A delicate dance: When parents ask for specific teachers
Should you be able to request a specific teacher for your child? (AJC file photo)
One of the most controversial elements of teacher assignments is whether schools will consider parent requests for specific teachers.
While most systems say they don’t honor parent requests, many principals over the years have told me that they will do so when they can.
Savvy parents get around “no request”policies by asking not for a specific teacher, but for specific characteristics that they maintain enhances their child’s learning. There are a lot of web sites guiding parents on how to request a teacher using this approach. EduGuide offers a sample letter.
On the Great Schools site, parents offer advice on this delicate negotiation. One parent wrote:
At my son’s school, there was one older teacher who had a reputation for being very soft-spoken, and putting on lots of rehearsed “historical re-recreations” of events (dress up in period costumes and recite “old English.”) My son is dyslexic, and doesn’t do well in settings where he either has to memorize lots of lines, or sit quietly and listen to others doing it. I knew almost any other teacher would be better for my son than this woman, but it’s inappropriate to say, “Please avoid Mrs. Smith’s class,” or “Put him with Mrs. Jones.”
Instead, I wrote a letter to the principal stating that “My son learns best in a classroom where there is an energetic and patient teacher, who values interactive discussion and provides opportunities for hands-on learning.” He ended up with a teacher who did things like letting kids prepare historical recipes in class (allowing each to get involved in the process, rather than watching a skit where one student enacted an event as others watched) and it turned out to be a much better placement than if he’d gotten stuck with the old, soft-spoken teacher.
On a gifted education blog, a parent says she begins her letters: “Realizing that historically this school does not accept parental requests for placement, I would like to express my feelings about what I believe to be an issue that could make a very big difference in my child’s success in the coming year. I would like it to be known that, after discussion with Mrs. XYZ, we both agree that she would be the most appropriate teacher for Johnny’s needs and that to place him with another teacher could be cause problems from the outset for him” and then go on to back up my statements.
The AJC took a look at how students are assigned to classes in a Sunday story that was limited to print subscribers, so I cannot link to it. You can read it by logging on to the paper’s iPad app. If you are a subscriber, you can read the article on our e-edition here
But here is an excerpt:
Parent requests are among the many factors school leaders consider when building a classroom roster. Assembling that perfect classroom might not be science, but it involves a whole lot of chemistry, educators say. Academic standing of students, disciplinary issues, race and sex can all play into the months-long juggling act, which usually begins during the previous school year.
“It is a big deal for us to make sure there is a good match going in because it’s going to make a seamless year for everybody, ” said Amy Bartlett, principal at Forsyth’s Sharon Elementary. “The time we put in is well spent to build these classes.”
Bartlett’s team starts around late April creating profile cards for every child at the 1,000-student school — pink for girls, blue for boys. The cards contain a laundry list of information about the students — from how they scored on state exams to how involved their parents are at the school, she said.
Using the cards, administrators create a rough sketch of “balanced” classes, taking special care to make sure one class isn’t loaded with gifted students while another is stacked with behavioral issues. Then, teachers and counselors review the process, and administrators read about 400 letters and emails from parents with input and make changes as necessary.
“I make it really clear to parents that we don’t honor specific teacher requests, but we do honor any information they have on learning characteristics, ” Bartlett said. “We have teachers of all kinds. We try not to focus on teachers, but on the learning style.”
For the most part, education research shows students benefit more from exposure to advanced coursework than from exposure to advanced students, said Robert Slavin, director of the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University.
In other words, a second-grader who is above average in reading will fare better in a third-grade reading class, not because the students are more advanced, but because the content is. Conversely, an advanced student won’t regress in a class with lower-performing students, so long as the teacher creates opportunities for more challenging lessons such as special projects or computer activities, Slavin said.
Cobb parent Kimberly Hunt said she gets a good idea which teacher might be a good fit for her child by volunteering at school and networking with other parents. The school doesn’t allow parents to request specific teachers, and she respects that.
