides they probably never want to see them again. Heck, I write and edit for a living and I'm probably not sharp enough to correctly absorb 60 new terms and their meanings overnight.
Miss Thing has asked if she can go to bed and wake up at 5:15 to finish her massive assignment, and I’ve left the decision to stay up (or not) to her. But I’ll be using this as fuel for my argument bright and early tomorrow myself.
Have you ever had to check one of your child’s teachers for something you didn’t agree with?
Image via CEBImagery.com/Flickr
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Comments 50
It irks me to no end when teachers (teacher spouses, teacher friends, etc.) slam parents who DARE question how they run their classroom. It's not setting kids up to disrespect teachers, you idiots. It's teaching your kids that no adult is infallable, and that they can count on you to step in if something is amiss. Giving teachers unquestioning authority because they're the supposed experts is a dangerous and disgusting expectation.
I don't, from this article, imagine that this mom is about to march into her daughter's classroom and berate a teacher in front of her students. But this mom has EVERY right to go in and question this punishment and voice her concerns. We don't give up the right to being in control of our children's lives just because we sent them to school, so the whole "you should just homeschool if you can't accept every single action of every single teacher unquestioningly" argument is stupid.
My kids go to bed at a reasonable time every night, because they need to be well-rested in order to function well at school. I would not have been willing to send an exhausted child to school to do poorly on tests, have trouble paying attention to lessons, etc. I would have sent a note in with the partially completed homework stating such. I would not AT ALL appreciate my child's family time and rest/sleep schedule being taken away as a punishment. That's what detentions are for.
And what if her daughter was NOT one of the kids being chatty? I know there were PLENTY of times throughout my time in school where an entire class was punished for a few kids' behavior.
As for those questioning why it took so long to do the work? The author stated that she also had algebra equations and science homework to do as well. Without knowing how much of that work she had to do, you have no space to be wagging fingers saying "it shouldn't take that long" to do 60 defenitions and sentences. And if she had to copy those defenitions, {many of which can be rather long} yes, I can see it taking that long. And without knowing the daughter's situation {maybe she has a learning disability, you don't know!} stop shaming the kid! Get off your high horses.
Who said life is fair, dreamingviolet?! Look at boot camp training, cheerleading, sports teams and even real life work situations - usually when one acts up the entire group is punished to make a point. She should be applauded for taking a tough stance and teaching some discpline and toughening up the ones that perhaps didn't do anything wrong. Like they tell the ones that DIDN'T act up in the aforementioned real life situations, there is usually a speech before or after saying you can thank those that DID act up for this punishment and usually that makes the offender think twice. That's life.
I had to check my son's kindergarten (Yes, KINDERGARTEN) teacher. She came back to work after being retired for a couple of years. First, she kept called him by the wrong name during the ENTIRE school year even after I corrected her at each P/T conference. She then called me in to talk about how my son needed ADHD medication because he couldn't focus in class. Unbeknownst to her, I work in the mental health field and I let her know that my son did not exhibit the warning signs of attention-deficit. I found out later, she had told a couple of parents the same thing and we all realized, she was too freakin old and impatient to be teaching 5-year olds! She only lasted another year, whereas my son is in an early-college prep program.
I refer to her as the "crooked-eyed" old lady and my family remembers who I am talking about.
Talk about highly inappropriate. What is wrong with you that you think it appropriate to call your child's teacher out on the Internet like this?
60 words - which she gets to look up in a dictionary, write down the definition from said dictionary, and then write a sentence including the word. If that took her more than an hour, I'd be surprised.
Algebra equations - again, I don't know how many she was given, but if it took her more than an hour, I'd be surprised.
Science homework - this, you were pretty vague on, but for a middle schooler, I seriously doubt it was such an extensive assignment that it took her all night.
So, my guess is that your little angel came home and screwed around for a few hours before getting down to business. She has no one but herself to blame.
Additionally, one late night is not going to kill her. If she's tired tomorrow, maybe that will teach her a few lessons: 1.) Shut up in class; 2.) Do your homework as soon as you get home.
I'm siding with the teacher.