Frederick: That read like "my kid sucks at school -it's the teachers fault".

thats how i read it. i have 3 boys. i have experienced all types of problems with them at school. but at anytime they are having trouble learning something or trouble with work we(my ex wife and myself) have always helped them. WE put the extra effort into helping them. i dont expect the schools to do all the work. i take responsibility for them first.

all i expect from the schools with my 3 boys is to one day have an artical on FARK that a hot teacher was sleeping with them.

Oblig

We are not legally allowed to talk to an undergrad's parents. And that is awesome.

the obvious solution is to cut teacher pay by 50% and eliminate any and all benefits. they're just glorified babysitters.

tl;dr, trailer park is trailer park

Here's a comment I posted, let's see if it makes it through moderation:

My heart goes out to you. This poor kid is just trying to pursue happyness and get the education he needs to succeed in life, but instead this teacher is acting like an enemy of the state, pushing him down and treating him like a bad boy. I can certainly understand your frustration with the educational system when it seems like your child is being told he is a failure.

But sometimes, parents just don't understand that children need extra help at the home, as well as in the school. Just because the teacher sees your kid for most of the day doesn't mean she has the responsibility to make him responsible, or spend extra hours doublechecking things that are six steps away from common school activities. You will be the strongest influence in your child's life, while a teacher only sees him for a few months between summertimes. The teacher might have him most of the day, but he's yours in the morning and the evening. You're the alpha and the omega, man.

And besides, most of life's most important lessons are learned outside of the classroom. Conflict resolution with one's peers is more likely to happen on a basketball court than in a classroom. If you aren't able to reach out to your child and help him through the wild wild west that is social interaction, he'll end up alienated and alone, or turning into i robot. Even worse, you might have to pull him out of school entirely, and send him to live with an auntie or uncle in a different social setting. And that is an adjustment that is never easy, no matter how much a kid values their independence. Day after day they'll be forced to adjust to a new life.

So, please reconsider your feud with the school district. Otherwise, your child will be the only one who suffers.

Optimus Primate: 1. How does this go green? The headline is not even mildly amusing and the letter is lame.

2. The letter is lame. I hate myself for reading it.

Sounds to me like you would benefit from writing a whiny letter to this site.

kukukupo: Dear Parent,

I have 25-30 kids to deal with and due to budget cuts I have no assistant. The state has standards that require me to spend large parts of my day on specific subjects and areas. Additionally, I get paid 10% less than I did a few years ago and have twice as much work to do. I simply don't have the time anymore to hold your kid's hand through the school day. Your kid is entirely responsible for the work he does. If he can't do the work, he fails. I can't make him any more responsible than he is. If you want your kid to succeed, you will need to work with him at home on some basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills.

Sincerely,

Teacher (at least until I can find another job)

Thank you. Wife is a teacher, and she hasn't seen a raise in 6 years. She makes what i made 10 years ago in my second year of work. She also works harder, and more than i do with no overtime.

You say, but they get summers off!!! Well yes they do. They need to in order to regain their composure that they have lost having to teach your retard child.

Mistress Jedana: So, I'll do my job and you do yours, and between us, we will produce a man,

In just seven days?

Dear parent,

We appreciate your sympathy. However, it's a common misconception that "asshole kids that have no respect for authority" are the hardest part of being an elementary school teacher. Asshole parents who have no respect for their children's education are actually much harder to deal with.

We do indeed want him to do his best. This is a kid who is struggling and is telling you this and it's obvious by looking at grades. HELP HIM! When he doesn't understand the problem, don't just tell him "go ask your teacher, Springer's on." Show him.

And another thing, don't you DARE tell your son that he isn't a failure! What gives you the right to tell anyone they are a failure? Guess what lady. He is failing, and so are you! And you know what? We have looked at his progress; we gave him the grades. He is getting B's and C's and ONE F. That is failing, at least, by the common definition. Look it up.

And don't just pawn himself on someone else. We have asked you, I don't know how many times, to double check his homework and be aware of what is going on. We know he *should* be responsible for himself. But he is not doing this, and so you should put steps in place to correct him.

Make him be responsible. Tell him what he will and will not be doing at home: what activities he can and can't do. That is your job. Our job is to teach your son to be a better student. You clearly do not have the being a better person thing down pat. He is very kind and compassionate, but these are not the only things that make a good person.

Don't neglect your part in his education and make him a laughingstock. Don't push aside the very real problems he IS having and only focus on making him feel good. All this is going to do is make him not try at all.

As for the principal and the rest of the staff. We are livid at the fact that your son's behavior is requiring us to hold him for almost 2 hours after school. And when he was asked to stay after again and you said no, we argued with you until we gave in with a time limit just to shut you up. When you showed up 15 minutes before the time agreed upon, the doors were locked per standard school procedure. You are damn lucky you called the school before the police.