A trained teacher herself, Hunt said that, some years, she writes a letter to school administrators requesting an instruction style that lines up with a teacher or two she wants. “Do you always get them? No. As parents are we OK with that? Yes, ” she said. “They do best they can, and I’m always impressed with how they do it.”
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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88 comments Add your comment
GT Alumna
August 9th, 2012
1:42 pm
I am not ashamed to admit that I specifically requested my daughter’s 5th grade teacher and my request was honored. I asked for an experienced teacher that my son had before. After the mediocre teacher my child had in 4th grade, I made my request early on. Bottom line: I am my child’s advocate and I take that job seriously. I wanted my daughter prepared for middle school and I know this teacher can make that happen.
The Flip Side
August 9th, 2012
1:51 pm
What about the opposite situation, where the teachers get together and decide which kids are going to be in which classrooms? I understand that is how it happens in many cases. It sessm like a draft, and that seems a bit troublesome.
mother of 4
August 9th, 2012
2:02 pm
I did not specifically request for a special teacher one year, but they just assumed that I wanted the best. I told the office that the current teacher for my son was not going to be good for him. How did I know, well she had him in Kindergarten and she was horrible. In fact at the open house for Kindergarten she was rude and degrading to the students. I went to the office and expressed my displeasure and requested that my child be moved from her class. They stated she was a new transfer and to give her a try. I did, she sucked, she was so rude to the kids that they felt she could not “handle” the younger ones and “promoted” her to 2nd grade. Well 2nd grade year rolls around, I said before looking at the role if he is on her list he is getting moved. Turns out he was and I strolled right into the office on Open House and requested an immediate change.
I think situations like that are appropriate. By the way, they got rid of her after that year because she was just bad. Now requesting the best. What is best to some, might not be best to all. Even though that teacher was good for one child, doesn’t mean they will be good for another. All children are different and learn differently. My youngest son, believed that all teachers hated him. I had to explain to him, that if it is ALL of the teachers it seems to me that the problem is him, he soon recongnized and changed his ways. So I inform the teachers about each child’s different behaviors and keep in constant contact with the teachers. They all usually end up great teachers, except for the few rotten apples out there.
Tonya C.
August 9th, 2012
2:15 pm
janet:
Bravo. That’s exactly how I am. The key is, we only do it when necessary. But letting your child ‘adapt to every situation isn’t a good one. Heck, many of us have left a job that wasn’t a fit or a boss that was a jerk, so that excuse doesn’t hold water. This is especially true with younger kids (elementary and middle school).
catlady
August 9th, 2012
2:30 pm
Here is the makeup of a 3rd grade math class I pushed into last year. It consisted of 4 sped kids who were pulled out, 3 gifted kids who were pulled out, 4 ESOL kids (2 of them on grade level), 4 kids with serious mental health issues (on meds, getting counseling; one soiled himself several times a day, years behind), 4 regular kids who were behind a year, 3 average (grade level) kids, and one kid slightly above average who did not qualify for gifted. Now, would you call this a “balanced” class? Fortunately for the students, their teacher of record and I were both very experienced teachers, but can you imagine how that class functioned when those 8 specials were not pulled out and no teacher was pushing in? That should not happen, but sometimes you run out of enough teachers to spread the kids in trouble (academic or emotional) apart.
catlady
August 9th, 2012
2:36 pm
Flip side: That is sort of how our school does it, except it is the teachers of the grade before that group the kids. They put the kids into groups, avoiding giving anyone a class of all one “type” but with the goal of separating the troublemakers. Then, the principal assigns the groups to the teachers for the next year.
SBinF
August 9th, 2012
2:42 pm
In my teaching career, I’ve had a couple of parents request their kids have a different teacher. Both kids were “work shy” and didn’t like to be held accountable for their actions.
