One thing about blogging that I haven't figured out is how to juggle different threads and keep current with an old post.
Thomas Vaughn posted a comment here on why teachers don't speak up.
I submit that parents are dealt with in a similar well defined stratagem when it comes to parents challenging the quality of their child's education.
I am not talking about parents that challenge how low their kids can wear their blouse, how high the kids can wear their skirts, how much underwear the kids can display, how many cell phones the kids can use during test time, how same-sex-kissing should be permitted or whether or not their kid was unfairly cut from the cheer leading squad.
I am talking about a parent that legitimately challenges how their child is being provided an opportunity to an education.
For instance, students who have a teacher that is consistently absent, students whose teacher does not understand their subject matter and consistently provides wrong information to the students or students who want out of a class room because the teacher routinely demonstrates inappropriate supervisory skills and contributes to classroom management problems by selective recognition or non-recognition of students.
A site administrator knows that every student cannot be in the "best teacher's" class room. Therefore, a site administrator must be able to handle parental requests in a diplomatic way and still distribute the students to other teachers. But what happens when it is "common knowledge" that there is a "deadbeat" teacher? Something has to give.
Site administrators and higher level administrators have a well rehearsed regimen of rationalizations and courses of action to divert the issue away from the teacher onto the parent. This includes the need for the parent to "climb the ladder of command", and to do so in a required manner. If the "out of control" parent skips some rungs, they will be redirected back "down the ladder", sometimes back to a rung they have worn out already. As the parent becomes more involved in expending emotional energy and time "fighting the system" (known to some as delay, delay, delay), the chances increase that the initial issue becomes lost in the "red tape". If the parent does not have the required resources, knowledge and skill to focus on the original issue, they not only lose, they will have lost the will to fight.
Maybe it is the same with teachers.
What may be an unintended but real consequence for the system is that a beaten parent or a beaten teacher is not good for the system, no matter how clever the system is.
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12 comments:
I have no doubt that a beaten teacher is no good for the system.
I also have no doubt that truth fears no questions. Isn't that really the problem? Administrators know that they are blowing smoke. They are not stupid people but they have vested interest in keeping the game going. The must keep lieing in order to keep the game going. They have long since stopped concerning themselves with education and are mostly committed to keeping their jobs.
Now before I am attacked for over-generalizing, I know there are good administrators with their hearts and minds in the right place but if they don't raise their voices in protest they are no better then those who are complicit in the big game of looking good rather then being good.
There was a blogger a few months back who claimed to be an administrator. The blogging community here enthusiastically welcomed him but he ran away after he was called to task for some particularly inane comments.
The point of mentioning this blogger was to show just how important we teachers think an honest administrator would be to helping to address the problems here.
Had the administrator who intruded on my classroom asked the principal why she was being asked to interrupt my class to hand out witness forms, this who fiasco may have been avoided. She didn't ask. She did as she was told.
There is no excuse for beaten teachers. I have a friend who publishes another blog and when I told her about how I feared the consequences of blogging with my real name, told me that they "couldn't kill me" and to have come courage.
If one must lie and support lies to keep their job then perhaps this is a job one must fire. We can change things if teachers and parents stand together and demand they stop the game. Making things look good doesn't mean they are good.
Thanks for letting me write on your blog.
TV
response to TV 2:28
From what my understanding is of what you write, you and I speak to the same truth.
You speak as a teacher within the system, I speak as a parent who has been through the system.
Don't fool yourself that one can not figure out who you are.
Not all teachers face adversity with the system as not all parents face adversity with the system.
However, those teachers and parents who face adversity are essentially dealt with by "the system" in similar methods - all geared to "killing the message", and if that means "killing the messenger", then so be it, collateral damage being what it is.
I have a friend that has repeatedly said, in our respective times of increased distress - "the truth will set you free". She and I speak the truth because we know that there is a legal recourse to what is morally correct. "Enforcing" it (the truth) is another matter to which we all face.
We are left with: Silence is consent.
We know that: The outspoken are ostracized.
One must read all of my posts here and on my adjacent blog Motel Special Ed to see that you and I conceptualize the same problem of ""smoke and mirrors" to maintain an image".
I have at times used the analogy of "The Wizard of Oz" to describe the public school system. I still think it fits.
I have said it before, and I will say it again: the majority of parents are ignorant, clueless and too trusting of the system. Parents are kept ignorant and clueless by the very people (teachers) who could easily provide the truth. Understandably, a teacher would be foolish to tell a parent "the truth". An unsavvy parent would inadvertently "sell out" the teacher, and then the parent and the teacher both would be sent "to Siberia", figuratively speaking.
I know. I have been there. I learned to protect my "good teachers". I learned a long time ago that for me to even give accolades to a teacher could well be a "kiss of death" for them.
We are talking around and about "retaliation".
It is real.
Teachers know this long before parents ever have a clue. But, if and when the day ever comes when teachers and parents can stand together, change may occur.
The powers-that-be know this. Trust me. They do not want teachers and parents collaborating with each other if it threatens the status quo, and will take measures to ensure it does not occur.
I have no problem with parents who go downtown with a legitimate complaint. However, in this day and age, too many parents jump the gun. There is a chain of command for a reason.
Over the course of the past year, I have had run-ins with several sets of highly caffeinated parents. I have been accused of maliciously forging grades in a deliberate attempt at lowering a student's grade, sharing private grade information with other students, being uncommunicative, not having a logical grading policy, and publicly embarrassing a student with disparaging comments.
Two sets of parents leap-frogged over my principal and went downtown, just to be redirected -- and rightfully so.
