Teachers can be bitches too, God help our sn kids

[mamadadawahwah]

Just read a thread about one mothers experience regarding child's school and negative reaction she got from an obviously twisted administrator.

When i was young we moved a lot due to father being in the forces. I distinctly remember a grade two teacher (in the U.S.) who pulled me in to her class at the age of six because every time i passed her class i looked in the doorway.

On this day, i was just passing and doing my usual nosy at her doorway and she forcibly grabbed me, put me in front of the class and said now what do you see!! I started to wet my pants cause everyone was afraid of this teacher. (this was in the mid 60's) She then made me stand in the corner facing the wall while the whole class of grade two kids (i was only grade one) looked and sniggered. After 15 minutes she told me to go to the principals office and explain what i had done. Instead, i beaked off school and ran home to my mother who was absolutely flabbergasted. The rest is history, but i wonder what effect that would have had on an SN kid.

My point being is that there are mentally deranged teachers out there even today. Ok, its not as easy to do what that teacher did to me, but inappropriate treatment by a teacher might be much more secretive and insidious than it was 40 years ago. How would a special needs child know what to do if they can't communicate effectively?

Im not saying there are lots of teachers like this but they are part of the general population and like everyone else, have their quirks.

My son is too young for school, and I am so worried he wont get the treatment he deserves. Do parents out there with SN kids visit the school often and what reaction do you get if you do this??

many thanks

I have to say that every time I see this thread title I feel more and more uncomfortable.

(I know, I know. So why am I posting on it and bumping it up again? )

Calling teachers "bitches" isn't helping anyone IMHO. Those few who really do act in an appalling way are not the kind of people to be reading SN threads or parenting sites anyway. All this is doing is alienating the teachers on MN. At risk of sounding like a teacher's pet () they have been really helpful to me during my time on this site and I'd hate for them to start avoiding the SN section because of thread titles like this one.

Can't see the point of this thread at all - what do you want to achieve here?

I posted once then left this post alone as from the outset the goal seemed to be as emotive as possible. The post at 11:29 by the starter confirmed my suspicions. She specifies the experience of one teacher in her whole school life. What were her other teachers generally like? Will she base her son's entire school career on an incident that happened over a generation ago? I pity her son and his teachers as mother is starting from a confrontational and judgement-made position even before he steps into the classroom. I can understand that she wants the best care and education for her son. Yes, there can be no middle ground. Does that mean that there will never be ups and downs, victories and losses by all involved? Nope. I pity the teachers who will be expected to treat her son perfectly from the get go. Somewhere in here, humanity is losing. Mother, son, and teachers will all be the losers from this approach.

Now I will don my fire retardant suit as I go mark my Yr 10 Mock exams. HHHmmmm. Have I not anything better to do at 7:45 on a Sunday night?

at this thread title and it's inference.

Yes, there are some poor teachers - like there are poor builders, lawyers, health visitors, plumbers, taxi drivers, doctors, ...... parents.... In every group of people there are always going to be a majority of those doing a good job, and a very small minority of those who are bad.

I now have 2 weeks, and 4 working days, left as a teacher. I am leaving because I get so little enjoyment out of the job now. Stess, disillusionment and upset has taken the place of enjoyment, fun and satisfaction. Why? Lots of reasons, but one is the lack of support teachers get from society. Not the only reason, not the main reason - but it is one of the reasons.

I must admit when I saw the title of this thread I was shocked and that is why I posted about our experience with J's old head...who is a man.
J's year 2 teacher was the softest most caring peson I have ever met. She had time for J and understood his problems. Many a time I would sit with her in the classroom after school and we would both be in tears because J was being so very difficult in school and nothing that we tried seemed to be helping him. She was really concerned about our son, so much so that she actually came and stayed overnight in our home just to see how he was so different here.

