The way (some) teachers talk to students and anyone

[Lurcherloves]

I had a meeting at DS school today about his a levels. He is lazy and did need a kick. But the head of sixth form, who is not one of his teachers, basically just launched into a tirade of abuse for about 20 minutes. The two other teachers there didn’t know where to look (and tried to undo some of her damage afterwards) She was saying he shouldn’t be working (10 hours a week, I think it gives good life skills) will be sitting on the sofa next year (he won’t) her five year old does two hours a day home work on and on very aggressively. There was nothing motivational and on reflection, I cannot think of any where in the adult world where it would be acceptable to talk to someone as she did. She was incredibly patronising to me ( I am more qualified than her but didn’t feel the need to point this out and have worked as a lecturer at a college before qualifying into another profession. I knew full well a lot of what she was saying was nonsense.)
AIBU or do some teachers talk to everyone in a patronising manner? This lady certainly got a little carried away with herself. I was quite shocked at the power trip she was on.

That’s awful!! Complain.

Outside of work and timetabled sessions the time is your own. So any tasks should be set with realistic deadlines and time to do it with respect that outside timetables hours people will have other commitments

To do really well at Alevel students probably need to spend at least half the time studying independently as they do in tutorials- so for every hour of taught time, they’ll need to be putting in at least half an hour working independently. That ramps up during exam and assignment time.

Also: OP, will you be starting a thread saying that 2 thirds of teachers are helpful and supportive?

It takes a lot more than an extra ten hours a week for A-Levels but there is still plenty of time to study for a lot more than that with a part time job. For one thing there are usually free periods in school/college, it's not wall to wall lessons 9-3. Perhaps he should go to a different school or sixth form college, OP. I absolutely loved my sixth form college, and one reason was that I was treated like an adult, with the mutual respect from teachers I'd wanted at school.

@WayTooSoon

On a teacher forum a couple of teachers who regularly went oout with their nin teacher spouses found out the non teachers had invented their own class so they could join in the conversation. Sometimes the teacher in us just pops out.

OP
I've worked as a lecturer and as a teacher, they are totally different things

YANBU to feel it was inappropriate if she literally ranted in an abusive way about your son for 20 whole minutes (which obviously didn’t happen because why would you allow that to?!). The things she said were certainly not my approach although obviously I haven’t dealt with young adults. YABU to extend this to other teachers though.

but there is still plenty of time to study for a lot more than that with a part time job. For one thing there are usually free periods in school/college, it's not wall to wall lessons 9-3.

There are usually a couple a week. They don’t usually cover the required time to do the work, and lots of kids make this error.

Anyway, the bottom line is that I don’t know a single person (and I know a few) who has qualified in a profession or worked in a well-paid training scheme or run a lab or done anything prestigious, who isn’t prepared to get their heads down and prioritise their work. I guess it is up to the individual what they are willing to do. But don’t expect the teacher to sugarcoat it.

@Graciebobcat

I worked Saturday and Sunday evenings in a pub and went out Friday until about 11.30pm and often Monday nights- student night in a club so we weren't in bed until 3am, then got up for college the next day. Still time to do my a-levels, and that attitude set me up for life. Any job which requires compromise on a work life balance long term isn't worth it for your mental or physical health. I earn a very good salary in a professional job and don't work all the hours.

Lovely for you, but OP's son clearly isn't giving time to working for his A levels, so this is irrelevant.

As for the notion that A level students need to work in order to gain life skills - why limit it to A level students? Why not make them work from age 10 upwards?

Or you could be realistic and recognise that hundreds of thousands of people do absolutely fine on the life skills front without having compromised their A levels.

@itsgettingweird

People on a power trip are everywhere!

My ds lecturer decided they had to do a project the last 5 days of term. She set it but won't give them the whole tasks and has said she'll let them know each day what they have to do that evening. This means ds cannot crack on this weekend but has to work for 2-3 hours (after being at college 9-4.30 on Monday and Tuesday).

I questioned if ds had got wrong end of the stick (he's autistic and can misunderstand at times) and explained he's a swimmer and trains Monday and Tuesday (and many other!) evenings and this seems an odd thing to do as many also have PT work and also other commitments.

Her reply was "we are a course where we are preparing them for the
professional world"

She had no response to mine of "so you think that teaching children they should work 24/7 and have no family commitments and free time is teaching them how their work life balance should be? Surely in a 9-5 job we shouldn't be teaching our children to work longer for free and encouraging a culture of expectation from employers?"

Fwiw I have no issue with homework and study and accept that's part of studying for your career. I also am very strict with ds balancing this with all his swimming.

But to speak to a class of students the way she did that they should work for 3 hours Monday evening if she demands over everything else is awful. And IMO doesn't encourage the love of studying and is the opposite of motivating!

“People on a power trip everywhere” - what does even mean? I don’t understand, where exactly? Do you mean those who disagree with the OP or are you referring to your son’s teacher?

Maybe it would have been easier for your son to receive the whole project at once and for others, my youngest sister being an example of this, would prefer to work on parts of a project every day and then it’s all compiled together in the end. Which way is the right way? Perhaps the teacher should have given her students a choice because I know which way I’d prefer to work whereas others would prefer to work in a different way. I always give my students options when it comes to projects but the deadlines are always very clear. And then I usually device a schedule so students have time to work on their own projects and can continue at home. But I work in EFL and we all have different ways of doing things.

But what does this have to do with people being on a power trip?

YABU to extend this to other teachers though

This.

I had a dreadful experience at the GP surgery this week. The nurse I saw was rude, unhelpful, dismissive and unkind.

I would never in a million years start a post moaning about ‘some’ nurses. It was her who upset me, for whatever reason-maybe she was having a bad day. That can’t be extrapolated to any other nurse.

