8. Dog – gonit

I work at an inner-city Catholic school where most of my students have some serious learning disabilities. Their parents get second jobs to pay for Catholic school because they don’t want their kids in the dangerous public school, but the Catholic schools don’t have a extra needs teacher that can really help them. For my students who have severe ADD/ADHD, I have a rule that if they are acting up too much, they can leave the room and ‘take a lap’ for a couple of minutes to get some energy out.

This has been incredibly helpful, and has caused far less distractions in class.

A couple of weeks ago I had to call home about a student who was constantly on her phone and talking back. The mother then proceeded to tell me that I called her daughter a dog by saying some students can take a lap, and that I was racist for describing my students as dogs. I never said dog.

9. Wait, what?

When I came out to my parents they decided it was my English teachers fault for always wearing coloured bra’s under a white blouse. So they put in a formal complaint.

10. Make up your mind!

When I was teaching overseas at an American school, I had a parent of a fifth grader who felt that her son wasn’t being challenged enough (this came out during the October parent teacher conference). Ok. So, work and challenge level ramps up to a degree I feel he can handle. Next conference (after said student’s grades drop a tiny bit), same parent complains that I am being too tough on her child. Face palm.

11. 50%

This one sticks out for me:

My class was about to take a unit test on physical science. It had been about a month since the last test, so I sent home a two sided review sheet. I was checking these for correctness but grading for completeness (the plan was to hand them back out as a study guide) and I notice one that has no answers one side of it. The child had written their name at the top of the blank side, so they had seen it and just decided not to do it. I gave the child a 50 on the assignment, since they had done half. Perfectly reasonable, right?

Nope.

Parent complained, but to the other teachers in the grade instead of me. Apparently, giving a 10 year old a completeness grade based on the amount of work they did is entirely unreasonable. None of the other teachers were so mean, so it wasn’t fair for me to be either.

12. Move over

Moving students.

When I taught high school, I moved seating arrangements about once a semester. Keeps them on their toes, forces them to work with other students and breaks up some of those talky groups we tend to get.

Every time it happened I got calls about “How dare you move my baby! He wants to sit next to his friends!” Your child does more talking than work, he needs to be away from his friends.

“My little girl needs to sit in the front row. Otherwise she won’t pay attention and get all A’s.” Your kid is fine in the second row, she’s focused and learning. I need the front row for other kids.

“You only moved him because you hate him/you’re racist/you’re mean.” Yeah, it just really makes me happy to move your child two seats to the right.

Seriously folks, it’s a seat change in one period. Unless there is a medical reason that dictates otherwise, your kid will be okay wherever I sit them.

13. Cuz you are

I had a parent find my personal Facebook page and was mad about what I had posted. Ie pics of me and my boyfriend at parties, pics of me in a swimsuit while on vacation, pics of me “out on the town” late at night. She wanted me fired for presenting an inappropriate lifestyle to children and made it seem like I was coming to school wasted everyday, and making out with my boyfriend in front of the class.

14. What dum dums

The school has a behavior plan. Basically, if the kids don’t go below a certain good behavior color, they get a Friday Lollipop.

A certain child wasn’t given a lollipop at the end of the week because he spit on another kid (among other stuff). The parents went ballistic. They barged into the school in a full rage. They were screaming and demanding a dum dum pop for their son.

This enraged them so much that they had a behavior plan conference with the team teachers. Of course, the parents made the conference solely about obtaining this stupid dum dum.