I’ve got a headline for parents and fellow teachers: You are not the center of the universe.
by Ned the Noodge, The DC area’s premiere pain in the butt educator
The views of Ned the Noodge are his and his alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of DCschoolHUB and its employees.
I’ll start my gripe with parents. Most private schools have a day they invite grandparents to school. They used to call it grandparents day, but now it’s grandparent and special friends day. (the slippery slope to our ultra-inclusive society probably started with this). Anyway, a colleague told me that one of the grands couldn’t make the event at her school. So the grand sent an email to the HEAD OF SCHOOL asking her to read the note to the gathered grands and special friends AND to everyone gathered in the class. BTW, it was 3 pages long and full of what ‘granny had been up to’. The parents and grandparents were annoyed when the head of school declined to share the entire letter with the class. The head elected to have the teacher simply read it directly to the student at the end of the day.
So all of these grandparents travel far and wide so they can hear a letter about another child’s grandma? Hey granny and family: You are not the center of the universe!!!! My guess is that school won’t be receiving a donation from that family…maybe if they were in the above $1,000 donation club the head of school would have read the letter.
Now on to my fellow teachers. This happens all too often and it makes me crazy: teachers who dictate to the administration who they will and will not teach. For example, I have a colleague who will only teach the highest math group and refuses to teach those students in the lowest group. I get it, it’s more work, but guess what? THAT’S YOUR FREAKIN’ JOB!!! Get off your high horse. It’s not about you, it’s about the students.
Rant over, Merry whatever you celebrate.