My kid can walk on water!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Oh didn’t you know, my kid can walk on water!" "Tommy would never say the f-word; I don’t even know where he would hear such a thing?" "Hi Mr. Carr, this is Mrs. Anderson, I was wondering why Jen doesn’t have a grade from last week, and I know she did her project because I did it for her." "I think when Johnny was throwing clay in the room; he was just trying to express his feelings." If you are like me, you are so glad its summer right now and you are so happy you don’t have to talk to a parent that feels their child can do no wrong. During this last school year I really had a tough group of over protective parents that seemed to live their life through their kids; my big question is what am I going to do with them?

One of my worst experiences with a student happened this year. During one of my classes a student of mine would always ask an inappropriate question. The first 20 times it was just silly, but by the 30 time it became very irritating. Now I know this student was probably looking for a way to get some attention and was just going about it wrong, but it had pushed me over the line. Finally one day during class I just told her that we were all going to ignore her every time she made an unsuitable comment. Well this obviously made her mad, and she felt that she should give me the silent treatment. Well to my disbelief, one of my best students in class told her that she didn’t have to listen to me when I asked her to sit down. I was absolutely floored. I kept my composure and asked them both to stay after class. Well I started off with the student that had been making unsuitable comments all year and told her if she didn’t change her ways during class that she would do her artwork in inschool suspension for the rest of the day. The other student, who was a better kid, I asked her who she thought she was making comments like that in front of the whole class. I then told her it was unacceptable for her not to be finished with her artwork, and that she had some growing up to do if this is how she was going to treat her elders. Well I thought that was the end of that whole situation. Boy was I wrong. That night I got a call from my principal asking me about the whole situation; luckily I had another teacher around when I was talking to both of them. Apparently the parent was absolutely appalled that I would be so cruel to her daughter. Well I agreed to the sit down, and by sit down it was really like walking into a gangster movie. I started off by giving my story to the mother and basically saying that this will not be tolerated in my classroom. I thought she would see my side and move on. Well she disagreed and basically called me every name in the book. She said that, “I’m nothing more then a big bully, who gets a laugh out of picking on her kids.” This was my worst experience ever with a student and parent. What could I have done?

In a recent article that I read called, “Dealing with overbearing parents,” it said that overbearing parents mean well, but sometimes parents can add an unbelievable amount of stress to the learning process. The article labeled these parents as, “helicopter parents.” A helicopter parent is one who hovers over their child. They analyze and worry about everything that their child does, and schools struggle to accommodate them. This is totally what we are dealing with. One of the ways to handle parents like this is to

-Allow the parent to air all issues in a parent-teacher conference after school.
-Try to figure out the all of the parent's concerns before assigning work.
-Make sure major assignments come with project sheets with detailed instructions.
-Talk to the principal for support. The principal can try to make the parent feel comfortable and try to reassure the parent about the safety of the school and the quality of education the child will be receiving.
-For field trips, allow the parent to organize them. This will keep overbearing parents busy in a productive way.
-Send home weekly grade sheets and write quick notes in the student’s agenda book.
-Deal directly with the student about problems before calling the parents.

Boy this seems like a lot of work. I know it’s important for us to keep in good relations with parents, but parents have got to realize that we have more then just their child to teach. Their child might also make some mistakes, and they will have to face the consequences for their actions. In another article I read called, “Parental Involvement, how much is too much,” it talked about how colleges have reported that parents have been completing applications and essays for students, parents choosing colleges and majors for their kids, parents faxing daily updates to the college, and parents threatening lawsuits for various reasons.

I think we are living in a crazy world right now. I think we need to stop looking to our youth as the problem, and start looking to the environment they were raised in. Are we raising a generation of pansies? How are they going to continue on and fight the problems of tomorrow, if their parents can’t do it for them? Parents need to step back, and allow their child to fix their problems on their own!

Where has Jimmy Hoffa gone???

Alright, I got to say something. I’ve been constantly venting to the other half of the Maximum Overdrive connection that is Mike Crouse, about recent negotiations between the school board and our union reps. The negotiations are about the upcoming salaries for teachers in the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 years. The negotiations have been settled already with a 5% increase this year and another 5% increase next year. This looks pretty good and beggars can’t be choosers, so I guess I will go along with it for now, but this is my take on it.

At the negotiating table it was emailed to us that the Union came with a 13% possible pay raise. The 13% pay raise was then counter offered by the school board with 3%. Come on 3%, this is just ludicrous. Somehow it got decided that pay raise would be 5%. That’s some stellar negotiating. Now after doing some quick math this is what I came up with. I make about $37,000 a year. 5% of $37,000 is only $1750. Okay, I know, that’s still almost $2000, why am I being so greedy? This is where it gets tricky, you take out 25% for healthcare, retirement, and taxes and you end up with $1312.50. still and that doesn’t sound bad, an extra $100 to each month, hello China Star!!! Oh wait I forgot, I still have to pay those dues for being in the Union; it’s between $300-$400 for a year. Now I’m down to $75 more a month. Why did we have negotiations at all?

Unions can be a great thing, but where has the teachers union gone in North Dakota? It really just seems more and more like a scam to me then a way to help teachers out. They continue to donate money to political parties that promise the world if elected, and when they do get elected are the first to add more hoops to jump through for educators. My biggest question to our union is, “where does the money go.” Someone somewhere is out having the time of their lives, while we are trying to find ways to make more money. Yes that’s right, teachers sometimes have to work during the summer. One of my colleagues was just appalled when I brought this conversation up. She told me that they will help you if a lawsuit is every brought before you, or if are wronged by the school, they are the first to help. I thought this was hilarious. If a lawsuit is ever brought before you, chances are you probably did it, and if the school is doing you wrong, I’m sure they can’t be of any help.

I know I have been pretty harsh on Union representatives, and there is probably more to the story then what I’m seeing, but I have considered not be apart of the Union next year because of the recent events. In North Dakota teachers are not allowed to strike, which means no matter what we do, the school board and government officials will always have the last say. Its not right, and I wish their was a good answer for the problem.