Go figure, lazy kids with enabling parents find me abrasive.
long time educator
August 9th, 2012
2:46 pm
Janet,
I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. My kids were all reading when they entered school and I knew the only problem they might have would be boredom, to which complaint I would have said, “Only boring people are bored. Read a book!” Anyone with a child who truly has special needs should absolutely consult with administrators or their assigned teacher to get the best placement for her child, especially in the beginning. Once the teachers have worked with your child, they will be able to advise you about techniques or future placement. That is why I offered parents a form in our newsletter to highlight the learning environment they felt would be most beneficial and I read every single one. They know their child best. If they expressed that their child learned best in a quiet, structured environment, I knew which classroom would be best I also listened to teacher recommendations about separating peers or where they thought a special needs child would do best. We placed special needs children first, usually on the recommendation of their special ed teacher. Educators love involved parents and want your input; the more we work together, the more we accomplish. .
William Casey
August 9th, 2012
2:52 pm
@BOOTNEY: I love your 11:14 post. It’s a classic! I’m trying to figure where I fit. LOL
William Casey
August 9th, 2012
2:54 pm
Modified somewhat “Darwin” I guess.
long time educator
August 9th, 2012
2:56 pm
One other factor that colors my view of this issue is that when you are principal, you are principal of all 685 precious children and want what is best for all of them. The principal must advocate for Jose and all the children whose parents are not so involved. Do squeaky wheels usually get more grease? Probably, but ethically, the principal must be fair to all the children in her care and use the resources and staff of the school to the benefit of all.
HS Public Teacher
August 9th, 2012
3:01 pm
Children need to learn from all types of teachers. If parents restrict the “type” of teacher to only one type, then they are hurting thier own kids in the long run.
Will their child get the same “type” of teacher in college?
Will their child get that “type” of boss in their job?
Pride and Joy
August 9th, 2012
3:58 pm
It has taken, literally, all Summer for me to “unteach” my child the bad lessons he learned from his teacher. After eight weeks, my child can cautiously and deliberately pronounce A-S-K as “ask” instead of the way his teacher taught him “aks.”
There are several other inappropriate and incorrect things my child’s teacher taught my child by simply modeling the incorrect behavior for my child.
So, seriously, how does one ASK the principal to place my child in a class where the teacher speaks conmmon, standard, English correctly?
Some other examples:
The teacher always uses the plural verb instead of the singular one such as : “He HAVE a blue folder.”
What is the right way to ask and receive a teacher who speaks English correctly?
bootney farnsworth
August 9th, 2012
4:09 pm
I really don’t see why some here get their undies in a bunch over parents advocating for their kids.
must be jealous, I suppose.
Pride and Joy
August 9th, 2012
4:10 pm
Christina, you’re just flat out wrong. You wrote “When your child gets out into the “real world” he/she will not be able to say “I don’t care for your management style, and I think you expect too much of me, therefore I would like a new boss.”
I’m in the real world and sometimes managers and employees aren’t a good fit. We see there may be a personality conflict or even a generational conflict. I do move employees so they report to different managers when there is a clash and we do listen to the employees and make adjustments in their reporting structures when I can.
In other situations, employees don’t feel comfortable working for a particular supervisor or a particular company. Sometimes the company cultures is not a good fit. In that case, the employee usually leaves the company because he or she has a choice. Children in APS don’t have that choice. They are given to a particular teacher without any input from the parent or child and that is NOT like the real world.
bootney farnsworth
August 9th, 2012
4:11 pm
one thing I STRONGLY support – if a teacher doesn’t have a good, clear command of english they have no business in any classroom outside of teaching their native language.
Pride and Joy
August 9th, 2012
4:15 pm
Calling Dr. Monica Henson– are you listening?
Dr. Henson, you are one of the very few administrators to post consistently on the Get Schooled blog. I would really like to know some things from you:
What percentage of parents request a specific teacher at your school?
What is your official policy for handling such requests?
Do you make exceptions to the policy and when and why.
What are your best recommendations for a parent like me who really wants her child to learn to speak English properly? How do I request a teacher who models the appropriate behavior?
btc
August 9th, 2012
5:55 pm
Hey, what’s wrong with old and soft-spoken? I think there was another reason she didn’t mention.
