Your Child is Doing Fine, I Promise.

It has been a very very difficult week. Normally, I enjoy teaching but this week multiple factors made it very difficult to enjoy it.

The biggest one was due to parent, teacher, student conferences on Thursday. I had many parents concerned about their freshmen child because they were not doing "well" with a "B." I was able to calm these parents down because I reassured them that their child has shown improvement in their organization, study skills, self-activity, etc. and that their child will be able to live up to their full potential. They are just currently struggling to figure it out.

Besides the fact that these parents want perfection from their child when they may not in fact be able to achieve it, I was fine until one conference that was extremely difficult.

It was a mother of a freshmen. Both of them came in and I figured it would be like the conferences above. However the mother decided to berate me in front of her son claiming I didn't know how to teach writing and that I didn't know basic English. The reason she knew better was because she went to a top tier university and graduated with a degree in English.

What got me was not the lack of respect from the mother, it was that she was doing this all in front of her son. Her son was sitting in the desk head down and trying to appear as small as he could. He was clearly embarrassed and only talked when I engaged him. The student even admitted that he had made a mistake on his paper and that he hadn't listened to what I told him to do (which I assured him was okay as long as he learned from it). This did not stop the mother from going on and on about how I didn't know what I was doing but she did.

What pissed me off was that the conference became more about the parent trying to validate their existence than what we could do to help her son in my class specifically with writing.

Her son was so embarrassed that he came up and apologized to me in class on Friday, completely worried that I was going to assume that he shared the same view as him mom in regards to what she had said. I assured him this was not true.

Now, I know I am not a parent but as a teacher this makes me very angry. This parent made the conference about her and completely ignored her son and his needs. She feels like she is a wiz in English and the fact that someone tells her otherwise makes her angry. She completely ignored the fact that her son is not a natural writer and that he needs to develop her skills. She completely ignored him and his wishes. It was obvious her son did not feel the same way she did but she completely ignored him and did what would validate her.

I was proud her son got a "C" on his paper because he improved from his first. He worked hard on it. Could have he worked harder and done better? Yes but he is 14. He is figuring it out. Why can't you feel the same?

Stop worrying about your ego and focus on your son's needs.

Open Letter to Those Who Think They Are More Important Since They Don't Get Snow Days

The past two days have been snow days with today being a two hour delay start. A lot of my friends on Facebook are teachers but some are not. A few of these non educators posted a passive aggressive status along the line of "Geeze I wish I had a job that got off for snow. Oh well. Off to work I go."

This is an open letter to them.

Dear person who thinks they are more important because you don't get snow days:

I get it. You see me rejoicing over getting off from school due to snow. Granted, I do not think it was enough snow to warrant a day off but I got it anyway. You have to go to work and suffer as I sit at home. Most likely you think I'm sitting on my butt doing nothing but watching TV and vegging out. If that was true, you would totally have the right to think you are more important than me.

Here is the thing though, over the last two days I wrote exams, graded papers, and planned units. Yes, I did it in front of my TV but that is not different from when my Dad was writing communication contracts from home with ESPN on in the background. Yes, I may have been in sweatpants but I promise you, I was working just as hard, if not harder, then you were.

Remember when you were a kid and you loooooved snow days because you didn't have to go to school and got to play video games instead? You may think teachers love snow days for the same reason but again, you would be wrong.

Teachers love snow days for two reasons. The first is that we get a break from students. The constant patience needed to deal with students when they don't "get it", "what if" questions, crazy students, and parents emailing you doesn't happen. You get a break from the most stressful aspect of your job. This break from this stress leads to the second reason teachers love snow days; time. We finally have time to do all the things our jobs require of us besides the actual teaching part. We can grade and plan with no disruptions.

We work the entire day. When you take the day off, do you work? Chances are no. Teachers work on every single day we have off. Sick days, personal days, vacation days. and snow days. Every vacation we go on during the course of the school year, we bring work to do.

So yes, I and other teachers get overly excited because of snow days. Not because we get a day off from work but because we get a day to do work. So next time you think you're more important because you don't get time off due to snow, remember that teachers are not actually enjoying the day to relax. We are enjoying it to work.

Sincerely
An Overworked Teacher