Let’s do a new “things parents have blamed teachers for “

[Theos]

I’ll start. ALL MENTAL HEALTH. Our fault.
all lost items - our fault.

Not helping them understand the work when they truant every lesson and I never see them. The reason they truant is that they don't understand the work and I don't help them apparently. This is a parents view.

It's not parent hating, most parents are wonderful! It's shining a light onto the reality of our jobs.

Wow.

"Thick?" seriously?

Is that what they taught you at TTCollege?

I wouldn't assume that poster is a teacher

I doubt that any teacher here hates parents. I've contributed, yet I worked alongside really supportive and appreciative parents in the whole. But there's always a minority who leave you open mouthed. And maybe if others knew what we do occasionally have to deal with, they'd join us with their own eye rolls.

I mean, would YOU complain because your child's teacher has a very slight regional accent, @ichundich ? And by the way, that accent isn't phonetically incorrect at all. But I do say bath, not bahth, for instance. (Meanwhile I'm surrounded by people who say fink, rather than think, and love a good glottal stop!)

I agree and hugely unhelpful to all teachers this week especially.

Additionally deeply disturbing to read of some of the views and in some posts blind ignorance.

Largely I have huge respect for the teaching profession but this thread is depressing. Really divisive and a poor reflection as majority of teachers I deal with are deeply committed often in incredibly trying circumstances and stupidly tight budgets. None of them would make statements like done upthread here.

Appalling.

Well, you won't gain parents' sympathy with shitty and divisive threads like this one.

Things my mother blamed teachers for;

a) me being smarter than her. Sorry, perhaps they should have said 'OK, you're six and you can read now. Best stop learning now because you might hurt her feelings and you know that never ends well for you'

b) me having notions of grandeur to the extent of thinking I might want to go to university. Well, fair enough, it was a teacher who suggested it to me, I'd never thought it was possible before then.

c) having funny food likes. You mean vegetables that weren't from a tin?

d) wanting to drink during meals. Fair dos, they did allow me to have water when that wasn't allowed at home.

e) thinking a kitchen needs to be cleaned and washing up included soap, scrubbing the plate instead of just running it under the cold tap, rinsing, drying and cleaning the sink and bowl. Yep, it was those teachers again.

f) ironing. Not quite, it was being around 500 other kids who as a rule had clean and ironed shirts.

g) wanting to wash my hair more than once a week when I had my only permitted bath.

h) thinking you needed to go to a dentist regularly. Yeah, they probably told me about dentists. There must be a reason why I took myself off to one instead of coming straight home from school one day and they had a quiet conversation just out of earshot before agreeing to treat me.

i) believing that it wasn't OK to be hit. Those bastards, teaching me that it wasn't acceptable.

Totally agree :)

I had a parent should at me because their son that is naughty at home and regularly in trouble with the police was sent out of a different teachers lesson for misbehaving. Apparently it is because I upset him in form time that morning, I was off ill and when I looked to see who had covered it I discovered he had truanted anyway.

Another blamed me because their child had been caught vaping, with their Mums vape that they stole out of her bag, over the school holidays and asked me what I was going to do about it. She wasn’t pleased when I said nothing.

About a year ago I overheard two women in a very ‘naice’ Sainsbury’s saying “Well, apparently WE are expected to help teach her to tie her shoelaces. I mean- what ARE schools for?”

No, I wouldn't complain about a teacher's accent. But teachers on here always accuse parents of "teacher bashing" as soon as someone says one bad word about a teacher. Yet the other way round it's acceptable for some reason? There are good and bad people everywhere in life; no need to generalise.

I doubt they are.

@saraclara I guess the accent thing depends on whether you were teaching phonics? And if so, whether you were teaching the kids phonics for their accent, or teaching that your accent was more "correct". A student teacher tried that, didn't go down well with kids or parents! (RP teacher, regional sounding kids)

All behaviour is communication. Respect goes both ways. I do support the strikes. I also think that if some of the posters here who call kids thick etc are teachers, they need to leave teaching. We're not so short we need that sort teaching.

