Unfair treatment of my daughter by class teacher

[Mummy20192]

Need some opinion please... my 9 yr old dd was very excited since summer holidays to return to school and to be able to run for the class eco monitor.. she did research on oceans, pollution over the lockdown all ready for election of the year. Anyways she won the ecomonitor role in class by democratic vote of her peers. She was super proud and excited.

Today she goes into school, and her teacher tells her that a senior member of staff has said that she has to share her role with the eco monitor of PST year as that child is very passionate about the environment.

My port dd is sad and embarrassed as she thinks her teachers think that she’s not good enough to be eco monitor even though her classmates voted for her.

I explained to her that’s it’s ok to share the role, but now I’m thinking that it’s completely unfair on the part of the teachers to put my child in this situation when no other children in the school is having to jobshare apart from my dd. Am i overreacting?

@takeabrolly

FFS parents like the OP are one of the reasons I took early retirement from teaching.

!

Am I alone in seeing the funny side of this? I can just imagine the teacher getting this email, slowly closing their laptop and pouring another glass of wine

Its unfair. Really unfair. But I think you need to let it slide and downplay it for her sake rather than blow it up out of proportion.

Point out that even the Queen doesn't run the country on her own. And that they have a very important interest in common and working together in one role, they could make one hell of a team.

@Hoppinggreen

I actually agree OP, it’s not fair However, things like this will happen throughout school and work and you need to put a brave face on it and try and be positive about it (at least in front of your DD)

Yes i agree

Personally i wouldnt be overly positive And i would agree with her that its unfair, but i would be trying help her find whatever positives there might be

I suspect the other girl's mum was more of a Karen about it than you're being and got in first with her complaint! It does make no sense why they went through the rigmarole of an election then appointed another child, unless someone kicked off about that child not winning...

It is a bit unfair for yours after the effort she put in, but she'll only be upset about it if she sees you kicking off. For her sake, make it one of those times where you bite your tongue and get on with it.

FGS she's 9 - even with 2 of them they're not going to split the bloody atom- everything at school is more fun if you can pull together as a team and enjoy yourselves together - this is what you should be telling her

You have taken the 'voting' part of this far too seriously
School is not a grey, faceless enforcer of all righteous adult laws - it is a nurturing environment in which HUNDREDS of things are going on in the background- instead of immediately jumping to the teacher must have favourites- why don't you trust them that they might me delivering care and personalised guidance to the other child

Wind your bloody neck in

@Hoppinggreen

I actually agree OP, it’s not fair However, things like this will happen throughout school and work and you need to put a brave face on it and try and be positive about it (at least in front of your DD)

You agree it's not fair but won't say anything and accept this will happen again? Madness I would bring it to their attention, these things are a huge to children, it matters to them and shouldn't be dismissed so easily It's not the teachers fault it's the person who made the decision to allow it to be shared I think they should have explained to the children that the previous candidate will continue in the role due to the circumstances and not put it to a vote

Your child should resign the position. She was elected to be "eco monitor" (seriously?) and has been demoted to "co-eco monitor" at best.

If she becomes disillusioned with elections and politics at such a young age it will be a valuable lesson for her. Maybe encourage her to undermine the other person and form a constructive opposition against them, a year-long campaign to discredit them.

I don’t like the ‘voting’ process between the class DCs anyway. It reminds me of my time at school with PE when the choosing for teams by your classmates wasn’t necessarily based on who was the best at PE, but who the most popular were in the class. I think teachers should decide, based on maybe good behaviour and enthusiasm for the role. Otherwise you get a situation where the ‘popular’ ones just get the roles every time. Your daughter will be guided on your reaction to the situation - if you vocalise your thoughts on it being unfair etc, then your daughter will feel crap about it, but if you explain to her about how sharing the role is going to be a really good way of sharing ideas, then she will be more accepting of it.

She’s just gonna wander about turning lights off with the occasional glamorous bin sift thrown in. Unless it’s a tiny school an extra pair of hands will be helpful, surely

On the face of it the problem seems silly, but if we step back a moment and remember our own schooldays I’m sure a fair few of us can remember the instances of unfairness. It burns at the time as when we are young it’s hard to see things as anything other than unjust when a teacher is directing things from behind the scenes as opposed to from the front.

I only once complained to the dcs’ primary school, and that was when they formed an Enrichment Group. This same group of six kids got to go up to London several times - visiting the National Gallery, Houses of Parliament. They went kayaking and had etiquette lunches with the head (!). All at school’s expense. Now, if these were deprived/disadvantaged pupils, absolute fair play. But they weren’t - it was the six most outgoing pupils. It was some kind of “stars of the future” exercise. It turned out I wasn’t the only parent who not only stuck their head above the parapet, but climbed over and stormed the citadel.

I’d respect the teacher’s decision.
For whatever reason the teacher has deemed it would be better for her to have a partner. Perhaps she thinks your daughter would struggle and may need the support. Perhaps the other child is unpopular and would never win the vote but the teacher knows they’d do a great job. Perhaps the other kid needs a confidence boost or a distraction.
Whatever the reason, you’ve said yourself that two heads are better than one, so try to make your daughter see it as a positive or support her in her decision to quit.

