to think dd's teacher was maybe over-reacting a tad?

[Northernlurker]

Apparently dd has been 'very rude' today as per the message from teacher via after school club. Very rude consists of not listening to story but talking to friends and then saying 'no' when told to stop and 'no' when told to move. Now I agree this is very rude and the teacher obviously dealt with it at length because dd was in floods of tears when collected by after school club. I have spoken to dd and she was talking because the book was one we have at home and she was telling her friends as much. At the end of a hot day, at the end of term her attention is shot to pieces as is that of most of the other kids. AIBU to think that a message home about this infraction was overkill. She didn't get a warning, she didn't get a timeout - and really what am i supposed to do about this? i speak to dd about her day every day. i am clear about what is expected but seeing as she's a stubborn 4 who has been at school less than a term i don't expect miracles. Frankly impressed we've got this far.

Or should I be grovelling tomorrow?

nah, math isn't mad, that's unfair.

But I do think on this occasion, very unrealistic, and whilst I do respect your philosophical approach to childcare, I'm not sure how being so child-centric to one individual is helpful or practical in a social, communal setting

The information Mathanxiety thinks she could extrapolate from one incident was utterly bonkers, imo.

yes. That can happen when you've got an agenda.

I agree with Jamie.

Math is far from mad on this subject or on others.

I can see why some people found her unrealistic on this thread but they argued the point.

But I'm sure she can stick up for herself

Feenie -- 'Go on then, enlighten us - what did you mean by posting 'I see we haven't moved on much?'

I was referring to the shocking attitude of those posters who claimed that four year olds (and apparently four year old girls in particular) can 'turn on the waterworks' whenever it pleases.

Go and read the poem again, carefully this time. You have managed to get the wrong end of the stick.

I meant that some people who found her views unrealistic played the ball not the player. Some people didn't. That says more about them than her.

But I see she's more than able to defend herself, so I'll bow out now.

I think that the DD in OP was upset and crying, but it is a fact that some 4 yr olds can turn on the waterworks! It obviously works with their mother and it is quite funny to ignore them and watch them peek to see the effect -they then decide it isn't worth it or they do it a bit harder! (only a small minority,I hasten to add).
Watching 4 yr olds trying behaviour that works for them at home is funny-they can be very dramatic! School is a learning experience-valuable for learning how to get on with others.

Very poor example to use to make that particular point, mathanxiety - I would choose more carefully next time.

GettingHappy
There are many, many companies offering professional development courses in classroom/behaviour management. It's a booming business. Initial teacher training barely covers the basics.

'David Moore, a former Ofsted inspector with special responsibility for behaviour and discipline policy, said it was wrong to have dropped child psychology from teacher training in the Education Reform Act of 1988.

"Most teachers manage youngsters well, despite the fact that in initial teacher training, since Kenneth Baker became secretary of state for education, there has been no training in child development and child psychology - which is is an extraordinary thing," Mr Moore told MPs.

"If you do a three-year course, if you're lucky, you get four to five hours and if you're on a PGCE course, which is now how most teachers come into the profession, you're lucky if you get in between an hour and two hours on classroom management and behaviour.

"Now Marks and Spencers spend more money on training their staff to handle angry customers than we actually give to teachers, which is extraordinary." '

It shows.
It is really obvious on this thread that there are people in classrooms who don't know what they are doing or why. Sadly it seems that the idea that things can and should be done differently has boggled the minds of those who have got used to things as they are and always have been. As has been pointed out several times on this thread, the UK is not exactly a beacon of light to the rest of the world in educational terms.

To see terms like bonkers, woo, and other ridiculous expressions of disbelief applied to practices and an approach that are applied with great success elsewhere makes me shake my head sadly. A lot of people really need to get out more, take off the blinkers, see more of the world.

Not applied to the approach, Math - to your daft and, quite frankly, bordering-on-obsessional wrongs that you decided to heap upon this teacher.

Getting out more would seem to be very good advice

I think the teacher in OP would be shaking her head in disbelief, if she read this thread! It was a simple incident-she dealt with it.

Oh it was indeed applied to the approach I described Feenie. Did you miss the 'woo' and 'luffly' bits?