The problem we had when J was at school was always with the head. He was and still is a bully to both pupils and staff. He does nothing to encourage good relationships between staff and parents....I know because I was an LSA at the school for two years before J started school fulltime.
If I ever went to him with concerns about another child I was basically told to ignore it and not make too much fuss....this is the man who told me that there are three groups of children in schools...those that acheive in life and do well, those that are middle of the road and get a menial job and then well the SEN kids who will be lucky if they make it to 20 before getting in trouble with the law...or pregnant!!!!!
The man is a baboon...he makes my blood boil...he is a bully all round. He tells staff that they must remember who's boss....so they just go along....well they did until his last encounter with J.
It was actually another female member of staff who told us the events of J's last day in school....I will not post them...they are far too disturbing...but this man abused my child physically, emotionally and mentally, to such an extent that he wanted to die.
To say all teachers are bitches is wrong.....they are not, however there are the odd one or two that for what ever reasons are not the most desirable person to be left around any child let alone one with SEN.
There are good and bad in every walk of life and IMO this thread should be put to bed and left to die....what is it going to achieve?????
This thread isnt going to weed out the bad apples but it will cause offence to the many teachers who visit here....why do they visit here??? Maybe they are Mums looking for help....or teachers looking for advice....surely this proves that they care and do not warrant being painted with the same brush as the odd teacher who may have made your life a little unpleasant when you were a child.

I have just read this thread with interest as my ds has had problems in school (in first year he was held upside down by the ankles during a meltdown and goaded to hit the teacher, and scream louder).

More recently as some of you have read on the STIMMING thread, my ds's SENCo and head have both been argumentative and unapproachable, even though I did EVERYTHING right - body language, doing my homework, and the usual things I recently learned about at a SN conference last week, and still I have had to change school as this situation just cannot continue for my ds's sanity and mine too.

To be fair, this is an emotive subject, perhaps not helped by the title, however Mama did say that the 2 incidences did not put her off school and she continued for quite some time in education.

I really hope no one is offended too much - I think everyone knows that teachers have a hard enough time of it in the class from the pupils never mind the parents, but as a parent of a SN child, I acknowledge a small percentage of teachers can be badduns and they definitely need to be dealt with through the correct channels.

(If you don't mind I would like to seek your collective opinions on my letter of complaint regarding the current head, and am sure that your comments will be valid and very helpful.)

chocol8 - OMG [shock} at your DS's treatment. Being held upside down!?! That's is so out of order and surely the school has to do soemthing about it.

It was in his first year when he was undx, but he told me that night when I noticed bruises on his ankles (and little blood blisters around his eyes which he used to get from screaming so much) what had happened.

I asked the head (the previous one) to look into it and she said that ds was lying, but why would he make up something like that?

Eventually it turned out to be true and the head acknowledged it - she said we could take the matter further, but my h at the time would have none of it (think he was scared ds would be chucked out of the school as the previous two nurseries).

There was never a proper apology for her behaviour but apparently she said "sorry" to my ds - although he probably didn't know what it was about as it was a few weeks after. She was due to retire very shortly after but if she hadn't have been, I definitely would have named and shamed her.

Hula, so sorry to hear your news - do you have something else lined up?

That is so awful

Thanks. Yes I do one day a week in prison ed at the moment and I hae just got a new job there - as an Advisor, part time. I will do lots of one to one interviews with inmates every 6 mopnths, advising them as to what is available to them in terms of eductain, work and vocational training - using sentence planning, etc. to guide them in the right direction - and hopefully onto rehabilitiation. I am looking forward to staring at Easter. I will also do half a day of teaching there too - to keep my hand in so to speak.

Hulababy....you rae right sometyhing has to be done to stop actions like the ones Choco and I have mentioned.
These things do happen in school and when parents write to board of gov's etc the problems are very often brushed under the carpet. In our case the head teacher is an excellent PR man. He manages the school budget well and blinds his authorities with his excellence. Unfortunattely he is also excellent at silencing the critics who know otherwise and convinces everyone he is a dynamic person!!!!!
He has lied to us so many times, told us our son will acheive nothing in life and even reprted that if we were new parents approaching the school....J would be the last child he would want...he costs too much and takes up too much time. Hubby believes the head wants to cleanse the school of all SEN children....11 have left the school in the last 12 months because all families have experienced similar things to us.
We have now joined forces and will make sure this man is exposed as being the vile person he is.

