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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think DS's teachers is either thick or heartless?

145 replies

carocaro · 30/09/2010 14:25

DS1 is 8 and dyslexic.

So his teacher makes him and the class shout out their scores they get in mental maths and spellings each day. AS DS has a auditory processing issue and find spelling very hard, so his scores are 1 or 2 out of ten at best when done this way.

I did not know this and I get a call last night from a Mum of a girl at school who said she was upset that my DS gets teased about it all the time by some of his classmates. I asked DS about it and he was so upset and said he felt more thicker since he went back to school

I am fighting the desire to go to school and belt said teacher around this head and ask her WHAT THE FUCK SHE IS DOING.

I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOO ANGRY at her stupidity and lack of thought. She know what he finds hard and to humiliate him in this way beggars belief.

I am LIVID.

OP posts:
matildarosepink · 01/10/2010 09:25

May be really hard to keep your cool with this one - I'd be livid too. I think everyone's right, clarify with the teacher if that's really exactly what she's done. Ask her if she's considered what this is doing to the self esteem of less academically-able children. AgentZigzag, you're so right. I was at p. school in the 70s-80s, and got smacked in front of all the other children for getting my long multiplication wrong. And, see, I still remember it!
This is wrong, wrong, wrong. It's OK to encourage children to beat their own scores and record them in some way I suppose. However, what is she doing to publicly celebrate YOUR child's successes? (This will be a really good question that may get her thinking, IMHO). If she has no awareness of what he's good at (and there will be plenty) then she knows him very little and should take a little more time with him.

CoupleofKooks · 01/10/2010 09:30

is this not more or less the same as what happens in competitive sports days?
just wondered if anyone on this thread villifying the teacher, has defended those events in the past, as there always seems to be an outcry about sports days being banned

fiveisanawfullybignumber · 01/10/2010 09:46

echt I sure hope you don't end up teaching any of my DC's!
The child is obviously upset by the situation, and other children are noticing how unfair this is and you'd want them to 'make an appointment'. I would say an immediate chat between parent and teacher was necessary, with teacher then being left to sort out the situation.
Do all parents of children being bullied have to wait to see a teacher?Hmm

carocaro Does the school have a marking policy for dyslexic students, ask to see it, does it also say the teacher can ask for scores shouted out loud?

Reminds me of a situation with dyslexic DD1 (now 16) when she was 10. New english teacher crossed out every single incorrectly spelt word in red pen, then wrote "Careless, check your spellings." I was livid!, even if she hadn't been told DD was dyslexic, did the fact that the marked piece of work looked like a murder scene not give her any indication that there might have been more going on than just laziness. She now marks in green pen and ticks all the correct words for dyslexic students, omitting the wrong ones. Positive reinforcement whilst still highlighting the wrong ones.

StillSquiffy · 01/10/2010 09:57

Brian - this stinks, regardless of whether a child has an SEN statement or not - my DC's school is very competitive in some ways, but would never countenance something like this. In fact I have had difficulty trying to work out what speed my son should be progressing through the Oxford reading tree (I know he is slightly behind because he is given extra 1 to 1 reading every day). The teachers flatly refuse to tell me where the the class in general have got to on the scheme, on the grounds that DS is trying as hard as he can and it would be unfair on my child to be compared to others, when he should be pushed only in relation to his own abilities. Am horrified that the teacher in OP's case has got it so very wrong. I'm sure my own DS would be devastated if he were humiliated in this way (and he is just a normal boy, no SEN)

OneTwoBuckleMyShoe · 01/10/2010 10:00

BINGO! (ooops sorry wrong forum Grin )

I think the point echt is trying to make here is that in a normal teaching day teachers do not have much time to talk with parents beyond the examples Claw has given.

For something like this I personally would ask the parent to come back at the end of the school day where we could sit down unrushed and not disturbed to discuss the matter properly and in appropriate detail.

So many times I have taken calls from parents only for the bell to go (middle school so slightly different from primary) and my class needing their teacher, as much as we would love to sort the issue out there and then sometimes the school day does not allow it.

I hope that makes sense, am typing this in a dizzy, ear infection induced daze.

StillSquiffy · 01/10/2010 10:01

Ooops. Very sorry. The bracketed bit in my very last line in that post was unintentionally very offensive. Blush My brother can't read at all because of dyslexia, so you think I should be able to write things more sensitively. Sorry for typing so thoughtlessly.

Welshexpat · 01/10/2010 10:15

My daughter was humiliated by a class teacher for two years and it really affected her confidence for several years. Luckily she did well later and is now a surgeon. However, she is still waiting for the day this teacher attends hospital and finds my daughter is about to attend to her! Unfortunately, for anyone who has experienced these humiliations at school the memories never leave.

Mumi · 01/10/2010 11:00

My heart goes out to your DS carocaro :( I have dyspraxia and DP has dyslexia so I could completely understand wanting this teacher's head on a spike on the school gate.