TheGoldenRam
August 9th, 2012
6:37 pm
@ The Flip Side…
Years ago when my mom was a teacher in a Title I school on the south-side of our county, that’s exactly how the class line-ups were determined. It was a draft. In her case, the 3rd grade teachers would set the line-up for the 4th grade teachers. It was both inspiring & very sad. Inspiring because these teachers were trying so hard to do right by their students as they moved to the next grade & protect the next level of teachers from undue hardship. Sad, because in many cases they were trying to mitigate future damage to both other teachers and the students themselves. Avoid too many atrocious disciplinary cases from going into one teacher’s classroom. The administration wouldn’t address those problems, so it became a game of ‘hot potato’. Avoid placing too many students that were not on grade level into the next teacher’s classroom. Social Promotion was in full-effect. The teachers couldn’t stop it, but they could avoid putting an entire class of students together that were functioning at a 2nd grade level(or lower), who would inevitably annihilate some 4th grade teacher’s test scores(aka their performance evaluation). In my opinion, the worst contingency to be factored in was protecting the most academically vulnerable students from a failing teacher at the next level. They weren’t common, but they were there. There was one sweet old lady down the hallway that had essentially given up on the job at least a decade ago. She was very nice, but for whatever reason, she just didn’t feel like doing it anymore and was just waiting out the clock until retirement. My mom and her fellow teachers knew that a kid going into that classroom already behind by two grade levels would pass right on thru into 5th grade, but now three grade levels behind.
To all those that oppose Charter Schools(which I know isn’t some silver bullet solution) on the expectation of them being “separate & unequal”, I just have to ask, “What the heck do you think we have now?”. Like almost everywhere, my Florida county has done school assignment by zoning forever. Your address determines the quality of your school. The achievement gaps and institutional deficiencies have persisted over DECADES. Not only has our public school system failed to address the systemic problems that come into some of these schools from the outside community, it quite literally exploits and exacerbates them. They know our north-side parents won’t tolerate this garbage, so they load the baggage on the south-side system/kids. Then we have the audacity to challenge the legitimacy of some parents that seek to escape their “predestination via zoning”?
I know that taken as a whole, “public education isn’t broken”. However that doesn’t excuse the fact that a lot of it is broken and the public just doesn’t believe the answers will be coming out of the traditional leadership/system model. Charters & Vouchers are going to prevail not because they are the solution, but because too many people have lost faith in the status quo being the agent of necessary change.
Beverly Fraud
August 9th, 2012
6:56 pm
Paging Dr. Henson. Pride and Joy has a point. I guess you could say “My child has some grammar weakness; could she be put with a teacher who is a stickler for grammar?”
Of course it is a SHAME that the truth has tq be sugar coated that way.
Anonmom
August 9th, 2012
8:28 pm
I’ve always been proactive in my sons’ education. Sometimes, though, it turns out, I didn’t really know what was best… You base your “requests” on information you have… including my oldest child’s experience (he’s the guinea pig). My middle son had 2 bad teachers at his public elementary school — one was one we requested for first grade. It was the same teacher his big brother had. The teacher turned out to be good for one child and really bad for the other… You really don’t know how some of these things are going to play out. I tried to “request” a teacher at our fancy private school last year because I’d heard he was really good — I didn’t push too hard — just made an offhand comment or two — it didn’t work and he got someone else. It turned out that the someone else was one of his favorite teachers last year and it was the first history teacher he’s ever really loved. So, it just goes to show, you never know how these things turn out.
Dr. Monica Henson
August 9th, 2012
8:39 pm
Pride and Joy, I read all the comments on my laptop aboard the RTA Xpress bus late this afternoon. I’ve been in intensive all-staff training sessions every day from 8 to 5, so it’s inhibited my ability to jump into all these great conversations! After a nice takeout Italian dinner with the hubs, here are my thoughts, and thank you for asking. I love talking about education.
This particular topic is near and dear to my heart. At my current school, Provost Academy Georgia, which is getting ready for an August 20 start date for virtual high schoolers, I have hired a staff that is simply amazing. We have 245 years’ total experience among our staff, including old warhorses like me. I have the incredible luxury of being able to build a staff from scratch and not inheriting other people’s problem teachers that nobody wants to be placed with. We have former Teachers of the Year, National Board Certified Teachers, truly a powerhouse staff. I posted on our FB page the other day, “Every PAGA teacher is ‘that teacher’ that everybody in school wants.” I wish that this were the case in every classroom in every grade level of every school in the entire United States, as it should be…and could be, if “the machine” that is the American public school system actually practiced what it preaches and claims. But I digress.
