Unreasonable Teacher.....

I never said I didnt enjoy my job. I love it or I wouldnt do it. Holidays are great and one day in the classroom is never the same. However, attitudes towards teachers have changed since I started teaching and it is often negative. We are not there to parent but to give them a good education. I would just like parents to parent and leave the teaching to us. I respect all my pupils even the ones who don`t respect me. Roll on July 21st so I can get a good rest and sort my house out.

Well I have been a teacher for many years. Some pupils are little sods, however I can usually manage to find something good about them and bring that out. Yes the respect has gone for teachers but also respect has gone for the pupils.

Yes I work long hours and hate parents evenings but alot of my friends are envoius of my lovely long holidays. I enjoy my job unlike most of the teachers on here.

I think ellisbell you talk a lot of sense. Parents and teachers should work together. Not completely go against each other and be a lot more open minded.

Op I am sure you have the message now that your son was childish and deserved the punishment they and you gave him. Also that teachers on this site will ignore any comments you make about your sons behaviour being unacceptable and having been punished if you dare to say anything that is not full of praise for his teacher.

Next time start your post with "this wonderful teacher is telling me about every single time my son misbehaves in class, aren't they great".

It sounds to me like yet another example of poor communication between school and parents. The school should have called you in long ago for a formal talk about your son's continuing low level disruption in class. You could have agreed a strategy to handle it that would include praise at school when he does well - every child has something to be positive about - as well as sanctions at home and school if he behaves badly. You don't mention him having been in detention, for example, or having being excluded from the lesson previously. The school have permitted it to go on and on without effective action.

You have allowed lots of calls about your son without taking any action to see the school, discuss what you are doing to handle bad behaviour and agree any further steps that might be taken. You say that you've spoken to him about it but not that you have done more than speak to him before this latest incident. My son would have had privileges removed for bad behaviour at school before it got to this stage.

Sorry...they not thery...thou shalt proof read properly!

The OP complained that the teacher didnt have anything positive to say about her son yet at the same time admitted that he doesnt do homework, classwork and messes about in class.

Where exactly is the positive? Does he have particularly shiney shoes?

Students such as the OP's DS stop other students from learning. Their parents do them no favours by blaming the teacher for their offsprings behaviour.

My gripe with parents in general is thery all think as they went to school they know what is best and that we have an easy job. However many parents cant cope with their own children let alone 34+ in a class all wanting to talk, play with phones etc. Most teachers I know work their butts off night after night. I wish on times I worked in a supermarket and could leave my job at the store. However I have the best interest of my pupils at heart and work every night at home to ensure the level of education my son gets is what I give my pupils. I have often neglected my own son due to marking other peoples work. I wish there was a forum for other professions on times so I can give my pennys worth but teachers are seen as easy game and we are slagged off in the media and by society. I also get cross when we are expected to parent children when their own parents couldnt care less.

Phew I feel better for getting that off my chest!

Well said t0lk13n

I think your son is unreasonable for misbehaving in class even if it is the one class. My day is spent wirth children like your son who have the message from home that I`m only a teacher and so I can disrespect you. Low level disruption is worse than a child telling you to eff off! As one starts many follow. I am not an unreasonable teacher nor am I a weak teacher but parents are bringing up their childene to challenge any authority and our schools are becoming battle grounds between teacher and pupils because of their parenting. I really feel for the people who will have to work with such children in future years. I have a son who comes home saying this and that and as a teacher I take what he says with a pinch of salt.
BTW I am not slagging off your parenting skills but bemoaning the lack of them in so many parents in Britain today.

No the title is correct unreasonable teacher , because she was unreasonable.

Also the title 'unreasonable teacher...'

not 'Is the teacher being unreasobable?' or 'is my son being a prat?'

