PARENT BASHING

:) Hi Diane,
I too, have noticed the samething. I deal with it like this…..
skip the post as soon as it turns hostile. It’s obvious that who ever makes these posts in the LD Sites doesn’t have “clue”. And I PRAY TO GOD it is not a educator!!!!!
But„I just “blow them off”. I’m not out for someone elses offensive, ignorant opinion…My goal is to have a child that is Educated enough to function as a adult and not “burden” society.
This is the internet Diane..and like everything else…there’s a “bonehead” in every crowd. :roll: :wink:
Pay no mind to those posts….focus on your childs needs.
I do understand your frustrations though,
Binky

I would take a look at the source. I would be willing to bet any amount of money that you are not seeing this sort of thing from anybody on this forum that is respected by anybody else (victoria, Janis, etc etc).

I don’t know that I have noticed parent bashing per se (I’m sure you are right, not being a parent…), but I have noticed some hostile posts by some “guests”. These are people that seem to be able to log in without having to give a name (and an email address) to ldonline.

Frankly it’s pretty rare for forums to allow posting without logging in. I was on the beginnings of one and they eventually had to stop that random posting. I really think it *helps* get rid of the riff raff.

You might alert ldonline to any offensive posts.

—des

I have seen what you are referring to, and think that part of it cyclical. Over the last 7 years of haunting various messagboards concerning LD, autism and Sped I have seen parents bashing (and the reciprocal, teacher bashing) come and go in both frequency and fervor. Some of it I think is just blowing off steam, but occasionally I have seen people (even regulars) spanked and even booted.

I think the most recent bout of parent bashing follows closely on the heels of NCLB. This Federal opus presents professional educators with a previously unheard of (at least by public teachers under the age of 70) degree of resposnsibility for positive output. It must be very hard for some teachers to come to grips with their inability to reach all children, especially those who refuse to learn new methods or approaches.

Of course, for some people (regardless of profession) the problem could never be with they themselves, so obviously the child (and consequently the parent) must be at fault. And since you cannot (legally) lash out in anger and frustration at a minor in your care (especially in front of witnesses) parents make convenient targets, more so when they are not the parents of your students, and you are basically anonymous on the internet.

It is going to get worse I think before it gets better. Wait till staff shake ups begin in earnest…

By the by, most of the message boards I frequent are truly open. This one is one of the only 3 I frequent which requires registration.

Its not just teacher bashing parents and parents bashing teachers. Its parents bashing other parents over treatment choices. My opinion is that the ones who scream the loudest about how right they are and how wrong you are are those who are most afraid that its the other way around and think if they make you feel bad it will somehow prove them right. Some parents also are in denial about what may be going on with their own children and have a blind need to believe that they can and must totally “fix” their kids also do alot of bashing so that they wont have to confront the reality that things can get better but perhaps not all the way.

There are many nice guests, btw, as the above.

—des

My two cents is as follows. It is hard work being a parent. Many parents do a splendid job. Many teachers also do a splendid job, under extreme circumstances. This board is usually pretty even, but some boards are notorious for teacher bashing to the extreme. No teacher is good enough, no school eval will ID the disability, we do all manner of things.

Well, I can assure you I have never worked so hard in my entire life, anywhere on anything. I still cannot hope to do what the picky parents and the federal government demand of me, even if I spent all my time doing it.

So, as a teacher I do see things that concern me enormously. There are some frightfully incompetent parents out there who cause many additional burdens for their child.

There are parents who, when faced with the option of trying medication with their seriously hard to teach behaviorally challenged ADHD child, proudly state, “I don’t send him to school to make your job easier.” Yes, I read that recently in such a case.

You know, it is not about my job, but it is mighty darned hard for an extremely ADHD child to learn and the extremely ADHD child usurps so much teacher time (trust me, keeping this child under some modicum of control and sort of on task, out of the way of other learners) that the teaching part of the job can be impacted and the learning of other students compromised. Mind you, I do not speak of cases but those where the symptoms are pointedly and painfully obvious and usually affect the child in multiple areas, one of which is in social acceptance (the type of child to whom I refer is rarely liked and accepted). All that was just so you would understand I so not refer to the mildly affected child who requires a little additional monitoring.

I have been a parent, am a parent. I have dealt with some of the issues that do come up on these boards at home, so I am not a stranger to the fact that this is hard. Many sped. teachers have sped. kids, that is why some go back and become sped. teachers. I have not always done the best job in all my parenting efforts and I know how bloody hard it is to work fulltime and monitor an ADHD kid who forgets things and does not turn work in.

