To want to give ds's PE teacher

[meowli]

a piece of my mind? Ds came home with a lovely report (yr 7), apart from PE, where he got a C - fine, and this comment - not fine imo.

"Ds is a pleasant student." "He is well motivated, keen to learn but lacking in confidence. He is not blessed with a huge amount of physical prowess (my bold), but he always gives his best effort. A productive year in which he has established a good platform. Target: To keep working hard, and with greater belief in your capabilities"

After reading the report, I knew ds would be upset, as he loves sport, and would love to do well, be picked for teams at school, events on sports day etc. but it never happens. He plays for a fairly successful junior football team outside school, and is regularly picked for the team, so is not by any means hopeless, but will realistically never get anywhere near school 'A' teams (or any teams) I don't suppose.

Of course, I didn't voice any of this to ds, just said well done for such a great report, at which point he grimaced and said had I read the PE comment, which said he didn't have any physical prowess.

I feel like emailing the teacher to say that if he wants to encourage ds's confidence and a greater belief in his capabilities, telling him that he is not blessed with a huge amount of physical prowess is not the best way of going about it.

AIBU and WWYD?

Every and I mean every single PE teacher I've ever had the misfortune to come across has been vile, one made my friend pull her pants down to look at her sanitary towel because she didn't believe she was on her period

YABU. Take this as an opportunity to develop some grit in your DS's personality. In life, he will have to learn to work harder at things he is not innately good at. If you give the teacher a piece of your mind, don't be surprised if you get nothing but generic copy and paste reports from now on.

I don't like the sentence.
Agree with mousethew's first post completely.
Plus in yr 7 - he's not going to stay that child forever! In year 13 he won't suddenly be blessed with more physical prowess, he will have come by it from his hard work, practice, determination at whatever sports he does do and he will physically change as he grows older!
Would be tempted to raise it to the teacher myself but might also laugh it off and forget about it.

I wonder what percentage of the country's qualified PE teachers you've met? And you have a pretty poor opinion of teachers in general iirc.

That was to sonlypuppyfat.

Surprised to come back to lots more posts! To answer some points - No, it isn't a private school. He's Yr 7 - 11 yrs old. No, I don't think I am making a bigger deal about this than my ds. I didn't even mention PE, and was completely positive about his report, but I knew that no amount of good grades and positive comments for his other subjects would make up for what he interpreted as "you are not very good at sport". He feels it so keenly because he does try so hard and wants to be better. I think that even some indication that although he is not a high achiever in sport, there is some potential to do better (surely there is for everyone?), would have been more encouraging.

He's very good at setting himself personal targets, like shaving time off his timed runs. He knows he will never compete with the best runners in the school, but he tells me he is now quicker by over 3 mins, compared with the start of the year. Not mentioned in the report.

Sorry I haven't mentioned names, but thanks to all who have given me ideas for positive reinforcement and made me feel more confident that I'm not being completely unreasonable!

I might just make an appt. for the first time ever to see a PE teacher at parent's evening next term, and maybe mention ds's outside activities, and attempt to elicit (in front of ds) a reassurance that there is always room for improvement, which I don't think came across in the report.

I find that comment rather too personal. I teach a subject where "prowess", or natural ability / talent, is a significant factor and definitely wouldn't make a remark like this on a report.

there is always room for improvement

I should have said the possibility for improvement.

I agree that it's a very unhelpful comment, and likely to be counter-productive. My aunt and uncle were very very good PE teachers. Their child did not inherit their sporty physique but was very interested in machines and how they work. But my aunt and uncle believed that there was a sport for everyone, and my cousin eventually competed at a national level in archery.

Oh, and I only did after 'pleasant', because it's a bit....insipid, I suppose. That may have been unreasonable of me!

To tell a prepubescent boy he's not blessed with a huge amount of prowess could be seen to a young boy as questioning his manliness. Now for all number of reasons I disagree with this, not least because I want a more egalitarian society where manliness isn't a defining thing but that's my utopia. I can totally see why what an (ignorant) PE teacher thinks it is a relevant fact could be heartbreaking to a boy about to embark on adulthood. In my mind it enforces stereotypes about being macho equating with good at sports and not to be good at sports questions... what? It probably wasn't intended as a put down or anything other than he tries hard but the judgement here is that it's unnatural to him and using words like prowess pigeonholes your son at a time when he's still very much developing from a child's body and needs to find his own place.