The issue of parents and students wanting to request specific teacher placements has been, in my experience as an administrator, largely a combination of two issues: (1) a popular and excellent teacher that has a well-deserved reputation, and everyone wants to be in his/her class; and (2) an unpopular and ineffective teacher that has an equally well-deserved reputation, and no one wants to be in his/her class. The challenge for the public school administrator is, who do you sacrifice to the least capable teachers when you are unable to counsel them out? It is a painful decision to have to make, and it’s one of the primary reasons why I left the district public school world and now work in the charter public schools.
To answer Pride and Joy’s specific questions, I’ll speak from my past experiences as an administrator :
What percentage of parents request a specific teacher at your school? What is your official policy for handling such requests?
Do you make exceptions to the policy and when and why.
The percentage of requests has depended pretty much on the grade level and subject, and the requests have come more frequently at the elementary school level to place a child with a specific teacher. Elementary parents I have dealt with usually are looking for a good “personality fit” for their children, or seeking a particular style of teaching (structured kindergarten versus nongrade primary, for example–and our school offered both choices). I never have guaranteed that I will honor a parent request, but I do note that I will take them into consideration as part of the placement process.
At the secondary levels, the requests for specific teachers tend to come from students more than parents. High schoolers sometimes “teacher shop” for teachers they see as easier in certain subjects. There are always popular, excellent, engaging teachers that everyone wants to be placed with. I have filled their classrooms with as many kids as they are willing to take (and invariably, they have been willing to take as many as they can pack into a space). There are also some teachers who are negative, boring, and unpopular for good reason. I have done my best to counsel people like that out of the classroom, frequently to no avail. I started the high school years out with balanced classroom loads for teachers and took requests for transfers to another teacher on a first-come, first-served basis until the preferred teacher reached his/her limit, usually when the floor space was literally too full to cram another desk in. We would end up with classes of 10 or 12 while the excellent teachers’ classes have been overloaded. I refused to assign poor quality teachers to classes filled with low-ability students because it is criminal to condemn a student who’s already behind to a semester or year or more to endure a teacher who can’t or won’t help the student make strong progress. When the problem is brought up, I have spoken honestly about why one teacher’s class is small and another’s is huge–it was based on student requests for transfers. I allowed those chips to fall where they belonged. I refused to protect bad teachers by pretending that all of my teachers were excellent when the simple truth was that some of them were simply not good teachers and didn’t want to or couldn’t make improvements to their classroom practice.
What are your best recommendations for a parent like me who really wants her child to learn to speak English properly? How do I request a teacher who models the appropriate behavior?
This is a completely legitimate request and any administrator who puts a teacher who doesn’t speak Standard English in a classroom, especially in the elementary grades, where children are forming lifelong language habits and depend on adults to model correct linguistics is committing educational malpractice. It may not be the current principal’s fault, but the fault of a previous administrator who didn’t insist on improvement by the teacher and didn’t counsel the teacher out of the field. The teacher may have several years’ worth of “satisfactory” evaluations, making it doubly difficult to get him/her out of the school system. S/he may have been part of the “dance of the lemons” where principals pass bad teachers from one school to the next because the superintendent refused to do what was needed to get rid of him/her.
