Monday, June 23, 2008

Sympathy for the Teachers

I know, you think I've lost my mind. I'm the one usually posting articles about abusive, crazy or pedophile teachers. And yet today I'm offering sympathy to teachers.

There certainly are bad teachers out there. I suffered through many of them during my years of incarceration, er, public school. But I'm aware that there are some good teachers who struggle to help kids within the framework of a flawed system.

A couple of them are friends of mine, and the one consistent thing I hear from them is that parents can often be harder to deal with than students or administration. One friend has actually gotten into shouting matches with angry parents who want her to raise their children's grades even though the children have not put forth the effort required for higher grades.

But even if some American parents cross the line when it comes to being obnoxious to their children's teachers, apparently Japanese parents are even worse. Read this article and see if you don't feel even a little sorry for teachers in Japan.

5 comments:

Cynthia said...

My parents were teachers and often saw how there were certain parents who were making things a lot worse for their child. I am having a hard time believing the play with 25 Snow Whites, or maybe I'm not. There are plenty of stories out there with co-valedictorians (multiple valedictorians) to protect students feelings/ appease parents.

Anonymous said...

Wow, that is pretty crazy! My public school teacher friends have said the same thing, either parents wanting everything "fair" or parents not caring at all which encourages the children to, obviously, not care at all either about their education. I read a few years back about how they wanted to get rid of red ink for wrong answers because red ink is associated with... wrong answers... too negative on a child's self-esteem. :)

Anonymous said...

You wonder why we have lazy, stupid kids in the work force who have no respect for anyone.

Melissa Markham said...

Oh my! 25 Snow Whites...what kind of story would that be? GEE! This type of appeasement can be seen every where. No one wants their kids to feel disappointed and it is a mistake. We are raising kids that can't take life. Bad, bad, bad.

Barbara Frank said...

Cynthia, I agree that the story seems pretty over-the-top. But when you consider how many of today's parents are out in public unashamedly begging their children to get off a display, or to stop crying and they'll buy them a treat, it doesn't seem so unlikely.

Pam, I heard about the red ink issue too. Ridiculous!

Barbaralee, I think people have always complained about the younger generation, but it sure seems like things today have gone downhill, doesn't it?

Melissa, I agree completely. My eldest works in retail and sees it all the time: women who become devastated and angry because the store doesn't have their size. Geez.

Thanks, ladies, for stopping by :)