Very unfair. Will the other child be doing two roles then - library monitor and Eco-monitor? From threads I have seen here it seems teachers are rigging elections left, right and centre. If elections don't work at school, don't have them. Have an application process instead where views of class can be taken into consideration, I.e.children vote but teacher decides overall. Above all be transparent about the process. The child shoehorned in did not even stand. Ridiculous. I would have a gentle word with the teacher about how this has made your child feel.

Is she having to share with the child who won it last year (possibly for a term maybe) because they missed a whole term.

If so that makes sense and just explain that to her

@MomToTwoBabas

Omg of course you are overreacting. Massively. I don't like to say it as it's a lovely name but you are being..... a Karen.

"Being a Karen" is misogynistic crap.

OP I don't think you or your daughter are unreasonable but I agree there is no point in taking it up with the school, even though they have handled this badly. If there is some sort reason for the other kid needing to be a monitor then the teacher should have created a new role just for her, not undermined the voting by splitting an existing one. Tell DD that you understand but life isn't always fair and she just needs to do the best she can. Kids aren't stupid and her classmates will all know who they voted for! If the other girl isn't actually keen to be an eco monitor she will soon fall by the wayside anyway.

I'm kinda with you OP - I think this sends a poor message to the kids about the rules being optional when someone in authority says so. Being fair and consistent is very important if they are going to respect their role models.

I do think you should talk to the school to try and understand their rationale a little better. On the face of it, it does seem very unfair to your daughter who has tried her best and won fair and square.

Honestly though, having an eco-committee or group might actually work better and teach them valuable collaboration skills. If they are going to change the process after it has already started, I do think this needs to be properly explained to the children.

@StatementKnickers you got there before me - the Karen bullshit is fucking nasty sexist shit. If the other poster thinks that the OP is wrong, she should explain why instead of throwing lazy insults around that amount to "let's shame the uppity woman for having an opinion rather than engage with what she has to say".

Men don't get called out for being assertive. Women do. "Karen" is just the new word used to put women in their place and tell them to shut up. It's very sad to see a woman use it on another woman. And it's not very nice for all the women out there who are actually called Karen!!

Real life involves collaboration. This is a good lesson so YABU. We can't save the planet as individuals can we?

What are we teaching our children about democratic vote?

Given the state of the country, we're teaching them the pitfalls of FPTP and a two-party system. We've also taught them that if you're going to have a referendum that could bring about major constitutional change, it should require a super majority, as is done in other countries that use referendums more frequently.

So your daughter is sharing the role with last year's eco-monitor who could only do the job for a few months before we went into lockdown? Seems fair if that's the case. Your daughter can learn from her and work with her.

Op i agree its unfair but i wouldn't jump straight to say it was favouritism. The fact the other child had already been appointed another position and then theychanged their minds. I think has less to do with your daughter and more about the other child. Maybe they missed out on half the job last year and were upset and parent complained, maybe they are having a hard time at home/school, maybe they have special needs,maybe they she's shy or not very confident and they think yiur daughter can help bring out the best in her. It could be a number of things. I wouldnt make too much of it and try to spin it in a positive light for your daughter. Agree that it's unfair but that it can also turn out to be a really good thing for both children.

I think posters are being unfair, this is a place where mums can come and just ask for an opinion on something - I would say some posters have gone bonkers!

OP, I'm with you, I think this is very unfair but I wouldn't go into school, I would deal with this at home. I would explain to my DD that you are not always in control of how decisions are made because you don't have all the information. You always have a choice, if you feel you have been hard done by and that is to just get on with it because you really want to do it or walk away. In this situation I am sure your DD will still want to do the role, however there are risks aren't there e.g the other child could take over.

It's interesting that people are saying that individual children should be treated differently. A lot of children have issues etc you can't include all of them, just encourage etc. Maybe it took the OPs DD a lot of courage to do this - posters don't know anything about her DD. Perhaps the other child (who is older) should be taught that it was unfortunate her position was cut short but that's life, get over it.

Lastly agree with other poster, decision smacks of 'be nice', female socialisation.

Your daughter will be guided on your reaction to the situation - if you vocalise your thoughts on it being unfair etc, then your daughter will feel crap about it, but if you explain to her about how sharing the role is going to be a really good way of sharing ideas, then she will be more accepting of it.

THIS.

My dd has always been closely involved in school plays, youth theatre etc etc and there are few fields which leave more potential for unfair decisions or decisions that children find unfair or decisions that parents find unfair.

I have certainly found myself in a position where I have felt very strongly that parts that should have gone to dd or some other hard-working, talented child have gone to the more popular child or the child of a friend of the group leader.

These moments happen. It's a question of how you want these moments to work for your dd. Do you want her to develop a sense of "there's not point in trying, life is unfair and everybody is horrible!"? Or would you rather she learnt to turn her disappointments into positives? In the present case, it seems more than likely, if both girls are positive about it, that two people working together will learn more and have more fun. You can do this for your daughter.

It’s actually massively more unfair on the children who prepared for the election and weren’t selected. I would be really upset if I were their mother.

@BowStreetStunner you’re a teacher? 😬

This is why I honestly think class votes when they're young are a waste of time. Nobody is ever happy, someone's always complaining (in this case probably the parent of last year's monitor), there's a huge risk of popularity contests, there's too many parents acting like being some monitor or class rep is the be all and end all.

I agree it's unfair OP. Your child put the effort in and was voted in. Had she not bothered then it would be fair to discount any candidate who didn't bother, but she engaged with the process and won on merit.