If my child were placed with such a person, I would document a few incidents, meet with the principal and demand that my child be moved to a competent teacher’s classroom, meet with the superintendent to demand that the teacher be dismissed, AND meet with my school board member to share the documentation. Then I’d show up at the BOE meetings and speak to the BOE very calmly (in executive session) and insist that they take appropriate action before more children are sacrificed at the altar of political correctness and the lie that all teachers are excellent. If a teacher like you describe is tenured and teaches for 30 years, assuming 24 elementary kids per class per year, that’s 720 children who spend an entire day for 180 days per class year listening to substandard English–at six hours per school day, that’s 32,400 hours’ worth of public service that will have been paid handsomely, not including the cost of benefits, with taxpayers’ dollars. In 2011, the average American public school teacher’s starting salary was $39,000. The average ending salary was $67,000. For the simple fact that I was an English teacher and not a math teacher and don’t know how to amortize this out exactly, let’s average those two salaries at $53,000 for 30 years. Is a local BOE prepared to pay an incompetent speaker of the English language $1,590,000 over a career lifetime to waste the time of 720 children by modeling substandard grammar and usage? Because that’s what they’re doing.
And what self-respecting college of education would have awarded a bachelor’s degree in elementary education to someone who doesn’t speak Standard English? But that’s another blog post…
been there done that for 30+ years
August 9th, 2012
9:03 pm
These are my experiences in setting up the next year’s classroom in the elementary school. The current classroom teachers of a grade level meet with their pink/blue cards. Usually someone from the special ed. teachers attends the meeting too. The assistant principal tells the teachers how many classes to set up (it can differ from grade to grade; especially the jump from third to fourth).
Some homerooms will have the sp. ed. inclusion students so those teachers are identified, the EIP teachers are identified (early intervention program…having problems but not diagnosed with a learning disability), the hearing impaired teachers are identified (if the school houses that program), the speech kids are identified, and the teachers receiving gifted students are identified. Once those kids are dispersed to the appropriate homeroom teacher, the rest of the “regular” students are filled in to complete the numbers. Also, speech students are usually bunched into one or two classrooms to make it easier on the speech teacher to get them for their pull-out speech sessions. In the midst of all that, behavior problems are identified and hopefully separated, and boy/girl ratios are equalized.
So after a great amount of time is spent on that, the principal comes into the meeting with the folder of requests. Then the shuffle game begins as kids are moved to accomodate the parent requests and still keep numbers balanced. Sometimes the parents want a teacher and the request can’t be fulfilled if the student is gifted and the requested teacher isn’t getting the gifted kids that year. SOMETIMES the teacher is changing grade levels and the parents weren’t aware.
Once it’s all said and done, a wise principal will let the specials teachers ( PE, Art, Music) take a look at the classes and point out any glaring behavior problems bunched together. Since they have these kids every year, they know them better than anyone!
Once Again
August 9th, 2012
9:24 pm
Good lord, what do these parents think this is, the FREE MARKET? You don’t get choices in a socialist system. You get what the government decides – period. You get pretend elections that make you think you have a choice and parent teacher conferences and public hearings about redistricting and school closings, etc. to make you feel like you have input, but in the end, they take your money, take your child, do with him/her what they will, “educate” them as THEY see fit and there is not a damn thing you can do about it. Except of course work to get rid of the system – but you would never do that since you really don’t want to have to pay the full amount for your child’s “education” or their transport to school or have to actually be accountable for the quality of education they get.
It is far easier to support a system that steals money from your childless neighbors or those crazy one’s who homeschool or the rich ones that do without so they can afford a basic private school. It is far easier to go with the flow and not be embarassed around the neighbors by having your own opinion on the subject. It is far easier to whine and complain that to actually do something that would actually fix the problem or would by its own fundamental nature, force parental involvement and responsibility. Nope, too difficult.
Just going to go on hoping that socialism has all the benefits of the free market while ignoring the obvious lack of freedom, liberty, and choice. That’s the american way – for the government monopoly supporter.
BC
August 9th, 2012
9:56 pm
As a school administrator, I don’t let parents pick teachers but they can tell me who they dont want. Even then, it has to be a valid reason for that. My thinking is that we need to teach students the skill of adapting to various teaching styles and personalities. They want have the luxury of choosing bosses when they enter the work force.
Pride and Joy
August 10th, 2012
12:03 am
To Seen in All, you ask “The question I have is what makes you think that your child is so special or you deserve the right to demand a particular teacher?”
If teachers were adequately teaching, there wouldn’t be a request for a specific teacher. Down here in APS we have some ignorant teachers. We parents are trying to avoid our children languishing in a classroom run by someone unqualified to do the job.