If he's allowed let him watch The Goldbergs where the PE teacher is in the scene. It rang very true of my experience of PE in high school and might give him a laugh about how ridiculous the whole prowess thing is!

It's interesting that people take prowess to mean some sort of natural ability, I wouldn't've believed that as the main sense (it just means being very good at the skill regardless of how that mastery was attained to my mind.) It could well be this difference of opinion of the meaning of the word that causes the confusion.

Physical prowess is not saying no natural ability, it's saying he's not (yet) built his body up / developed the skills.

It's interesting that people take prowess to mean some sort of natural ability,

I get your point about 'prowess', sirfred, but I think it was probably the teacher saying "is not blessed with..." that gives the impression that the comment refers to innate ability. "He has not yet displayed a huge amount of physical prowess" might have been better! As pps have said, I think it's the 'not blessed with' that is the damning phrase.

Will have a look at The Goldbergs, Bloop!

Are you sure the PE teacher actually wrote the comment? I mean it's surprising they know of the word "prowess"

FFS. The "PE teachers are thick" stereotyping again.

I think the comment is too personal but I get what your PE teacher meant. I doubt you'd find another teacher stating 'he's not blessed with the finest of minds' or something similar, wouldn't be appropriate and nor is this comment but deemed acceptable because PE is either failure or success dependent upon talent in a lot of
peoples opinions

I doubt you'd find another teacher stating 'he's not blessed with the finest of minds' or something similar,

Not usually, but I do remember from years ago a parent telling me the head of the infant's school our dc were at had said to him, of his ds, " Well, let's face it, he's no Einstein, is he?"

To add to the above, I should say, dc in question did fine at school, and got some good GCSEs.

I think teachers should be honest, rather than build a child's hopes up if they aren't very good at a subject.
Practice doesn't make perfect it makes permanent, so no matter how much you want to be good at something and no matter how hard you work, if you don't have the capability at a high enough level, you should be told.
I can't stand all this pc stuff of always being positive no matter how badly the child has done.

Mine is rubbish at Maths, struggles and doesn't get it. I'd be pissed off if the teacher said she was improving, even marginally, because I know she isn't. If the teacher had more comments about striving for an A I'd be livid. Scraping a C is all she is likely to do, with lots of interventions, she knows this and also appreciated the honesty.
So your dc isn't going to be the next DB, so what, it doesn't matter.

I think it's ok. It's saying 'nice kid, tries hard, not naturally good but keep plugging away'

anasnake
Please don't don't make sweeping statements like that " Reports ...comments bank."
Our reports are all " free typing" we might repeat some statements as in 'We have studied this year... But then the rest is all personally written. It took me several evenings and I just cover PPA other staff spent a lot longer about a week or so of evenings. This is on top of normal planning and no extra time given.

I think teachers should be honest, rather than build a child's hopes up if they aren't very good at a subject.

There's honesty, and there's honesty. He's 11. I don't want him to be told he's going to be the next DB, all I'm asking for is some positives to build on. I would have thought that was a fundamental part of education.

I agree with pp who have said that Target: To keep working hard, and with greater belief in your capabilities is downright lazy. Why not 'Target: Timed run below 19 mins', for example. That's a do-able target aiming for improvement. I'm not expecting it to be on 'Sports Report', but I doubt very much whether the fact that ds has improved his run time by 3 mins is even on the teacher's radar. It should be.

If someone said to me - "You haven't been blessed with great beauty, have you?", that would be honest, but in rather a brutal way. People generally don't take honesty that far in the adult world. Ds doesn't need brutal honesty. He already knows he isn't Usain Bolt!

Some people are just tactless. My ds got "he is very enthusiastic about drama/pe and I think this is because it involves a lot less spelling". I was pissed off....but have decided to let it go, just.

I would tell your ds that it is easy to do well at something when you have natural ability - it takes a lot of character and will power to carry on at it and do your best, when you don't have that natural ability - and that is what the teacher's comment is saying to me - it is very positive, imo.

My father was Head of Maths in a High school. Part of his job was deciding which teacher got which class, so he could have given himself the top classes, with the children who had natural ability in maths and easily did well in exams - but he didn't.

He chose to have the lowest ability classes (they were called the remedial classes, back then), because he got far more satisfaction from seeing someone grasp a concept they hadn't grasped before - their face lighting up when they really understood something - because he knew how much effort had gone into achieving that - from the pupil and from him.

I look at that comment and see the teacher celebrating your son's drive and willingness to work at PE - and that is how I would sell it to him.