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Old 09-28-2017, 03:21 PM
 
Location: Back in the Mitten. Formerly NC
3,830 posts, read 6,693,642 times
Reputation: 5367

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Quote:
Originally Posted by RosieSD View Post
Slightly off topic, but one of the most important lessons I learned about being a parent I learned from my daughter's wonderful and wise second grade teacher.

At the start of second grade, for four days in a row my daughter forgot to put her lunch into her backpack in the morning.

Four days in a row, I ran her lunch down to the school and brought it to her classroom.

On the fourth day, Ms. Bauer smiled and then stepped outside and said to me, "tomorrow, don't bring A's lunch to her if she forgets to put it in her backpack. She won't starve. But, she will learn how to remember to plan better and make sure she has everything she needs for school on her own. As a parent, your real job is to teach her how to do things for herself, not to do things for her."

I almost had a heart attack at the idea of my poor baby not having her lunch for a day. But, sure enough, the next day, my daughter left her lunch at home again.

I took Mrs. Bauer's advice and didn't bring the lunch to school even though all day I pictured my daughter wilting away from hunger.

But, Mrs. Bauer was right: my daughter never forgot her lunch again. And every morning from then on she also made sure that her backpack had everything else she needed for school that day in it without me nagging her about it.

Mrs. Bauer taught ME many other important things about being a parent and helping my kids grow up to be responsible adults (my son had her as well). She was the best parenting teacher I ever had. I've thought of things she taught me about my kids and being a parent many times over the years when I was tempted to fix things for my kids that they could fix for themselves.

Mrs. Bauer has been retired for many years now, but both of my kids -- now in their late 20s -- also recall her fondly and talk about her and things that she taught them quite often.

Now, obviously, not every teacher is going to be a Mrs. Bauer. Both of my kids also had plenty of duds as teachers (as well as one or two truly horrible teachers).

But another lesson I learned from Mrs. Bauer: if every time you go into your child's classroom you're in battle mode thinking you always know what's best, it's a sure bet you'll probably miss learning important lessons yourself.
Couldn't rep you again. But, thank you for listening to a teacher and not being the helicopter parent. It always drove me crazy when parents had to do everything for their kids, fix every problem. How can they learn if they aren't allowed to fail?

 
Old 09-28-2017, 03:58 PM
 
2,007 posts, read 2,887,611 times
Reputation: 3124
I am amazed that the OP lets his kids be taught by anyone but himself or his wife. With so much expertise in education and time to educate the educators, you'd think they would be home-schooling. OP, this is probably unfair but I would hate to be your kid or your colleague. You sound like a pompous know-it-all. Have you ever thought about chilling out?
 
Old 09-28-2017, 05:15 PM
 
254 posts, read 278,954 times
Reputation: 482
Often the best teachers I've had and my kids have had didn't have children and put all of their time, energy and passion into their job. It is not realistic to expect teachers to have no life outside of teaching, though I'm not sure our current educational model recognizes that. I suspect that investing more money into training and mentoring would be the best solution rather than throwing a brand new teacher into a classroom with tons of bureaucracy and paperwork on top of trying to learn to teach.

Most of the teachers I've dealt with that weren't following the 504 because they are overstretched and were usually parents themselves. They tend to be open to brainstorming and assisting my kids with developing personal responsibility. In my experience, the teachers that were difficult to deal with didn't have kids and were quick to blame everything on poor parenting. I suspect aren't interested in learning that some things are out of the parents' control or working on improving their own teaching skills.

I think teachers have a difficult hill to climb.

Last edited by wildflower_FL; 09-28-2017 at 05:30 PM.. Reason: Didn't intend to offend anyone
 
Old 09-28-2017, 05:25 PM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
90,316 posts, read 120,234,855 times
Reputation: 35920
^^I give up! I agree with you, you quote my post, then say a bunch of stuff in response to issues I never brought up, like teachers needing a life of their own, blah, blah, then end it with a very condescending remark about how "(d)ifferent kids have different needs". Well, duh!
 
Old 09-29-2017, 07:41 AM
 
2,957 posts, read 5,869,677 times
Reputation: 2286
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coldjensens View Post
It seems like not.

We have 5 children. The means we have worked with roughly 200 different teachers for our kids. OK it may be 150 to 175 different teachers because there was some overlap, but we have a lot more experience with teachers than most teachers have. We know good teachers and good approaches styles from bad. We know what works and what does not. The good teachers stand out and the reasons for them being good teachers stand out. Bad ones same way.

However in nearly every instance where we have made a suggestion to a teacher who is struggling about what we have seen in other classrooms that worked, we get the same attack. We make a suggestion nicely and without an attack on their competence, but we get instantly attacked back - almost every time. You did not go to teaching college - you know nothing. "I do not know what you think you saw some other teacher doing, but I know all the good teaching methods and that is not one of them." (I certainly know how to tell a good teacher from a bad one - and what you are doing is not working well. But I would never put it this way. More like "Have you ever tried . . . ." or "What do you think about . . . ." it seemed to work really well for children x and Y in their * grade class" Boom! Attack mode on)

Why do so many teachers refuse to listen to parents, especially experience parents and instead say you have not been to teaching school, you do not know anything about teaching. It seems really stupid. Parents are an incredibly valuable resource that a teacher could use to rise to excellence very quickly. I would think they would draw on that resource, but most are combative or competitive with parents, especially younger inexperienced teachers. I am not talking about the bonkers parents who come in and order the teacher around or tell him he is doing everything wrong, but the lightest suggestion on teaching methods or approaches that work and do not work seems to draw an instant attack more often than not. I am also not including the teachers who claim they know the child better than the parents know them. Those teachers are just offensive. I just mean when parents make suggestions about general teaching practices they have seen that work in other classes. Why do teachers get all defensive and aggressive about that?