Ive had many calls from his Year head, all relating to very minor and petty incidents during english lessons, something I would expect any decent teacher to handle as part of normal day to day teaching

Which sounds to me like you think teachers should put up with shit from 14 year olds who should know how to behave but can't be arsed! MANY calls!

there have been several confrontations with this teacher, mainly as DS isnt doing his homework, classwork, messing about but you say he's trying his best how do you know this? are you in the classroom too? I have done many many parents evenings where parents have been horrified to hear of their childs poor behavoiur or attitude, and those who have been stunned to hear how hardworking and polite thier child can be!

You also state other teachers have negative comments too (but include some praise). He's clearly no angel and you should be supporting the school and giving ds a kick up the bum, nevermind contemplating an 'all guns blazing' approach!

Sorry if i'm seeming harsh, but i think teachers get a lot of crap for what can be a tough job, and need more support from parents.....

megmog2000 I have to say it must be really hard for you (and your ds) but we all have to learn to cope with things we don't like at all and I can say this because I have had to stand back and accept the horrible things that happened from just one teacher clashing with my own (or vice versa some may say!). Grin and bear it would be my advice, as you say you have the lo having three more years in the school. On one hand, the teacher could be doing you and your ds a really big favour as they could easily ignore and not inform you and just not help in any way and then when older and harder to handle said ds could get worse unacceptable behaviour needs nipping in the bud as we all know otherwise it make things much harder later. Also it is a very short time for ds to go to the end so hopefully he wont experience this again or not very often. English is the pits for a lot of kids I know.

I have not mentioned that the teacher involved with ny son was boring and weak. The school phoned me about this problem he did not come home telling me, then we all had a meeting on how to resolve the problem no arguing or blameing each other they put an independant third party in who said the teacher did seem to pick on my son he was put somewhere else problem sorted. If I had not gone to the meeting that would have been wrong.

I agree school and home is learning about independance and self control, thats why my son walked around asked for jobs in the holidays and weekends and is working every saturday with no problems. So I must be doing something right.

Irksome once my son is working he will be sorting his own problems out.

But if someone has had their parents intervene every time something didn't go their way at school and has been encouraged not to take responsibility for their own actions but rather to put the blame on 'boring' and 'weak' teachers, why do you think they are magically going to develop a more mature attitude once they are at work?

School is not only about learning the academic subjucts but about learning other skills like independence, taking responsiblity for your actions, self-control etc. I'll say it again, some parents are doing their dc a real diservice by making excuses for their poor behaviour.

Not quite sure where the last paragraph is comming from. If I went to the supermarket and the person put the bread through a few times yes I would say she was a bad checkout girl. No of course I would not allow my DS to throw a rubber at them. Rubbers being chucked around the classroom even went on when I was at school.

Irksome once my son is working he will be sorting his own problems out.

Nobody is saying that all teachers are bad but in every profession there are members that are not suited to the job. I am sure, Evil Twins that you are every bit as good as you think you are but you are not the teacher in question and many of the poster's on this thread are very sopportive of teachers, so there is no need to take it personally; unless you are feeling insecure about your own abilities.

Nannies certainly get a lot of bad press but I don't take it personaly because my references, qualifications and the many children who still keep in touch (a couple of them now at University and beyond) tell me I am not one of the bad ones.

Ofsted inspections are often contradictory.

"Are you saying every teacher you have met has been good?"

I have never met a teacher who is unable to their job. I have met teachers who have problems with particular classes, problems with specific children, problems with colleagues and so on, but to say that a teacher is just bad is, IMO, a dreadfully unfair and ignorant thing to say. I have been teaching for 14 years, and have had more than the average visits by OFSTED, as the school I'm teaching in at the moment is in special measures. I have been seen, I think, 7 times this academic year. Of those 7, 3 were judged to be outstanding, 3 were judged as good, and one was deemed inadequate. What does that say about me? Probably that I'm normal. The inadequate was because the inspector didn't see enough evidence of progression during the 20 minutes she was in the room. Does that make me a "bad" teacher? No, of course not. Neither would one outstanding lesson observation make me an "outstanding" teacher.