I have heard of people having mother in laws who seem horrible, or who have encountered receptionists who were very rude-that says nothing about anything except them.

Some people can seem rude, yes.

devise*

For obvious reasons, schools are somewhat pressured at the moment. (as is everyone).
The head of 6th form will be SLT, who are mostly firefighting at the moment. She has time, together with two other teachers (is this after school? they'll have no other time) to conduct a meeting in which she rants and the other parties are mute.
As there are no face to face meetings in school, this must be exceptional. Four adults couldn't meet in a regular office. Was it a conference room? The hall?
The cleaners would then have to deep clean.
All this for a bad/patronising teacher to rant?
In our Academy Trust three are only virtual meetings. If the yr12 tracking is poor, parents are invited to join a virtual meeting on the Cloud.
Last week a poster complained about her child's teacher not attending parents' eve. It was deleted. Event didn't happen.

@Fedup21

YABU to extend this to other teachers though

This.

I had a dreadful experience at the GP surgery this week. The nurse I saw was rude, unhelpful, dismissive and unkind.

I would never in a million years start a post moaning about ‘some’ nurses. It was her who upset me, for whatever reason-maybe she was having a bad day. That can’t be extrapolated to any other nurse.

I have heard of people having mother in laws who seem horrible, or who have encountered receptionists who were very rude-that says nothing about anything except them.

Some people can seem rude, yes.

I completely agree, but I’m sorry to hear that you’ve had a horrible experience with that nurse

So people should accept bullying because of pressure? No, sorry. I shouldn’t have to put up with that. Nor should anyone.

People berating the OP for not stepping in (if this is a real thread) well tbh I get that. I’ve certainly been so taken aback that I’ve sat there mute and it’s only been later I’ve wondered why I didn’t say this or that.

It doesn’t make a difference if the kid is a lazy toad or not. There’s a difference between pointing out more effort is needed generally and an all out assassination on someone’s character.

Well it could be that this teacher is under pressure and this lazy teenager was the final straw so got it with both barrels.

It could also be that this teacher is an arse.

But I do agree with your general point that children get spoken to in an unacceptable manner. I think back to some of the things said to me and frankly wish I had realised it wasnt ok and had told them to fuck off. Those individuals were a minority and I had mostly wonderful teachers.

It doesn’t make a difference if the kid is a lazy toad or not. There’s a difference between pointing out more effort is needed generally and an all out assassination on someone’s character.

Well, I would agree that “you are a lazy toad” is a character assassination. But what this teacher seems to have said is that the kid isn’t getting the work done. What else?

“Tirade of abuse for about twenty minutes”?

If your work wasn’t up to scratch, this wouldn’t be the way of dealing with it.

I’ve referred to kids as lazy toads. It’s affectionate and wouldn’t be appropriate for a meeting of this nature. It’s unlikely to change anything, just make him feel the teacher is an arse. And no 5 year old should be doing two hours of homework either.

Reading your OP again...made me think. We had DC’s sixth form parents evening this week. It was remote and we had a prearranged slot with each teacher and were cut off after 5 minutes. To get 2 teachers plus the head of sixth form for 20 minutes sounds very different!

Whereabouts in the world are you?!

It sounds like she perhaps didn't address you properly, but as a 6th form teacher, the lazy students are often the most difficult to support.
A big part of my job is academic mentoring and I work my arse off trying to help kids who are falling behind. I can only do so much, and it's incredibly frustrating when the students don't apply themselves to the progress plans we create.

I would only refer to the head of 6th if it was serious, so maybe they're at the end of their rope with him.

Also, we have a contract with our students that they should only do paid work for 8 hours a week. Any more than this and it often affects their additional learning. Obviously many of them ignore us and work more hours, but you can kind of tell the ones that are because they're not focusing on their studies in quite the same way.

I realise you were put out by her manner, but the content of what she was saying must be the more important thing?

(and I've done a couple of in person meetings during the pandemic.)

“Tirade of abuse for about twenty minutes”?

What are you imagining here? All I can see is that the teacher said, if he doesn’t do more work, he’ll be on the sofa this time next year, and he shouldn’t have a part-time job. Calling something a tirade of abuse does not make it a tirade of abuse. To me, a tirade of abuse would be, “You lazy little bastard, I’ve never met anyone as stupid and idle as you in twenty years of teaching....”

But the teacher didn’t do that. The teacher spoke her mind, yes, and - what a surprise - mother of lazy child did not like it.

@Fedup21

Reading your OP again...made me think. We had DC’s sixth form parents evening this week. It was remote and we had a prearranged slot with each teacher and were cut off after 5 minutes. To get 2 teachers plus the head of sixth form for 20 minutes sounds very different!

Whereabouts in the world are you?!

It might well be a troll, purely here to wind up teachers. Or, it might be that not all schools are the same. Who knows.

I work in a secondary school (tier 2) and we regularly have parents in for meetings, rightly or wrongly.

It says in the OP there was a tirade of abuse for twenty minutes flav

I have been subjected to similar myself. I can believe it. Of course, it could be bollocks as well: who knows.

YABU because the vast majority of teachers aren't like that. She sounds weird if she makes her 5 year old do 2 hours of homework a day. That's bad parenting IMO.
The teachers at my children's school are respectful to parents

The OP hasn’t returned the the thread and had a history of teacher bashing posts. What’s the point of even engaging? It’s unlikely it actually happened IMO.

@Arrivederla - well that goes against Education dept advice - it doesn't matter what tier you are in, currently no face to face with parents. Extra cleaning, extra space, etc plus the Headteachers have extra problems with the track and trace. It's very problematic.