Anyway, Liam has been getting negative reports from his teacher from his Pre-k class and there has seem to be problems with Liam in class. From the start of the second week the teacher said that Liam's behavior was of such concern that the teacher started sending home a behavior chart that has three catagories: Hands/Feet to self, Listening, Group. Ahmie since the first note has tried on several occasions to be in contact with the teacher via e-mail, but the teacher has not responded.
We tried to support this behavior chart by removing privileges from getting poor ratings (frown faces) and giving incentives for good ratings (smiles) and nothing for neutral ratings (neutral face). We tried to do this for about 2 weeks until This Thursday when Ahmie tried to ask the teacher when picking up Liam about why Liam is still getting Frown faces in his behavior chart, the teacher told Ahmie that "you should ask your son and his friend."
When I got that phone call from Ahmie I was livid because of the unprofessional nature of the response. Then I was told that Liam was not given his snack in class because of his behavior. Now Liam had told me about him earning his snack back last week later in the week, I had thought he meant that he had earned his juice for the ride home from school. I was pissed and still am.
I can see perhaps that I am getting one part of the story and I should not get so incised but the lack of story from the teacher's side of the conversation is not good either. As a teacher I could not tell a parent why their child was written up by responding "why don't you ask your child?"
I am so very angry for several reasons.
1) Where does the teacher think she has the right to withhold food from my child? When I was managing a group home I could get in trouble if I did this to any of my clients. Where does she think she has the right to ostracize my child in this way in front of his classmates.
2) The behavior chart is meaningless since the teacher has failed to define what she meant with these ratings.
3) If his behavior was so difficult to manage why is it that the teacher not contacting us about working together to help Liam be better behaved in class.
4) If she is charting the behavior, for what reason, and to what end? Charting is pointless unless the teacher has a plan of action to correct my son's actions in class. If she does have a plan, she has yet to let us know anything about it. Since this was the second week of her charting my son's behavior his behavior is not changing, so what is next?
5) When Ahmie asked the teaching assistant in the class about what is going on in class the assistant did not seem to think Liam's behavior is that extraordinarily bad.
6) Why is the teacher so lazy that she could not communicate with us so that we can help parent our child so he can behave better. She has not given any communication about any incident at school who Liam may have hit or kicked, or tripped? Without any context I cannot in good judgement punish my child for his misbehavior. Without information we cannot have Liam apologize to the kids he may have hurt.
7) Liam is starting to dislike school because of all of this, he only goes to school for like 3 hours a day and there is no way that this teacher will make my son hate school.
I really want to be the ugly parent and rant and rave at the teacher and give her a piece of my mind. However this is not productive as much as I wish to do it.
1) Liam has picked up that Ahmie does not like his teacher. I cannot let Liam see me yell at his teacher, that would be disrespectful. I don't like it done to me so I should not do it to others.
2) I should really see what is going on. Monday I am taking half a day off to observe the class interactions.
I should be very precise and critical with the teacher and with the information that I already have I think I can evaluate her with a very cold critical eye.
I really want my son to love to go to school and learn, he is starting to ask good questions about things. Like he asked about the moon, I try to explain it to him in a scientific way.
Apparently Liam has learned to be quite careful about recycling his things before throwing things out.
I guess we are doing something right.