Head also treats female members of staff appalingly....we have a couple of them on our side now....but it shoulnt be about sides...should it?

I remember a boy at my school, and i an only 21 so this is recent. He obviously had sn and was bullied really badly through the whole 5 years i was there. The teachers did nothing, he was regarded as a joke and they often used to just laugh along with the bullies. even kids who were normally nice would make an exception to tourture this boy. They (the bullies) would force him with violence to say stuff to the teacher or to pinch his/her bottom and although they knew he had been forced to do this the teacher would punish the poor lad.

i wish i had done more to help him, i did sit with him in lessons and sometimes walk him home but for that i used to get called names and teased. once he wrote me a note to say thank you, it was badly spelled and badly written. being a nieve 13 year old i showed it to my teacher who then took great delight in reading it aloud to the class emphasising all his mistakes... the poor lad bearly talked to me after that.

He eventually had enough and the last i heard of him he had jumped off a roof.....

Mamadadawahwah

I know you are extremely worried about your son at the moment and you are probably going through every scenario for the future in your head. I don't think threads like this will help you as it just stirs up a lot of emotion in everyone and will antagonise people on the board. Your ds may not be autistic, even if he is there is still hope for the future. Try to cross one bridge at a time and don't worry about school yet. Sorry I have read this through and I know it sounds patronising - I don't want to - I can see you are posting and reading like mad, I can understand why - try to take it easier or you will make yourself ill.

Hula - I'm glad you've found something which you will enjoy more.

Jaysmum - yes our head shares the same personal traits that yours does - very good at spin and can talk the talk. She really has blinded the governors and teachers (some, anyway) to her. You will win through especially with so many on your side. x

huggybear that's awful.

I remember when I was teaching in japan there was one boy that everyone used to laugh at (even the nice kids). I was a bit clueless (for starters couldn't speak much Japanese) so couldn't shield him much. I probably used to make things worse because whenever I asked a question he would often shout out an answer (was quite keen) and then the class would laugh. of course I would have no idea why they were laughing (there goes that japanese again). I'm now absolutely certain he had AS. Poor kid I often wonder what happened to him.

Some of these stories are really heartbreaking.

I guess the reason people get so angry about stuff like this is because teachers are so influential, and a bad teacher is worse than a bad estate agent or banker, or whatever, because they can contribute to the way a vulnerable child feels about him or herself in quite a significant way - let's face it, teachers are more important than most other professions, because most of us are heavily influenced by teachers in our formative years. A bad doctor can obviously have as big an influence by killing us off, or a bad lawyer can make sure we end up in prison when we shouldn't, a bad social worker can really screw a child up, but most of us have the good fortune never to need the life-changing services of most professionals in the way we do teachers. How many of us can remember any other member of any other profession (apart from writers) who have had a real and lasting influence on how we look at the world? I personally can?t remember many of the estate agents, magazine salespeople or even doctors I?ve ever dealt with in the last 20 years, but I can remember practically every teacher, good and bad (and frankly, mostly good) I ever had from the age of five.

Having said that Mama, as all the teachers have pointed out, things really have changed an awful lot in 40 years. Although of course there will always be bad people in teaching as in every other profession, the profession itself has changed so much that nowadays, people who go into it are foregoing the opportunity of much more lucrative and easy careers with more status, and are usually therefore, far more dedicated and concerned for their charges? welfare (I would say) than people who went into it fifty years ago.

It's obviously an issue that you are really worried about, so I'd suggest that when you look at primary schools, you ask to see the SENCO policy and teachers, and really quiz them to get an idea of how they deal with SN - if they're any good, they won't mind taking the time and effort to reassure you, and if they're not, you'll know not to send your DS there!

Yes there are some horror stories out there, and there are always going to be, but try to remember that the horror stories really are the minority situations now. I can only advise that when the time comes, you keep up good, constructive communication with your DS?s school, so that you are happy that he is getting the treatment he deserves. And if you feel uncomfortable about any aspect of his education ? tell them! Again, if they?re any good, they really won?t mind. I always feel stupid about raising issues with my DS?s teachers, like I?m an over-protective parent or something, but every single time I have, I?ve been re-assured that they want me to be in communication with them ? however busy they are, they always go out of their way to welcome my involvement. And that?s because they?re good teachers. Maybe they secretly think I?m a PITA ? but if they do, it doesn?t matter, because they never let me know it. HTH.