(Did you go to school in Wilts btw? as if so I used to get flak from him too!)

Aitch · 01/10/2010 11:26

so glad that tethersend has posted. i do find the posts from the teachers a little self-serving tbh, if i was to make such a cardinal error in my job i would expect a full carpeting.

Quenelle · 01/10/2010 13:47

No excuse for calling the teacher a bitch I suppose, but many of the posters obviously feel very hurt for the OP's DS. Feelings run high when you're defending vulnerable little 'uns and the language just reflected that.

I'm sure there's no baying mob on its way to the school bearing pitch forks though.

Quenelle · 01/10/2010 13:48

Oh, and I agree with what others have said. When my 15mo starts school I hope his teachers are more like tethersend.

noblegiraffe · 01/10/2010 14:14

"And a teacher should be able to speak to a parent at any time without an appt"

Who is looking after the kids in the meantime?

hmc · 01/10/2010 15:32

Hmm what a completely random and irrelevent comparison CoupleOfKooks

AlgebraKnocksItUpANotchBAM · 01/10/2010 15:52

late to this thread but wanted to add my support caro - what an awful situation for your poor DS :(

my DSD is dyslexic and though I have many grievances with her schools, at least they have always been sensitive to the fact she can't do as well as others at some things.

please keep us posted on what happens.

in any case, if he's dyslexic and struggling that badly with tests, is he doing the same tests as everyone else? aren't they differentiated so he would get easier ones?

CoupleofKooks · 01/10/2010 18:27

hmc why? the points raised seem to be the same to me, however on the sports day threads the tide of opinion nearly always goes the other way

the fact is that some children have difficulties with physical activities and that it can be humiliating damaging, and insensitive, to force them to compete in public in these activities

unless i have completely missed the point, this thread is about the fact that some children have difficulties with various academic activities and that it can be humiliating, damaging and insensitive, to force them to compete in public in these activities

please explain which part of my post is random and irrelevant

Aitch · 01/10/2010 22:31

i thought yours was a good point, kooks, i suppose though where it differs is that this child has a diagnosis and people who are crap at sports are just crap at sports. i think it's most unlikely that a child in a wheelchair, let's say, would be expected to compete in a high jump just cos everyone else in the class can do it.

desertgirl · 01/10/2010 23:45

Is there, in principle, a difference between being 'disabled' with a diagnosable disability and being 'disabled' without one though? never mind competitive sports days; PE lessons in general were even in my day (long, long ago) the worst breeding grounds for this sort of bullying - by both staff and students.

If a child is uncoordinated enough or otherwise physically unable to hit the hockey ball/run at the same sort of speed as his/her classmates/whatever, no matter how much he/she practises, is it 'ok' to humiliate that child on a regular basis in front of his/her peers because it isn't a diagnosable disability? Sports days just add an extra layer of embarrassment with the additional audience....

Aitch · 01/10/2010 23:48

perhaps not but a diagnosis is something that even the thickest and meanest teacher should be able to understand.

hmc · 02/10/2010 01:15

Christ on a bike - if a really must! Not being able to run very fast in the 100 metres race is frankly not so stigmatizing or serious in any way as having your life chances severely limited by a specific learning difficulty which is not understood, even by so called professionals.

hmc · 02/10/2010 01:16

You really are incredibly obtuse

Thruaglassdarkly · 02/10/2010 01:18

No way should you put up with this! Did this teacher person actually train as a teacher or were they dragged in off the streets??? How unprofessional and callous. I'd be raging.

hmc · 02/10/2010 01:20

FFS! [thunders away in an impotently angry way and kicks an imaginary dog]

CoupleofKooks · 02/10/2010 08:48

hmc, i have no idea why you are so angry, hmc
i'm not incredibly obtuse and it's very rude of you to say that i am
i don't know why you need to close down the debate in such an aggressive and impolite way just because you don't agree with what i am saying

Aitch · 02/10/2010 09:06

Shock hmc... you couldn't just answer the point? it's a fair point, although there are scales. children who are less co-ordinated do feel sick about things like sports days. i certainly HATED them. now that i am an adult, however, i see that it was a chance to shine for lots of children who perhaps didn't do so well in the classroom, so i personally am fine with competitive sports days, but it is something worth thinking about imo.

desertgirl · 02/10/2010 09:37

hmc - of course it doesn't affect your life in the same way; possibly even if taken to the extent of being a physical disability (it is a spectrum, isn't it; if you are uncoordinated enough you would get a diagnosis of something), but we aren't talking about affecting your life, we are talking about a teacher setting up kids for humiliation and bullying.

I do think the classroom one is far worse, apart from anything else it is every day, but the principal does seem to be basically the same and couple of kooks' point was really the logical inconsistency, wasn't it?

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