I agree there are some awful comments here, but we don't know those people are teachers just like we don't really know who anyone is online.

I do really think it's important to draw attention to the fact that many teachers experience blame, anger and abuse from parents and carers.

i was bullied at school by teachers and the kids .
nothing was ever done as the teacher would always side with the bullies which led to me having anxiety panic attacks i had an awful time until i walked out and went to a new school .
The way some are talking on here you should be ashamed .

Saying the word 'toilet' instead of 'lavatory' during the teaching day. This warranted the parent writing a letter to the headmaster. I kid you not.

How fiercely was the child told off, what for and did anyone help to correct his behaviour while he was at the group and speak to his parents so they had a chance to correct his behaviour?

No. There is often zero help given to kids struggling with anxiety unless it is diagnosed so it has to be done to access help. Even then the help isn’t always there.

Throughout my kids schooling, one now in sixth form, one in year 9, we’ve only encountered a handful of bad teachers with terrible attitudes to mental health/neuro diversity and often children in general. The vast majority have been fantastic at both teaching and supporting children and they have a real skill.

The dismissing of anxiety as ‘worry’ is something that all of the terrible teachers we encountered did though, so I’m not surprised to see it on threads like this.

Anxiety is often far more than worry and sometimes teachers do no know the full story. Sometimes they do and they still behave like bullies. It turned out my child’s ‘worry’, that was actually debilitating at times and previously diagnosed as anxiety (ignored by some teachers) was part of being autistic. Those teachers that pushed and mocked and made sarcastic comments because ‘everyone worries’, must feel super proud knowing their words and actions sometimes result in destroying already vulnerable, anxious children.

It’s hard to get GP appointments or referrals to know if a child’s ‘worries’ are actually anxiety or something else so it’s hard to get anything diagnosed. For teachers to minimise it is very wrong. And the ones that continue to minimise it when it’s diagnosed anxiety or ASD etc who need to be sacked. There’s no place for ignorance like that in teaching.

💝

I was a parent helper in a classroom, not my DC's so I didn't really know the students.

One of the children who was undergoing assessment for autism, in under a second, went from working with the TA on an activity to throwing a chair across the room while the other students were sitting as a group on the floor with the teacher (he wasn't capable of sitting with the group and required 1:1).

Not one of the students flinched or even turned around to see what he had done/was doing. It was clearly so commonplace.

My heart broke for all the students. The ones trying to learn while this disruptive behaviour was occurring and this child who should have had more funding and specialist education but didn't because of the focus of sending all students to mainstream schools and closing down schools that cater for SENs.

This is what teachers have to face - and actually one of the teachers ended up on sick leave because one of those chairs was thrown at her and damaged her spine....

I'm not even a teacher and I just feel so bad for teachers right now. It's a really hard job and then you have a bunch of prats on their parents WhatsApp group just endlessly bitching about some bollocks.

@OrderOfTheKookaburra I agree, the underfunding of schools, the lack of funding for SEN provision, all awful. People did vote for this, though. People voted for austerity. This is austerity.

But the parents of that autistic child aren't too blame. That child isn't too blame. Going back to some golden age of being able to shame, cane etc that child isn't going to help.

Just going to leave this here:

uk.jkp.com/collections/childrens-mental-health

Children's mental health week and some book links, I hope some posting here and dismissing this issue will do some reading and maybe speak to some parents trying to support children with anxiety diagnosis. It's a tough gig as is teaching, I support the strikes wholeheartedly but this thread has flagged some very real truths.

Autocorrect changed my to to too.

The teachers are also not to blame.

Unless they voted Tory. Blame the parents who voted Tory. Blame everyone who voted for austerity and putting distressed children in these situations. But it's not the parents of distressed children who are to blame for teachers having a difficult job.