You were told he was not ready and would be another 15 minutes. Let me tell you something, lady... your son leaves the school whenever we say he is... not the other way around. Then we came out and ted to tell you what was going on and showed you all these assignments he had not finished, which you claimed he had. Then we told you, correctly, that this is your problem. And then we walked away. You are lucky you were in a hurry and really didn't want to go to jail. Our security guards really don't want to deal with parents punching us in the face.

We are his teachers. Not his parents. You are supposed to be an environment for kids to go and learn, not to be fun and happy. As his parents, you are our partners in this. He is not supposed to cry every night about not understanding and not getting help: he should get that help from you. He shouldn't be begging you to transfer him schools away from his friends: you should be giving him the support he needs to succeed. He should be wanting to learn. We hate that you have taken that away from him. And you deserve a big, fat mushroom print for pushing him so far down he has no want to climb back up and do what we know he can.

Hell while I'm at it, here's another CSB from my one year in an elementary school.

The computer lab that I was in charge of was right next to the special needs classroom. There was one kid in particular who would flip out every once in a while and get violent, which would then lead to him being restrained. When he was in restraint he would often yell "Let me go, let me out, I'm stuck in here". When this happened, you could usually hear it in the computer lab, so I kept some classical music queued up just in case.

One day, I had just started the music to cover up the noises coming from the next classroom, when a little first grade girl came up to my desk. She asked me to turn off the music and had this real panic in her voice. She said we had to turn off the music so we could hear the kid that was stuck in the wall trying to get out.

monkey_licker: This parent is not very eloquent and may not be the best example, but the problems described are no less real.

We tried putting my son in public school in 3rd grade. We presented the teacher with an IEP and neuropsych eval and engaged in a 2 hour conversation with her and the principle. At the end of the conversation she indicated that she understood the issues and would be willing to extend some patience and a little extra attention to help him get started.

One of the big issues he has is in planning and remembering ordered steps (I can't remember the exact term right now). On day three I heard the teacher say to my son as he struggled to remember exactly what he needed to do as part of the morning routine "Well you should remember this by now." That was his last day in public school, and he has been home schooled successfully ever since.

Oh, and BTW, we live in a trailer park. If you would drop your ignorant prejudice for a moment, you might see that very normal, well adjusted people live in trailer parks because apartments suck and buying a home is not economically feasible.

oh wait, you're serious. here let me laugh harder.

How typical of the Fark liberal elitist community to assume that this good Christian woman is to blame and not the teachers. She knows her child is having a hard time in school. What does she get when she humbly requests a minimal amount of assistance from her son's teacher? Nothing. Just a "not my job". When she takes her concerns to the school principal, she is similarly rebuffed. I, for one, agree with this fine mother that her son is failing because his teachers are failing to properly educate him. Hopefully she takes her issue to the school board and has these people investigated and summarily fired.

scarmig: Goddamn I'm so glad my kids are in Montessori.

I like the St Louis blues and all, but I'm not so sure that state has the best of school systems.

Brandyelf: That's 2 minutes of my life I'll never get back.

If your time is that precious, maybe Fark isn't the best place to spend it.

CapnBlues: also, a "mushroom print" is sexual assault. so every post on this "blog" implies that the author of that post wishes sexual assault on the target of their invectives.
.

OK, there smarty pants, let me set you straight! Since this revolves around trailer park lifestyles, we will have to go by trailer park rules. And, as we all know that means NASCAR. And we all know that invectives are not allowed in NASCAR (you have to use carbeurators). After that I got nuthin'

Might I suggest a tutor?



/show your work

I really hated school. Those teachers made me work all the time, and they never praised me for being awesome at sports and for having a great baseball card collection. All they ever did was try to teach me -- they never once just told me I was awesome for no reason at all. I think I'd like to get back at them now, though, so I'm going to vote for politicians that will cut their pay and make their lives really shiatty. That'll show my teachers, who are now all either retired or dead. That'll teach THEM a lesson. You don't boss me around, because I have a really lousy job at the mill that earns me just enough money to live here and vote.

Thunderpipes: Famous Thamas: I am so glad I didn't follow the herd in college and sign up to be a teacher. I may be bored as hell dealing with executive temper tantrums and posting on Fark, but it has to be better than putting up with crap like this.