It would be different if we were choosing the best teacher out of a group of adequate teachers. We here in APS are just trying to choose the teacher who will do more good than harm. If all public school teachers were adequately prepared and able to teach there wouldn’t be an issue.
I am sure this is a sore spot for some teachers. It should be. When parents are requesting other teachers for their child, something is wrong with the teacher.
We down here in APS are choosing teachers to try to avoid the bad teachers….which is EXACTLY like you teachers picking the schools you want to teach in. They are not the same.
Pride and Joy
August 10th, 2012
12:11 am
Thank you Dr. Monica Henson, I really appreciate it.
Pride and Joy.
A delicate dance: When parents ask for specific teachers | Get Schooled | School Leadership Tools and Resources, Advice and humor | Scoop.it
August 10th, 2012
5:44 am
[...] One of the most controversial elements of teacher assignments is whether schools will consider parent requests for specific teachers. [...]
GCA parent
August 10th, 2012
7:57 am
I spend a lot of effort working with my teachers and participating when they need help. They get to know our family, too. That said, I have 4 kids, and I can’t start fresh with 4 new teachers every year. I need to know that somewhere down the line, there is a “return on investment.” If I could get just one “repeat” teacher each year, that would make a big difference in my life and not really bother anybody else at all.
Claire
August 10th, 2012
8:59 am
In terms of kids having to learn to adapt, should a first grader have to learn to adapt? I don’t think so. They are too young to know what is going on. They just don’t have those skill sets yet and shouldn’t be expected to. One of my kids had a shrill, sarcastic 1st grade teacher who let the kids get out of control until she literally screamed at them in front of volunteers. Why should a young child have to pay for an out of control adult? Trying to avoid those teachers.. thats not helicopter parenting, thats taking care of your kids.
Pride and Joy
August 10th, 2012
9:30 am
***USA TODAY***
USA Today has an excellent article on the front page of the paper that says jobless people are missing out on available jobs because companies are unwilling to pay the cost to train them. Companies want employees ready to do the work.
That is exactly the position I am in.
I cannot afford to train employees that lack skills they need when they walk in the door the first day of work. That’s why, if a resume has grammar and spelling errors, it goes in the trash. If they present a good resume, I interview them on the phone before meeting them in person. The candidate has to speak well. I can’t put him or her in front of a client when he or she can’t speak common, standard English correctly.
Even fast food franchises are being selective.
I invite everyone to go to any McDonalds franchise in Atlanta South of I-20; then go to a Chic-Fil-A in the same area. The difference is almost tangible. Chic-Fil-A hires helpful, polite employees who are well-spoken. Sometimes I cannot even understand what a McDonald’s employee is saying. They’re also rude. I never have that experience at Chic-Fil-A.
So, English teachers, take heart. The next time a kid wonders aloud why diagramming a sentence is important, tell the kid because it will make a huge difference in the future earnings.
People who cannot speak nor write common, standard English don’t get promoted to high-paying jobs.
Dunwoody Mom
August 10th, 2012
9:45 am
The only time I have requested teacher changes is when my youngest child has certain teachers (not all) that my oldest child had. We had a situation in middle school where a teacher was constantly referencing my oldest child to my youngest child (i.e., you aren’t like your sibling at all, are you? those type of things). It made for a miserable year in that class for my youngest child.
Ole Guy
August 10th, 2012
4:26 pm
Farns, ya gotta good point concerning a teacher’s command of the English lingo. However, this, in and of itself, should not become a major issue. One of my best hs teachers/physics…yes, I can sometimes remember that far back…spoke in a German inflection so thick, one had to really strain to understand his speech, much less the issue at hand. Be that as it may have been, his mentorship, traversing the hurdles, was indeed the finest.
We can speak of age-appropriatnes; the age at which we should (realistically) expect teachers to speak and enunciate properlyto their students. If kids, at any-and-all ages, could assimilate the self-control to close mouth and listen, the education community would advance by leaps and bounds. Whereas we’re quick to point accusatory fingers at teacher, we, at the very same time, tend to assume that “little johnny/little suzy/the wee little ones” are completely free to behave in any fashion which strikes them. I am quite certain you will agree that the best teacher…the best horse, the best automobile, etc, etc, etc…can be thrown way off track by (employing kind and charitable terms) “wayward influences”.
