Scuba Pete
Le plongeur avec attitude...
OK,
This is a story about my son and his English teacher. It will be biased I am sure, and I am not inextricably a part of the situation.
As a background, I don't think my son is a saint. Far from it. I have had to discipline him way more than once, and so have his teachers. Up to this point I have supported his teachers close to %100.
Week before last, my son came home distraught. He was having some huge issues with one teacher and felt it was escalating beyond his ability to handle them. Here is a short chronology of the incidents.
Early in the semester, the class sung a birthday song for someone in the class. They clapped after the song. She issued a 5 minute detention to three boys for clapping too loudly and too long. My son was one of these three and was completely taken back by the accusation. He raised his hand and told her that he thought she was mistaken. To this, she told him that they needed to discuss this "outside". So he went outside and waited ten minutes for her to follow. She told him to just accept this and walked back inside without giving him a chance to defend himself.
The next week, my son went over to a friend's desk during class and said "boo". She told him to not do that again and he apologised, sat down, and said it would never happen again. He has thus kept his promise.
So now, this brings us up to this last offence. He forgot to do his vocabulary homework. So he told his teacher that he had to print it out. So he took his work from LAST week and started to type the new words into the old list. He was about to start on changing the actual definitions when she told him to stop and print ONLY. He printed it out and since she told everyone to change papers, he handed it to the closest person which is also his friend.
She stopped his friend and later came to his desk to discuss this. She accused him of "trying to pull a fast one" and while he was not sure what she meant, he apologised for cheating. She took issue with his not understanding the "fast one" comment. He repeated that he free admitted that it was cheating and again apologised.
The next day she gave him a referral: his first. She cited him for cheating, and then she also cited his desire to disrupt class (the clapping) and that he was constantly trying to disrupt class by getting out of his seat (the boo). She also accused him of scribbling in a "guest book" (which another kid did, and took responsibility for) and of copying answers on another piece of homework.
My son tried to reason with her that while the cheating was true, nothing else was. They got into a heated discussion that ended with him telling her that "you are no better than me!"
I listened to him and while I was outraged at his behaviour (who wouldn't be) I was also outraged at her behaviour as well. I felt that they both shared blame for the resulting heated discussion. I told him to try and reason with her again, and SHOW RESPECT and if he got nowhere that he was to have her call me.
I recieved the call the very next day.
This is a story about my son and his English teacher. It will be biased I am sure, and I am not inextricably a part of the situation.
As a background, I don't think my son is a saint. Far from it. I have had to discipline him way more than once, and so have his teachers. Up to this point I have supported his teachers close to %100.
Week before last, my son came home distraught. He was having some huge issues with one teacher and felt it was escalating beyond his ability to handle them. Here is a short chronology of the incidents.
Early in the semester, the class sung a birthday song for someone in the class. They clapped after the song. She issued a 5 minute detention to three boys for clapping too loudly and too long. My son was one of these three and was completely taken back by the accusation. He raised his hand and told her that he thought she was mistaken. To this, she told him that they needed to discuss this "outside". So he went outside and waited ten minutes for her to follow. She told him to just accept this and walked back inside without giving him a chance to defend himself.
The next week, my son went over to a friend's desk during class and said "boo". She told him to not do that again and he apologised, sat down, and said it would never happen again. He has thus kept his promise.
So now, this brings us up to this last offence. He forgot to do his vocabulary homework. So he told his teacher that he had to print it out. So he took his work from LAST week and started to type the new words into the old list. He was about to start on changing the actual definitions when she told him to stop and print ONLY. He printed it out and since she told everyone to change papers, he handed it to the closest person which is also his friend.
She stopped his friend and later came to his desk to discuss this. She accused him of "trying to pull a fast one" and while he was not sure what she meant, he apologised for cheating. She took issue with his not understanding the "fast one" comment. He repeated that he free admitted that it was cheating and again apologised.
The next day she gave him a referral: his first. She cited him for cheating, and then she also cited his desire to disrupt class (the clapping) and that he was constantly trying to disrupt class by getting out of his seat (the boo). She also accused him of scribbling in a "guest book" (which another kid did, and took responsibility for) and of copying answers on another piece of homework.
My son tried to reason with her that while the cheating was true, nothing else was. They got into a heated discussion that ended with him telling her that "you are no better than me!"
I listened to him and while I was outraged at his behaviour (who wouldn't be) I was also outraged at her behaviour as well. I felt that they both shared blame for the resulting heated discussion. I told him to try and reason with her again, and SHOW RESPECT and if he got nowhere that he was to have her call me.
I recieved the call the very next day.