She dealt with it badly if the end result was a crying child. If you expect 'simple incidents' of this kind to crop up in the first place, and accept that the way she dealt with it was fine then that is a problem. Clearly there are low expectations of teachers' skills along with the unrealistic expectations of four year olds' behaviour.

'Tom Burkard, a research fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies, told MPs better standards of teaching were key to improving behaviour.

"The endemic problem that we've had for far too long is that we're looking at the child and what is wrong with the child and we are not looking at what's wrong with the learning environment," he said.

"Anyone who ran a business by trying to decide what was wrong with their customers rather than what was wrong with their services would soon be out of business." '

Anyone care to comment on this insight?

I will leave you too it Maths, and sit on my hands if I am tempted to contribute further.I would just love to be a fly on the wall if you were reading a story to a whole class of 4 yr olds.

The endemic problem that we've had for far too long is that we're looking at the child and what is wrong with the child and we are not looking at what's wrong with the learning environment," he said

I will take my own advice after this. I would be looking at the learning environment of all the DCs and not letting one DC dictate the learning environment.

You are still so far from getting it, EF.
'The learning environment' does in fact refer to the learning environment for all the children...

Anybody else care to address the question of a fundamentally flawed approach to classroom management (perhaps in light of the afore-mentioned waterworks remarks if a concrete example will help you focus)?

Hands up now...

Maybe Mr Burkard would like to challenge OFSTED and allow teachers to decide on how they teach in the classroom.

I used to really not respect the teachers who had no patience and would go from 0 - 100 over seemingly very little. It just confuses and demotivates children if there is no consist approach.

math. I used to be a Clinical Psychologist.

I acknowledge that there are some teachers who seem to have less knowledge about normal development than they should. Can't say I've encountered any on this thread.

There may be interpersonal factors between this teacher, that led to a defiant attitude in this child. That's an issue which it might be worth NL monitoring.

But there may not. The teacher may have dealt with what is a fairly common problem in what I consider to be an entirely reasonable way (by the way, you didn't answer me when I commented that your suggested approach - engaging the children in listening to the story by holding hands - might result in another problem, such as pushing, which you would then have to deal with. I asked you how you'd do that ....).

You have made huge assumptions on this thread.

I think it highly unreasonable to use this thread to assert that one child's upset is evidence of a flawed system. Children will experience frustration, shame, upset and be reprimanded, as they go through the process of learning to fit in with the needs of others. Which is what they must do at school. As long as that is balanced with feelings of control, mastery and praise then that's good enough, in my book

Anyone care to comment on this insight?

How about the insight that you can't run education like a business?

This thread has brought to light the fact that there are people who are ignorant of child development and child psychology, and proud of it. A system where few of the 'professionals' involved can be assumed to know what they need to know about the raw material they are working with at the point when they are let loose on classrooms of small children is one which is deeply flawed.

The thread has demonstrated in the case of both parents and teachers alike that they have expectations of behaviour for four year old children that are wildly unrealistic and based on ignorance, yet they support the sort of measures taken in classrooms (by teachers who themselves are ignorant of child development and badly trained when it comes to class management) that result in a child being upset to the point of tears and expect the child and the parent affected by this inappropriate approach to classroom management to suck it up and get over themselves.

OK. I think we'll agree to differ, then

The thread has demonstrated in the case of both parents and teachers alike that they have expectations of behaviour for four year old children that are wildly unrealistic and based on ignorance

No, it hasn't. It really, really hasn't, and you are being something of a drama queen in insisting that it does, mathanxiety. You may have a point about the amount of child development training and classroom management training a PGCE can possibly squish into it, but that really isn't illustrated here - for one, you have no idea what kind of training this teacher has had, or any of the posters on this thread, for that matter, so it doesn't marry up. I had plenty of training in both in my 4 years of a Primary Education degree; that and 20 years' experience tells me you are barking up the wrong tree here. Maybe you should start a thread about your point - then it might be relevant?

Can't be all that ignorant and unrealistic if all the other children were managing to live up to the wildly unreasonable expectation that they sit still and be quiet for a little while at the end of the day!

Math

you missed out

IMO
or
IMHO