As with many issues brought forth within these columns, the vocal variations of the teacher should rank within the catagory of NON-ISSUE. Yet, as with so many “fly-in-the-ointment” issues we “discuss”, this should have very little, if any, bearing on teacher quality. While I fully realize that very young kids, k-1, and MAYBE even 2, may require teachers with near-melodic voice patterns, beyond that, this certainly should have no bearing on WHAT IS EXPECTED OF STUDENTS.
Once again, my big question: WHEN are you going to stop treating kids like little porceilin gods and godesses. Can you not see the negative aspects, both social and academic, which seem to surface with the introduction of older teens; young adults who, for perhaps the very first time in their lives, have to meet the world half way…AT LEAST half way.
Pride and Joy
August 10th, 2012
4:31 pm
Ole Guy, you’re out on a limb.
Comparing common, standard English to “melodic” voices is silly.
Every teacher in America should speak properly. That should be a requirement. It is deplorable that we even have to discuss it. Why set the bar so low for your own profession, Ole Guy?
I’m not talking about a German accent. I am talking about teachers who are so ignorant they could not pass the grammar test on the CRCT.
Young children learn grammar and syntax before they ever learn to read. They learn it through hearing it. When a teacher is in front of my child I expect her to know the language she is teaching her.
Your defense of ignorant teacheres is indefensible.
Jan
August 10th, 2012
5:27 pm
I always requested specific teachers for my son in the primary grades. He has ADHD and needed a strict teacher with a very structured classroom to succeed. I always clearly stated that my son’s needs and learning style necessitated the request and never denigrated or complained about the other teachers for that grade. My request was always granted. After 4th grade, he was mature enough to deal with different teaching styles and I stopped making requests.
Ray
August 10th, 2012
5:57 pm
I find this practice annoying. At the public elementary school that I have had children attending for the last 9 years, my wife and I have never lobbied for a particular teacher. But yet again this year we can’t help but notice that a group of the same kids, often belonging to pushy parents, end up together with the “popular” teachers. And our child ends up — you get the picture. Our elementary school, like many/most these days, does not ability group students, and instead says that it strives to balance each classroom with similar numbers of stronger and weaker students, but with this unofficial behind the scenes teacher request system in place, the classes invariably don’t end up very balanced. There’s something unseemly to me about going to the prinicipal’s office and yukking it up with the principal to make sure your kid gets put in a class with the other “popular” kids with the “popular” teacher — but apparently that’s the way it is done. I guess my wife and I better get with the program.
teacher2012
August 10th, 2012
10:03 pm
From the “mommy” standpoint, I wish I could pick my child’s teachers. Luckily, I live and work in a system where there are plenty of the “good” teachers so it hasn’t really been an issue so far. I did try to request my child be placed with a certain group of students (the gifted ones) at the middle school level, since my system puts all the gifted kids in the same class in middle school whereas in elementary and high school they aren’t necessarily grouped that way. However, I was ignored and my child was placed in a heterogenously grouped classroom and did great. I didn’t even try this year since my last request was not only not granted but also ignored. This year, my child is once again in a mixed group class but the teachers are awesome. So we’ll see. From the teacher standpoint, I am not really in favor of allowing parents and students to request a certain teacher as long as the teachers are all at the same ability level. However, if one teacher is bad, then the better teachers get many kids moved into their rooms because of parent and student complaints (rightly so!!). This makes the better teacher’s workload heavier so then his/her morale takes a hit. Until administrators get rid of the BAD teachers this will always be the case. You’d better believe that my child will NOT be in certain teachers’ classrooms especially since I work with some of them! I am not sure of the solution but I see both sides.
Flip the Script
August 11th, 2012
8:57 am
Should a teacher be able to pick the students they want…or a principal be able to pick the parents they want??? What would happen to those not picked?