In meetings with my administrators I handily dispatched each false accusation against me. My three favorite examples:
(1) the accusation of my being uncommunicative, whereupon I presented a folder of back-and-forth emails that had spanned several weeks;
(2) the accusation that I don't have a syllabus, despite the fact that the student in question had a signed copy of same in his notebook; and
(3) the accusation that I am sarcastic. (Okay, I'll happily admit to this one.) An email complained that my "biting sarcasm" was like "nails on a chalk board" to the student. In a conference between the kid's parent and my Assistant Principal, when this came up I pointed out that the next time the kid yells "Beer!" in the middle of a discussion of the historic "Beer Hall Putsch", I'll write a referral instead of making a joke out of it. The poor baby was out wise-assed. (Oops, there's that sarcasm again!)
When I defended myself by pointing out that this particular kid has a number of close friends in the class, the kid's parent rebutted with the fact that the child is an athlete and is "popular" and must maintain the facade.
Excuse me? The burden of popularity is an acceptable reason for trying to destroy a person's career and reputation?
It was aIl I could do to keep from laughing out loud when this kid's parent called for a downtown audit of my grades. Come on, get a grip on reality!
In each case, the students weren't doing what they were supposed to be doing in class, and I was holding them accountable for their actions.
The fact of the matter is that kids lie, and enabling parents frequently lie, too. Where do you think the kids learn it?
Parents are not the enemy. In the cases of special-needs children, parents are rightfully acting as advocates for their kids. However, many seem to have created a culture of entitlement and over-protection. (Unfortunately, the district's decision to curve semester exams feeds into this culture.)
Recently, college professors have encountered this phenomenon, as well. I have read numerous reports of parents who call to ask about grades. It is my understanding that professors are not even legally allowed to discuss grades with the parents!
Kids have got to learn that they are responsible for their actions, and they have to stop blaming the teachers.
Downtown administrators are not in a position to second guess the goings-on within a specific classroom. Site-based administrators, however, are more likely to know a teacher and to make a judgement call (within reason).
Jason 6:40
I will withhold more of my anecdotal stories of what teachers have done and how they have lied that would match your stories of what parents and kids have done and how they lie as long as we are progressively discussing our issues.
I am also keenly aware of being accused that "the world owes me". This is my quote on my blog post August 11, 2007:
here.
"One of the negative comments that sticks out in this context is when a reporter asked me how I "felt about the perception of many that parents in your situation think the world owes them". I will never forget my reaction. What I said was something to the effect that if she and I had not been introduced in the manner that we were, I would tell her to get the hell out of my house right now. I gave deference to her position - the insinuation and implications of the word "many" to this day haunts me. That conversation happened around 11 years ago."
For some reason, I still resent those implications if directed at me as a parent. It effects how much I respect the acuser.
You are 100% correct on your assessment of the relationship between college professors and students.
I speak often of "trust". Goader speaks of "respect".
We all need to work towards it.
I am always trying to make sense of what doesn't.
When it comes to parents of special education students, I wonder if there is a misconception or misunderstanding of what a "right" is under IDEA and what is "owed to" the parent.
I can see how a parent could confuse the issue by how the parent makes a statement, or how a school employee could misconstrue the statement by how the parent makes a statement.
For instance, while IDEA may state that an eligible student under IDEA has a right to a free and appropiate public education (FAPE), a parent that has a cursory understanding of that "right" may simply say "you owe my kid what is best for him".
One who understands the finer points of IDEA would readily recognize that the latter statement has been defined in Federal Court to not hold water.
But how many parents know that the word "best" should be followed by the word "interest" when they speak about their child.
Just asking.
Jason you are fortunate to have an administrator who is willing to support you when you are right. I have worked for administrators like that. Mine takes the word of children as gospel. In fact that is why my class was interrupted last Friday by a administrator armed with witness forms. It was a "gotcha moment" that backfired. When they are looking to find fault with you, everything you do is looked upon as fodder for "papering" your personnel file.
Special Ed Concierge...
There is a teacher at my school who actually told a parent that her child was on the team where most of the level 1 and 2 kids were placed. It was true. It has always been that way. The interesting thing is that the kids know it too but God forbid we should ever acknowledge it.
Anyone in the district office want to call me on this? My friend had the data from last your to prove it.
Thomas Vaughn 8:45
Sorry, I do not understand what a team is in the context that you used it nor what Level 1 or 2 means.
Please 'splain.
OMG....I am becoming one of those teachers who uses education-speak. I am sorry.
In middle school we have kids grouped into teams. All of the kids on a given team have the same Math, Social Studies, Science and Lang arts teachers.
Level 1 and 2 refer to FCAT test results. 1 thru 5 with 5 being the highest.
Is there a "grade cap" for any of the levels?
In other words, is "C" the highest grade a student in the lowest level can make?
No. There is no grade cap.
The reason I asked was because I heard a principal, at an elementary school meeting with many people there, say that the highest grade some students could receive was a "C" because they were lower functioning but placed with higher functioning students and that it would not be fair for them (the lower functioning students) to be graded higher.
I discussed this later with one of the District level administrators who was there. He said he didn't hear it.
Am I the only one that sees an issue with how these grades were measured? The students were not on special diploma.
The grades children receive are meaningless. When teachers are criticized by administrators for their overall GPA's I can assure that those GPA's will rise.
What the administrator really meant was that a "lower functioning" (I hate that expression) child in regular classes will get a grade of "C" no matter what his or her performance is. They wont allow those kids to lower the overall GPA.
By the way, the kids have figured this out too. One of the mistakes many educators make is underestimating the the innate intelligence of kids. They pretend not to notice that everyone passes and they often pretend to be afraid of not passing but it is an act for the benefit of all of us.
Kids are not stupid. They look around and see the kid who did nothing in the 6th grade is sitting beside them in the 7th grade. The only ones who dont really know this is the parents.
It is in the interests of the kids and the teachers for them NOT to know. Its a little secret we keep from them. :)
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