However, until I had spent several years TEACHING special education I thought I knew what teachers should do. I thought that good teaching would preclude most learning and behavior disabilities (it does for some), but mark my word, even the best teachers struggle to manage very difficult classes, become exhaused, burned-out and consider leaving.

I know for a fact that the people who sit in D.C. and write legislation like NCLB do not have a CLUE what teaching a classroom of LD and otherwise challenged students is like, not a single clue.

To the parents on this board, generally you are a superior group and I have learned from many of you. We can easily become frustrated when, like is the case for me right now, a number of students on our caseloads are failing basic level classes for nothing more or less than failure to complete assignments that they complete with success under my thumb, with no assistance. We try to call parents, who are generally in these cases, pleasant but useless. Then, when our administration wonders why more students than EVER BEFORE are failing basic level classes in our high school, I know why……….failure to do any work (90% of the time). What does this tell you about our culture and our society? It is scary.

Anitya,

I’m not gonna bash you. You sound like a smart, committed teacher. I will say about kids who don’t do the work but can if you hunt them down and make them, that these are the probably the ones who have had years of failure and years of not being properly treated for their ADHD and now they just don’t give a damn. You don’t have to treat ADHD with meds, but you do have to treat it somehow and there are some parents who will do anything to deny that their kid has this. These are the parents who say no meds for my child but then don’t do anything else to deal with the problem. They don’t do IM, they don’t do behavior mod, they don’t teach organizational skills, they just do nothing and say that its the teachers job to teach the way this child learns not my job to change him so that he can learn in the school environment. Or they claim that adhd is made up and their child’s behavior is normal its just that modern society has forgotten what normal is. So the kid suffers and gets made to feel that he is lazy and bad when all that is really happening is that no one has taught him how to work around his problems. Very sad, and I blame the media for the biased and inaccurate way they portray ADHD.

Now there are also schools and teachers who begrudge these kids the least little help and won’t spend the money to do what is needed to help kids with LD and ADHD. These schools and teachers alienate kids too and by highschool the kid views schools as the most boring, hard, useless and humiliating place imaginable. he puts no effort into it because he already knows he can’t succeed and he no longer cares or cares so much that he would rather act like he didn’t than try and fail.

To me, NCLB is just an excuse by Congress to spend less money on kids with LD by claiming that everyone can learn the same as everyone else so long as we teach’em how to take the test.

[>To me, NCLB is just an excuse by Congress to spend less money on kids with LD by claiming that everyone can learn the same as everyone else so long as we teach’em how to take the test.

Amen sister or brother!! I say if we are going to just test everyone all the time, why bother with grade school and high school and all that expensive nonsence. Let’s just start at maybe age 12 and start prepping everyone for college exit tests, in maybe a few years half the kids would be able to pass some mediocrely (sp?) written standardized test and be presented with a college diploma or equivalency not even half to bother with going to college, with all the expense that is. For those who don’t we provide some kind of “remedial ed for taking a high school test”.

I think this would be a LOT cheaper (please don’t circulate this in the US government, some ding bat in the Bush administration might actually LIKE this.)

—des
with a modest proposal

I am gonna go out on the limb and say I think NCLB is not an attempt (bipartisan) on the part of Congress to cut funding… I think what it is a reaction to can be summed up in 2 words - social promotion.

What we have seen transpire over the last 35 years (give or take) is a gradual erosion of the spirit of trying that I think has as much to blame on SP as any other factor. When you take those children who are struggling (LD or not) and boot them upstairs for 8 years regardless of mastery of skills, what you do is NOT preserve esteem, but teach them very bluntly that they do not have to even try and they will still get by. Why should it come as a shock to us that so many teens drop out, graduate as functionally illiterate or otherwise develop difficult to overcome under-achiever tendancies.

NCLB is going to be extremely trying for a good many professionals, but I think that it will have an overall good effect upon public education. Sometimes you have to start small fires to preserve the forest from a big one, and I think NCLB will accomplish things that most people are not foreseeing at this time.

I don’t know what NCLB will accomplish. I tend to fear that more involved the federal goverment becomes in education, the greater the problems. I know there were compelling reasons for fed. gov. interventions in the minds of many people. However, my personal view right now is to permit communities to control their own schools, allocate their own funds and establish their own programs. Nothing will be perfect, ever.

I do agree that the social promotion has created problems that Dad cited. On the other hand, what do we do about that fact that children cannot all achieve to the same standard? How do we manage this?

“On the other hand, what do we do about that fact that children cannot all achieve to the same standard? How do we manage this?”

We won’t. The law will have to be adjusted to reflect reality.

Janis

I do not think that is the intent at all.

