Dec 13, 2012 by Yolanda Fontanez-Coleman | Focus, Parent Blogs, Parent Stories, Teaching
This is a blog from one of our parents. We thought it was powerful and wanted to share with our readers….. Tell us what you think? What would you do?
I have this amazingly beautiful bright little girl! She is a 3rd grader who loves to play soccer, basketball and the guitar. She makes friends easily and has many of them. she does very well in school and even loves going to school. This year she hasn’t been feeling that same passion for school.
Just recently her teacher has said a few things that have crushed her little spirit. My daughter tends to be a bit anxious and loves to make sure things are in its “place”.. she is not diagnosed with OCD but definitely has some tendencies. This info has been shared with the teacher during the fall parent/teacher conference.
My daughter pushes herself to do the best she can. She strives to do well in school and will do the 1.5 hours of homework a night that has been given to her without a complaint. (I think this is way too much for a 3rd grader but that’s another blog!) But my major issue with this teacher is how she has made my daughter feel on 2 instances in particular. She is not shy and will ask questions a lot of them at times! She may overanalyze things but her end goal is do get the correct answer and she will do what it takes to get there. She has asked her teacher a few questions one day and the teacher took her out in the hallway and said,“You need to chill out!”. How do you think this made my daughter feel?…not good. She came home from school that day and shared this with me and from this day on she has been doubting herself and hesitates to ask questions in school.
About a month later, she brought home a stack of about 12 tests stapled together to be signed. I reviewed each test and initialed it. She gave the stack of tests to her teacher the next day and and the teacher said, “did your mom sign every test? Ok now I understand where you get it from.” My daughter came home that day and was embarrassed and upset about what happened.
I am so upset about the way this teacher is speaking to my daughter and I frankly was very angry that a teacher had more or less mocked me in front of my daughter. Now, the question is, do I say something to the teacher and hope this does not had a negative affect on my daughter or do I just move forward with the year and hope it does not happen again????
This blog was written by a Parent of a 3rd grade daughter and 1st grade son from Montgomery County.