Shouldn’t the teacher colleges teach teachers to listen and learn from parents? Or do they and many to most teachers just ignore that part of the teaching?
Pretty much like every job, they get criticized enough by others (parents in this case) and offered a ton of bad ideas, they just tune all out most/ all of the ideas.

They are also like any "specialist" in that they believe their education makes them experts and even though you may have many years of real life experience, it's not relevant since you didn't learn the profession.
 
Old 09-29-2017, 08:25 AM
 
Location: Fairfax County, VA
1,387 posts, read 1,061,912 times
Reputation: 2759
Quote:
Originally Posted by tnff View Post
I believe for the most part we still do respect experts in their fields. In education however we have been mislead so often by ivory tower experts" that trust has been lost.
A distinction without a difference. Anti-intellectualism in the end offers no rewards at all.

Quote:
Originally Posted by tnff View Post
The biggest thing that has changed is cost.
Then perhaps what you should be calling for here is free K-14 instead of free K-12.
 
Old 09-29-2017, 08:33 AM
 
Location: Texas
13,480 posts, read 8,296,641 times
Reputation: 25946
The problem is, teachers have many different parents to listen to and they get exhausted. You aren't the only parent complaining.


Complain, complain, complain. This is all parents ever do.
 
Old 09-29-2017, 08:51 AM
 
12,612 posts, read 8,839,213 times
Reputation: 34481
Quote:
Originally Posted by 17thAndK View Post
A distinction without a difference. Anti-intellectualism in the end offers no rewards at all.
There is a huge distinction but you can't see it. Nothing to do with anti intellectualism.

Then perhaps what you should be calling for here is free K-14 instead of free K-12.
Which was neither the question asked nor answered.
 
Old 09-29-2017, 10:07 AM
 
35,512 posts, read 17,710,538 times
Reputation: 50483
Quote:
Originally Posted by RosieSD View Post
Slightly off topic, but one of the most important lessons I learned about being a parent I learned from my daughter's wonderful and wise second grade teacher.

At the start of second grade, for four days in a row my daughter forgot to put her lunch into her backpack in the morning.

Four days in a row, I ran her lunch down to the school and brought it to her classroom.

On the fourth day, Ms. Bauer smiled and then stepped outside and said to me, "tomorrow, don't bring A's lunch to her if she forgets to put it in her backpack. She won't starve. But, she will learn how to remember to plan better and make sure she has everything she needs for school on her own. As a parent, your real job is to teach her how to do things for herself, not to do things for her."

I almost had a heart attack at the idea of my poor baby not having her lunch for a day. But, sure enough, the next day, my daughter left her lunch at home again.

I took Mrs. Bauer's advice and didn't bring the lunch to school even though all day I pictured my daughter wilting away from hunger.

But, Mrs. Bauer was right: my daughter never forgot her lunch again. And every morning from then on she also made sure that her backpack had everything else she needed for school that day in it without me nagging her about it.

Mrs. Bauer taught ME many other important things about being a parent and helping my kids grow up to be responsible adults (my son had her as well). She was the best parenting teacher I ever had. I've thought of things she taught me about my kids and being a parent many times over the years when I was tempted to fix things for my kids that they could fix for themselves.

Mrs. Bauer has been retired for many years now, but both of my kids -- now in their late 20s -- also recall her fondly and talk about her and things that she taught them quite often.

Now, obviously, not every teacher is going to be a Mrs. Bauer. Both of my kids also had plenty of duds as teachers (as well as one or two truly horrible teachers).

But another lesson I learned from Mrs. Bauer: if every time you go into your child's classroom you're in battle mode thinking you always know what's best, it's a sure bet you'll probably miss learning important lessons yourself.
I don't know, Rosie. I'm musing on how that happened 4 days in a row and you didn't set up a system whereby she managed to get her lunch to school with her. One day, ok. Two days, hmm. Four days where you send her off to school without lunch . . . and causing yourself to have to race up to the school and deliver the goods during the school day . . .

(Not criticizing, really, just wondering how you missed that 4 days in a row when you were the one feeling the consequences).
 
Old 09-29-2017, 10:16 AM
 
Location: Fairfax County, VA
1,387 posts, read 1,061,912 times
Reputation: 2759
Quote:
Originally Posted by tnff View Post
There is a huge distinction but you can't see it. Nothing to do with anti intellectualism.
Distinction without a difference

Quote:
Originally Posted by tnff View Post
Which was neither the question asked nor answered.
Actually, the notion of free K-14 versus free K-12 is directly relevant to complaints of high post-secondary costs.
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