Too many parents think it's OK to say that teachers are just "bad". Straightforward, can't do their job. If you went to the supermarket, and the person on the til bleeped through your bread 4 times and didn't notice, would you say that that person was a "bad checkout assistant" and insist that they didn't deserve their job or any respect? Would you allow your 14 year old to hurl insults at her (and maybe throw a rubber at her)? I doubt it. Yet it's OK for a rational (I'm guessing) adult to say that a teacher is out-and-out "bad" because of something a child has told you?

If I took MN to heart, I would have quit my job ages ago. These sorts of threads tend to reach the point where a non-teaching MNer will tell a teaching MNer "I'm glad you don't teach my DCs - you're obvoiusly crap at your job", which is ridiculous. Given how PC MN is at times - a poster will get jumped on for suggesting that a child is "bad" or that someone is a "bad parent", yet "bad teacher" is fine - common in fact.

This is a discussion site we are not supposed to all agree. Are you saying every teacher you have met has been good? Most people on this site have said it is the boys fault no one said that they were not allowed to say that.

I do not know anybody that uses this discussion site so everyone is commenting on people that they do not know.

Saying there was bad teachers was perhaps not PC.

If the child had bad reports apart from one yes I would think the child was in the wrong.

"there are good and bad teachers" - yes, and there are good and bad children too. OH NO - huge error - NO ONE is allowed to say that a child IS bad, only that their behaviour is inappropriate, and yet it's absolutely fine to insist that there are BAD TEACHERS despite the fact that, yes, you are commenting on someone you don't know, based on a third party re-telling of one side of a story.

I wonder if those who think that this MUST be the fault of the teacher simply because the child in question doesn't (allegedly) get into trouble elsewhere think that works the opposite way too. If a child is badly behaved in all their lessons except one, does it mean that the one teacher is amazing, and that all the others are useless? Because it can't work both ways.

What a surprise - another MN thread has turned into an opportunity to bash teachers.

I can't get over some of the attitudes on this thread. It's no wonder so many children underachieve at school when their parents join them in this ridiculous game of only respecting teachers who have proved to a bunch of children that they are worthy of it, because of their ability to control. Loopy.

To be really picky, the OP hasn't said her son has no problems with other teachers, she says "She was the only person at parents evening to only have negative comments without any sort of praise at all - " This suggests that other teachers may have made criticisms but balanced them with praise. This is undoubtedly good practice and I agree with the OP that the teacher should have found something good to say about him, if only to keep Mum onside and also because I am sure he is not all bad .

I am not saying he is some kind of devil-child but, for his own benefit above anyone else's he needs to sort himself out in English and undermining the teacher is not the way to go about this.

Oh dear, sentence structure went wrong there as answered the phone whilst typing...
Should be:
full stop after 'class'.
'Although having met [...], if I had had even one phone call....'

sorry!

Even if he has the world's biggest personality clash with this teacher, he is still not allowed to throw rubbers around and disrupt the class, which he is clearly doing on a very regular basis.

My daughter, who generally gets good reports regarding behaviour, manners, ATL etc, had a teacher she disliked last year and I think the feeling was pretty mutual, but it would have been no excuse whatsoever for arsing about in class, and although having met the teacher I didn't warm to her much either. However if I had had even one phone call home to say dd had been disruptive or rude, I would have been very clear about the fact it was still her fault, and her responsibility to behave in class. The fact that she was good in other subjects would not have been any excuse for dicking about in this one!

What if he's at work and he likes all his immediate superiors except for one? Are you going to get him moved?

Exactly snailmoon there are good and bad teachers. My point was teachers are not always right. They are also the adults, some teachers and people have a natural way with children and can bring out the best in them, others do not. I feel sorry for the OP she did not come on saying her son was an angel and seemed open to peoples comments.

Its very easy for people to say their children would not dare to get in trouble in school
, I have seen families where one child has gone a bit wild but the sibblings work hard at school etc. You cannot always blame the parents wait untill your children have got through the teens before you start congratulating yourselves on how well behaved they are.