I worked for one school year at an elementary school as an IT guy, and in that year I experienced the following:

-Sick for six months straight
-Had a stapler thrown at my head
-taught kids how to Kamehameha
-Called a racist by the head of the PTA for disciplining her child
-Called a racist for asking someone to move her car while on Bus duty
-vomited on multiple times
-Realized I was one of two male employees, me and the janitor
-Called in to help restrain an out of control special needs kid, who then bit me hard enough to draw blood
-Hooked up with that unhappily married minx of a history teacher
-Chased a kid all over the neighborhood who took off during recess
-Learned that kindergarten is one of the most insane things in the world
-So many teachers are so very lonely
-Taught a 5th grader the basics of organic chemistry, which he used to make a kickass science fair project
-Unintentionally became the head of the non-teachers union

Retire at 50 with a gigantic taxpayer funded pension, summers off, immunity to job loss, always get what you ask for or you strike, and get it anyway.....

Did you just complain about getting laid?

The lonely teacher part was nice, and now I understand why so many of them end up banging students. I cannot however, impart the sheer insanity of working in an elementary school. Setting foot into that building every morning was like stepping into Sigil as the Nameless One.

Famous Thamas: I am so glad I didn't follow the herd in college and sign up to be a teacher. I may be bored as hell dealing with executive temper tantrums and posting on Fark, but it has to be better than putting up with crap like this.

I worked for one school year at an elementary school as an IT guy, and in that year I experienced the following:

-Sick for six months straight
-Had a stapler thrown at my head
-taught kids how to Kamehameha
-Called a racist by the head of the PTA for disciplining her child
-Called a racist for asking someone to move her car while on Bus duty
-vomited on multiple times
-Realized I was one of two male employees, me and the janitor
-Called in to help restrain an out of control special needs kid, who then bit me hard enough to draw blood
-Hooked up with that unhappily married minx of a history teacher
-Chased a kid all over the neighborhood who took off during recess
-Learned that kindergarten is one of the most insane things in the world
-So many teachers are so very lonely
-Taught a 5th grader the basics of organic chemistry, which he used to make a kickass science fair project
-Unintentionally became the head of the non-teachers union

Retire at 50 with a gigantic taxpayer funded pension, summers off, immunity to job loss, always get what you ask for or you strike, and get it anyway.....

Did you just complain about getting laid?

dready zim: SubBass49: More than likely the teacher said, "You're failing this class." It went through the "English to My-Snowflake-Is-A-Perfect-Angel" translator and came out as, "You're a horrible failure and will suck at life."

So what do you tell a kid who is honestly a horrible failure and will actually suck at life?

"I'll throw in another ten if you call me Daddy while you're down there. Twenty if you start crying."

Javacrucian: I know you may have stereotyped us because we live in a trailer park and are on the free lunch program, but you don't know much of anything at all.

I know that the rest of your letter sounds like something you would be shouting into a cell phone while pushing your three kids in a stroller in front of the Dollar Store and trying to light a cigarette all at the same time.

You know my ex-wife?

I find it humorous that this is in the sidebar

Dear Parent,

I have 25-30 kids to deal with and due to budget cuts I have no assistant. The state has standards that require me to spend large parts of my day on specific subjects and areas. Additionally, I get paid 10% less than I did a few years ago and have twice as much work to do. I simply don't have the time anymore to hold your kid's hand through the school day. Your kid is entirely responsible for the work he does. If he can't do the work, he fails. I can't make him any more responsible than he is. If you want your kid to succeed, you will need to work with him at home on some basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills.

Sincerely,

Teacher (at least until I can find another job)

When I was in 3rd grade my teacher told me I was a lizard

SubBass49: The ONLY thing in that letter that was uncool was the teacher telling the kid that they're a failure. That's if I even believe that's what happened. More than likely the teacher said, "You're failing this class." It went through the "English to My-Snowflake-Is-A-Perfect-Angel" translator and came out as, "You're a horrible failure and will suck at life."

The thing is that a great many people are horrible failures and suck at life. Just look at Fark.

It's rude to point it out, I suppose, but that doesn't mean it might not be entirely true.

It's hard to take a letter seriously when it's written in the "I have serious butthurt" tone. If you want something changed, learn to express yourself without resorting to calling people names.

I_Am_Weasel: miss diminutive: He should be wanting to learn. I hate that you have taken that away from him. And you deserve a big, fat mushroom print for pushing him so far down he has no want to climb back up and do what I know he can.

Is this some kind of trailer gypsy curse or hex she's trying to put on them? I've never heard this term before.

mushroom print

- when a dude slaps his penis against someone and it leaves a mark like a mushroom.

Other definitions include using a mushroom as a stamp, which wouldn't make sense in this context.

So this child is struggling academically? Can't imagine why, with such a insightful and eloquent parent.

ahh, you mean a mollywhop!

At the school where my son goes, one teacher got this comment:

"My child is respectful at school and when we go out but not at home. Can you teach him to be more respectful?"