To Laskern
Interesting point you bring up… but not all teachers are like that rebbe BUT…
My children attended a school while we were going through some very difficult things as a family. Because of the importance and unfortunately trauma of these issues, the school had to be aware of what was going on, and so were the teachers. These issues went on for several years, but, we insisted and instructed each and every teacher that the expectation of the child should not, under ANY circumstances be lowered. In spite of what we as a family were dealing with, our children had a tremendous amount of love, support and stability, and the children received mental health assistance as well. They had a solid and warm support system.
In spite of that, several of my eldest child’s teachers told us that they were treating our child differently, because they had sympathy for the situation and did not want to put added stress or pressure on the child. Thus, they significantly lowered their expectations, causing the child abject misery for the remainder of their educational career
Another child, who happens to have special needs was placed in the mainstream class with the rest of their classmates. Unfortunately, the city that we were living in, did not (at that time) have any “official” services for students with this child’s type of need (long story). So, the child received an “aide” to assist them with their studies.
The “aide” was a newly married, fresh faced from Israel individual who knew virtually nothing about education short of what they had seen when they were in school. Ironically, I was this individual’s teacher for one year, during my extremely long educational career before I switched careers. Throughout the school year, I would receive several disrespectful emails (maybe got three over the course of the year) from the “aide” regarding my child’s actions and education, progress or lack thereof and so on. The emails were short, did not address any true nor accurate information, and essentially stated that my child would never succeed and the aide did not know why they were wasting their time.
This was not ONE email. This was the tone of EVERY email. In response, I very civilly sent back curt, but kind emails thanking this “aide” for all they did… whatever that was. My child LOVED this aide. I suspect it was because the aide did not require anything from my child, and left my child to their own devices. For my child, it was books and reading.. so, that’s what they did, all during class, all during recess, they never went outside and played, did not play during gym, did not play with other children, did nothing but read for an entire year. This, as you can imagine, thrilled and delighted me, but unfortunately, I was extremely limited in how I could handle the situation.
At the end of the school year I contacted this aide and had a frank conversation with them. I asked the aide if they LIKED my child.
Of course, the immediate response was yes.
I then asked about the emails, the few and far between once, and the tone within. From this aide, whom I had taught well over 20 years before when they were in 2nd grade, had the nerve to say to me “Parents have to respect me. It is not my job to contact parents, if they need something, they have to contact me. You should feel lucky I sent you anything at all” I will respect YWN by NOT repeating what I said to the aide after that.
Then I asked the aide again, if they LIKED my child. Again, the immediate response was yes. I responded with the following (and this is actually the point of my story).
“All teachers will not like all their students. I am well aware that you do not like my child. The tones of your email and your disrespectful attitude throughout this conversation clearly reflect that. It is OK for a teacher not to like a child It is something that happens, and you are NOT going to like every child that comes your way. I KNOW you don’t like my child, and that’s OK. What is NEVER OK is for either the parents OR the child to EVER know that you do not like them. EVER.”
Children with special needs or labels frequently have lower expectations required of them, and are often the target of bullies in school. It’s sad that some of those bullies are the adults.