I think that for many, mant years, certain people who have strings of letters to place after their names have led public education down wrong paths (social promotion and whole word reading are two examples that come to mind). Because some of these people are revered in education circles, breaking the hold erroneous philosophies have on public education is nigh impossible.

I think that by making a nearly impossible goal mandatory, Congress is telling public education as a whole that they had better start producing. When false-science is shown to fail in application, public ed will abandon it finally, and will begin to use more market oriented approaches to finding replacement approaches which have a higher degree of success.

For those 5% of students who are truly beyond reach (regardless of disability), NCLB will in the end be modified to exempt them from the exit-proficiency standards and will adopt some form of criteria which makes sense for them (even Congress is not so stupid that they do not understand that in reality, not all children will ever learn to read and do math). The point of the initial 100% targeting is to push the schools to correct their mistakes, and to not give the schools loopholes where they can pack chidren out of the inspection (something the schools have historically shown them selves more than willing to do - hence the need for IDEA in the first place).

Let NCLB run its course. Sometimes to save the forest you ned to set small, managed fires, and clearing out dead wood is in reality a very healthy thing to do.

Just wanted to comment that since I posted (ok… vented my frustration) on parent bashing that I have noticed a Decrease in bashing on many LD sites. Seems to be less hostile both ways. Which is good. Very Encouraging

Really glad to see such a healthy dialogue taking off on this post too :)

I am a parent and and educator, I work at a level five school (severly handicapped children) and have two children with ADD and one with a learning disability. I can understand your point but you also need to understand ours. Some parents are very difficult, nothing will please them, and others could care less but claim that their child means the world to them. One child’s parents only open his backpack about once every two weeks. This child has missed field trips because they sent them in after the field trip occured. This is only one of the stories in my class, every child has a different one and not many of them are good. So please give us a break too.
holly

This is in reply to Anitya, or all teachers, that post here or read my post.

I’m not a saint and have posted somethings, that when I re-read after I’ve “cooled off” and “stepped back” and re-evaluated the situation and then asked my self„„”what part am I playing, or should I be playing in this situation” I can say, yes, I’ve been unfair at times towards the teachers and I apologize.

IE: My daughter was having extreme difficulty with homework. I swore up and down she wasn’t learning a darn thing and answers were being “spoon fed”. Yes, I do think this does go on to some degree sometimes, but, in this situation„,the problem was MYSELF!!!!!
I’ve been getting into the classrooms at least 1x a week. I take notes on the Teaching techniques of the teacher in “problem areas” and apply those at home as well with homework….
Waaaa Laaaaaa….problem solved!!!!!!!!
I also told the teachers this and apologized.
Now that I re enforce the teaching in the classroom, at home. She rarely has difficulty with homework.
Problem in a nutshell was….
The way they taught, and then the way I tried to help her at home was EXTREMELY inconsistent and frustrating for her…Hence the behavior problems and not knowing how to do the work.

Moral of the story for me? ::::: Helping with my childs education isn’t just homework. Since my child has difficulties..I have to go that extra mile to be of help to her and her potential as far as academics in the classroom.

Like I said…I apologize again for my “hot headness”…major personality flaw.

Take Care All
Binky

Hi my name is vicky, I have a son with LD, he has Fradgil X syndrome. Can i just say i agree with u on the things u say i call it ignorence in the world 2day. My husband was in town one day and there was a women with a normal child please let me say “NORMAL who knows wot that means really” It really gets me angry that the word normal means people 2 people with an easy life think they r normal, sorry 2 cut a long storry short this person with there son in town was talking 2 a man with learning difficullties, she was ok while he was there then when the man went SHE said 2 her son dont go near people like that there spackers, PLEASE excuse my spelling ect as i have LD also. But the most inportent things 2 me in life is my son inspite of all the smacks n bites ect he gives me my son n myself learn each other n with 100% comitment 2 each other then i no we will b ok in this cruel ignorent world, i wish that i could have 1 wish n that is that every 1 would ecept me n my son 4 who we r it took me years 2 understand that i can cope in my life with my LD. I hope i have not affended u in any way it is nice 2 no that i do not have 2 hold back my feelings anymore . i hope u sort of understand me .take care .[quote=”Dad”]I have seen what you are referring to, and think that part of it cyclical. Over the last 7 years of haunting various messagboards concerning LD, autism and Sped I have seen parents bashing (and the reciprocal, teacher bashing) come and go in both frequency and fervor. Some of it I think is just blowing off steam, but occasionally I have seen people (even regulars) spanked and even booted.

I think the most recent bout of parent bashing follows closely on the heels of NCLB. This Federal opus presents professional educators with a previously unheard of (at least by public teachers under the age of 70) degree of resposnsibility for positive output. It must be very hard for some teachers to come to grips with their inability to reach all children, especially those who refuse to learn new methods or approaches.

