When should teachers help?

Honest opinion:

Well, right off, it begs this question of you: Since this is a staff with no LD services, how knowledgeable are these classroom teachers? It may very well be that they’re not educated enough in such matters to know what to do. Unfortunately it’s equally true of many teachers in public schools but at least they have special ed teachers to talk to about their LD kids.

I think there’s no reason in the world for an LD kid to be allowed to fail in the hopes of their learning if they haven’t been given the skills to help them succeed in the first place. You have every right to expect more dialogue with the teachers about your LD child who’s struggling than had your child been a kid without any problems. But you’d expect the same for any kid with any kind of struggle: social, emotional, physical - teachers should be communicating regularly with parents when a student in their class is having difficulties of any kind.

I always try to keep that triangle model in my head: child on top, with teachers occupying one lower angle and parents the other. Both are there to mutually support the child. To do that requires open communication.

Sadly there aren’t easy answers to your good question. A great deal depends on the philosophy of the school and/or the philosophy of the teachers who teach your son.

As a teacher in just such a school as you describe your son’s to be, I believe we do have a responsibility to step in and help. I don’t believe that allowing a child to fail somehow motivates them to be successful. I don’t believe in a sink or swim approach. I wouldn’t believe that in any school but in a school where my parents are paying thousands of dollars a year for me to teach their child… I think it’s more than incumbent upon me to help.

But many of my colleagues disagree. They would say ‘we are not a special school’ and That is not our mission here’ and many more things like that. Some of my colleagues genuinely believe that only failure encourages a child to success…

As the parent of an LD child myself who attended the college prep private school with no LD services at which I also teach, I knew what I could not ask of my colleagues. I knew which teachers I could approach and which I couldn’t. I also knew that a college prep private school is not a place where it is expected that all children will be successful. So when your son and my son are not successful in those schools, that is in keeping with the order of things as they see it.

I also came to think that if learning is the point, why do we as teachers and schools put so many obstacles in the path of it? What is it we are teaching? Subject matter or punctuality? Curriculum or compliance? Sometimes it can’t be both and which is more important? And at what age is this all too much? My middle school students can now barely carry their backpacks home from the many binders and books they have and they are assigned hours of work each night. To what avail I am not sure.

My middle school experience was very different than the modern one and I am not impressed with the changes. I see nothing essential in the hundreds of handouts and folders and binders. We’ve made it more complicated and more paper-laden even as we move toward a paperless world. It makes no sense.

My son’s experience helped to open my eyes to what we were doing to the LD students in our midst and to their parents. I ‘ve come to think that all schools should be places where all students are helped in all ways possible to be successful and that help provides the support from which confident independence will one day be able to come.

But know that few agree with me.

Good luck to you and your son.

As a parent, I think a teacher should do anything within reason to help a child succeed. I had a problem this year with my son failing science, because of not bringing homework home. He has this class before lunch and I think that by the end of the day, he just didn’t remember what he the assignment was. All the kids in the school have an agenda, but his reading skills are so low that when she would write the homework on the board to write in the agenda, he couldn’t tell it from the other stuff, so I never knew. After a meeting with the special ed advisor and this teacher we came to the solution that the teacher would fax me all notes and homework assignments daily. My son was spending all his lunches in detention and receiving F’s, because of these missed assignments. The teacher wasn’t happy about having to do this, but she agreed. But guess what, she has “forgotten” to fax this information twice in the last two weeks. I think she needs a detention. LOL. Another one of her requirements were that all students keep a notebook with the whole 9 weeks assignments in it and turn in at the end of the grading period (9 weeks). I told her this was impossible, this is a kid who has to be reminded to take his ball glove to a ball game. Her answer was…he’ll just have to do it. So, the solution to this problem was the LD teacher keeps it for him and turns it in at the end of the grading period. The good side ofthis is, he’s getting a good grade on it, but what is the point. Are we teaching the LD teacher to be organized? My solution was to just forget it, and when figuring grades, figure it without that assignment, but she says that isn’t fair. I guess it’s fair other kids can read and mine can’t? But I guess I have to consider the source, this is the same teacher, who when told that he was only responisble for completing 50% of homework, wanted to know if when she graded it she only have him a 50. Yeah, I bet every kid would be really excited about completing his homework, if he knew it was an F, before he even started. When I suggested some web sites this teacher might visit to learn more about LD kids, she informed me she knew all about LD kids, sounds like it, huh?
I guess I”ve been rambling and don’t even know if I made any suggestion to your question…..but I feel better. LOL

Gee, I think I’d find ways to have him miss her class here and there for doctor’s appointments…

Although I am trained in pre-school education, I have a 9th grader with Ld’s. decoding, note taking, etc. all the things you’ve mentioned. Futhermore, he didn’t receive modifications until the middle of 7th grade. He never developed the strategies he needed to become organized. I want to say the chronic disorganization was magnifying his ld’s. Last year his sped. teacher emailed me every Friday - Missing Homework for the Week Form. It was invaluable - I could hold him accountable finally & get a heads up on future projects -addressed in her “notes” section on the form. I could also email her back re: questions etc. I can’t tell you how many times when reviewing the missing homework sheet my son would say, “Oh, I have that, I just forgot to pass it in”
However, he is now in High School & the schools policy is the student must go to each individual teacher himself and have them sign/initial a missing homework form. With a student who is chronically disorganized, and being a normal teenager who does not want to bring that attention to himself, this is not working. I cannot hold him accountable anymore & feel like he is losing ground. I hate punishing him for something he can’t help. I realize organization takes an effort on his part, but the daily effort he makes already to get through each class is immense. No surprise his grades are slipping. I don’t understand what the big deal is in supplying a parent with this information to help a child and student to succeed. While the student is “practicing” getting notes, the parent gets the actual notes, and can compare. Then show their child what they may have missed, to teach them. How else can they learn the difference?