First a plea to anyone visiting this thread for the first time:
PLEASE READ THE WHOLE THREAD
It seems there can often be issues with teachers, esp head teachers, not behaving well in an m/s setting when they have a child with SN there. We all know that the training, experience and funds are not there to make Inclusion work all the time but these teachers should not take it out on the child or their parent(s). Are you listening Tony????
But I am concerned that teachers on MN or other MNers in general would see the title of this thread and read a little of it and think that all of us who use the SN board think this way all the time.
I've always been a little proud that on SN we are always supportive and kind to each other. On the occasions we've had a troll (e.g. ritalin) we all join together and support each other. I've never seen a thread on SN before that has been so unpleasant and controversial. Can we please resume normal service????

Is it worth pointing out that many teachers have NO training in dealing with SN pupils in schools, other than very basic stuff in the PGCSE, which I remember having very little of at all.

The only training comes from the odd one day INSET course (teacher training days) or courses you choose to put yourself on. However the number of days out allowed for courses is very limited and I have been unable to go on any courses, other than very specific subject ones, for the past 4 years.

The only information I get about my SN pupils comes from the SN department, by way of an IEP form or the odd memo. It contains very little info, it is not subject specific, and it does not contain information on how bexst to help the child's learning.

Teacher's need more training and more guidance IMO. I think that is the crux of many problems being encountered.

I totally agree with Davros. I'm sorry, but I don't like this thread, especially the title and the spirit in which the author seems to be starting it. I know you say it is not 'tarring all teachers with the same brush' but there is something about why you would even start this thread that suggests otherwise. It it was about a specific event that had happened to your ds then fair enough. But its not, it is just a general 'what if' rant because 'teachers can be bitches'.

I was very defensive of the mumsnet SN mums on mogwai's thread about professionals. That was before I had seen this. TBH I can now see why mogwai might think some of us do just slam professionals indiscriminately. Or at least 'expect' them to be a problem.

That is not to say I don't sympathise with any of you that have had problems. Jaysmum's story for example is shocking, and chocol8's. And I have no doubt there are some really shit teachers out there. I also have no doubt there are some brilliant ones and I totally understand why the title and insinuation of this thread would upset any teachers, or indeed other professionals, who see it.

Please - this kind of emotive, inciteful title is not in the spirit of mumsnet, certainly not the SN boards. Those of us who have been around a while will know this but I would not for one second like to think that newer members should see us all in this light.

Well I'm afraid the authors comment

"Right i knew this thread would start a debate which is good. "

Sums it up really - sounds very 'trollish' to me......

OMG - I've only just found this thread and I can't believe what I am reading! I also can't believe I am posting and bumping this thread back up but really have to say what I feel.

Mama - you obviously have unresolved issues from your school days that are being brought to the surface through your concerns for your ds, but deliberately and blatantly upsetting and inciting people is not the way to handle it. I have read this whole thread and there are some very good suggestions on here as to how you can prepare for your ds's schooling and give yourself piece of mind - please take note of them.

I am not a teacher myself (although I am a member of a profession that are oftened viewed as 'bad guys' so can relate) but my mum and sister are both teachers and I must defend them and many others like them.

