Stories from American Education Week

I had a plethera of adults in my room this past week.

The mom from my previous posts of child abuse has been in to visit all three of her kids.  Dad isn't allowed on school property.  It is weird having her in my room because she is treating her kids like they are angels.  Makes me wonder why she is married to this dude.  And why she doesn't have any control over their discipline strategies.

I had a dad come in the other day who was dressed in his police uniform.  He walked in while I was teaching a class of first graders.  I assumed they would react to it, of course.  In the brief second that I had to think, I thought they would have said "Wow!"  "Cool!"  "A cop!"  "Neat gun!", etc.  Nope.  My kids are thugs whose parents are constantly running from the cops.   This was their response (in terror) "Mrs. Mengel! There's a cop in our room!"  "AHHHH!" "What's he doing here?"  "Who is he here for?"  "Is someone getting arrested?"  I attempted to explain to the 6 YEAR OLDS that police are good people who are here to protect us.  Didn't work.  They were still scared and most of them wouldn't even look him in the eye.  Kind of felt bad for the guy.

I had a 4th grade class today with 9 parent visitors.  The adults had to sit on the floor with us because we didn't have enough chairs in our room!  Having 10 adults in one room is tough.  Especially when one particular student wanted to show off for his mom.  He was playing his instrument like a rock star while I was talking or while other kids were trying to share.  He got reamed from me AND his mom.  That part was nice :-)

You would think that the kids would be super behaved because their parents are watching but really they are excited to show off!!  I was definitely caught off guard by this phenomenon.

I also gained a lot of respect for some parents and lost a lot of respect for a few.  First of all--I think it is awesome when parents are involved and come to see what their child is learning and how their days are spent at school with friends and teachers.  Every parent who actually showed up got a check mark in my book.  But then we had the parents who would chat to each other while their kids were trying really hard to pay attention and participate.  And I had more than one mom who actually ANSWERED HER CELL PHONE in my room while I was teaching a class of 5 year olds.  HOW RUDE!  I didn't say anything at all but I just kept on teaching loudly so she couldn't hear her phone call.  Respect=Gone.  I wonder what the expectations are for her children when it comes to manners.