My mum is one of the most amazing teachers anyone could have the pleasure to be taught by (I know I am biased and I also know that there are thousands more like her) but I am extremely proud of her. She has been in the job for almost 28 years and spent 10 of those in a special school. She is back in mainstream now although she has had quite a number of SN children through her class over the last few years, some of them through parental choice due to the reputation she has built up in the local town. She had never had any 'direct' experience of SN within our family/friends cirle, before my dd, but just seems to have the knack of relating to each child she comes across as an 'individual' and being able to get the most from them. Parents also seem to appreciate the manner in which she deals with them, empathises with and supports them - even down to spending time in their own homes, visiting at evenings/weekends/holidays etc. She has been a godsend since I had dd and makes her feel like the most special little princess in the world (dd would live at 'Ganma and Gangan's is she could!!!!). Her advice and guidance re Inclusion, Statementing etc etc have been invaluable and her network of 'parents' have supplied me with all sorts of information and become good friends.
I know I've gone on a bit but I feel so strongly that good people like my mum and all the MN teachers who offer us such good advice and support do not have all of their efforts and hardwork tarnished by thoughtless unnecessary comments.
It was Mothers' Day yesterday, I went to visit my mum and what was she doing - drowning under lesson plans and paperwork that she has spent all weekend doing in preparation for OFSTED inspection this week. Why had she not got this ready earlier - because she has spent the last three weeks working 7am-8pm with meetings, PGA meetings, etc etc, whilst having a one-woman battle with SS to get care for her own mother who is now severely disabled, all with a broken ankle! - and still managing to have dd overnight twice to give us a break!!!!!
Rant over....deep breaths...deep breaths.....

I'm intrigued M&M - what bad guy profession are you a member of?

(Don't answer if you'd rather not - I'm just being nosy for the sake of it, when I should be working!)

As a professional, I thought I might post on the SN board. Afterall, I can't be just a mum, and if someone needs some advice, perhaps I can help.

I have learned that, although some people might appreciate being able to get some advice or some pointers and help for how to tackle a situation, at least the same number of people will use my presence on MN to attack my profession (SLT).

Teachers, please see the thread I started "Whoa, Professionals are people too!".

I feel very sorry for you hard pressed mainstream teachers. I have been into a school this morning to see an experienced SENCO who tells me the LEA are removing her from the post in the autumn term and have no plans to replace her. She has developed the SEN department and has shaped policy to excellent effect over the past 13 years. She's a lovely lady and works very hard.

I had four years training just to understand the basics about speech and language, I have many years of experience. I think that mainstreaming of SEN children has been, largely, a disaster so far. It works in some cases, not many. The schools have to cook the books so they don't admit that the child cannot cope and neither can the teachers. I go to review meetings where everything is presented as "wonderful" so the parents don't get upset, when actually the child's needs are not being met as they would have been in an SEN school. The schools will not admit that everything is far from wonderful, because this will reflect their ability to cope, will reflect on them.

Most mainstream teachers have very little training in SEN issues. Even the NQTs don't know as much as I thought they would, given that it is supposed to be on the curriculum now. If it took me 4 years just to understand the stuff about speech and language, how the heck can a teacher be expected to juggle all of that too?

Teachers work harder than most people I know. Some of them have a life outside work and would never be prepared to sleep over at a child's house to see how different he was at home, as one post mentioned earlier (I also think this oversteps the professional boundary). The problem is, if you get just one teacher or LSA who is overly committed to her job, she will make all the others look crap. I work with an unqualified LSA who the parents think is wonderful becasue she spends her sunday afternoons preparing activities specifically for their son. Of course they think she's wonderful! I think she's a lunatic! This lady has no friends or relatives and nothing much else to do on a sunday. Unfortunately, the parents now expect the same degree of committment from all other professionals!

I'm not sure we achieve anything by posting on the SN boards, I'm afraid. I understand that some parents are very angry and want to let off steam. Perhaps we don't realise this and we try to get involved, with the best intentions, then get caught in the crossfire. They don't want us to make it better or stick up for our profession, they just want someone to shout at. I can't say I blame them, just that I've learnt that I might as well stay away and be a mum on MN rather than a professional.

It also upsets me to hear my profession being slagged off in general terms (NHS therapists are crap, teachers are bitches, yadda yadda yadda). You only have to look at the adjectives thrown about to see that we don't stand a chance (eg mainstream teachers described as "clueless" rather than an acknowledgement that they haven't had the training). There's not much point saying that teachers "try their best" if you have already described them as "clueless" in the same breath.

I'm not a teacher but I have the greatest respect for them as colleagues and I wouldn't swap for the world. I take objection to the title of this thread and suggest that professionals ignore similar theads and stick to being mums.

Gwenick, my thoughts exactly!

my sn daughters teachers are wonderful no complaints at all from me