Of course, for some people (regardless of profession) the problem could never be with they themselves, so obviously the child (and consequently the parent) must be at fault. And since you cannot (legally) lash out in anger and frustration at a minor in your care (especially in front of witnesses) parents make convenient targets, more so when they are not the parents of your students, and you are basically anonymous on the internet.

It is going to get worse I think before it gets better. Wait till staff shake ups begin in earnest…

By the by, most of the message boards I frequent are truly open. This one is one of the only 3 I frequent which requires registration.[/quote] :x :x

One reason this one’s monitored is the sponsor — they don’t want to be involved in legal groundbreaking.

Yes, there are lots of ignorant folks in the world — though whether or not they have easy lives is another question entirely.

Of course, look at all the teacher-bashing that is appearing as a result of NCLB? Gee, the lazy bums who teach wouldn’t want to take a look at what they do….hmmm. You know, I take a look at what I do and how I do it pretty much daily. I am never satisfied that I am doing a good enough job, but I’ll never cure LD and I’ll never get all children to the proficient level as defined by CA. Finally, not everyone in American needs to perform at that level to live a productive and happy life.

OK, there are bad apples all over, but a large percentage of teachers work very hard. NCLB is unreasonable. It flies in the face of statistics and what we know about human behavior. It assumes that children in almost any state can arrive at school (and they do) and be taught to a rigorous level of proficiency which will render ALL children eligible to attend the University of California system. Amazing and statistically ignorant.

NCLB is a pitiful attempt by the government to deflect public attention from the very real and significant social problems we have in this country and lay the blame and responsibility square at the feet of the public school teachers.

I don’t read NCLB making demands that parents stimulate their preschoolers with language, that they READ to their children, take them places, talk to them, follow-up at home, help their children. No, parents can be whatever they want, the kids can come to school with 3 year old language levels and we are still expected to make all of them U.C. worthy

NCLB does nothing for the children who live in poverty, the number one cause of low academic achievement. NCLB doesn’t protect children from abuse at home or in their commities, it fails to safeqguard children from the drug culture, violence, family dysfunction.

I guess NCLB is based upon the assumption that children are robots and teachers can teach 24/7. Why not? Oh, and we can fix all the social problems, too. Come on, do you really think children are robots?

You let it “rip” Anitya!!!!

EXACTLY!!! Our children are not ROBOTS!!!!!! If children were considered a robot…according to School Adminstrators..my daughter would be very “miswired”..LOL…and sent back to the factory!!! For myself, as far as teaching 24/7….I know that was sarcastic comment from your frustration,understandable….Yes, parents do need to also be active with thier children!!!!
Even though my child has a LD„,I was a active parent in my childs preschool yrs..that’s how I picked up on difficulties and had her tested…she was way behind of where she should of been. Just speech was addressed„no processing testing was done. Looking back at the eval from our local intermediate unit…ALL the “signs” were there. I feel the STATE failed her due to monetary reasons…and I’m sure you are also familiar with that. I worked hard with her…after a year of “speech” therapy through the IU..the was considered up to par with the state numbers, so she was Dismissed.
Immediately in kindergarden….problems arose. (difficulties) And hind site being 20/20..those problems/scores were evident to be a problem for her in school but the IU did no farther testing though all the signs were there.
I trusted the IU as they stress how they are there to “help” children.
They didn’t help her more then they had too…hence alot of trust in Administrative people in the schools …it’s GONE…Teachers? I’m learning and finding that thier hands are tied alot of the time. As our children are lost in the “loopholes” of the NCLB..you teachers seem to be getting the brunt of the Act. When it should be the District Adminstrators, that form the budgets and services that teachers can offer, that should be held a heck of alot more accountable!!!!!!!!
You keep doing what you can Anitya!!!! That is all anyone can ask of one human being!!!
TC,
Binky

When I started this thread I had hoped for a healthy, less combative dialogue to discuss bashing on the net. Since it was addressed above, I seriously doubt NCLB was established to cure all of societies problems. I mistakenly thought NCLB was set up to deal with education as was IDEA.

I have been fortunate to work with many gifted and experienced teachers that were excellent communicators. We worked well as a team. I have yet to meet an uninvolved detached parent that makes no effort. Evidently this type of parent exists in all parent bashing threads. Although I could bash all teachers as a group over some less pleasant isolated personal experiences, I choose not to. Whats the point?

I think it unfortunate that parent bashing is now condoned and praised on this thread. Quite the opposite of what I was hoping for :(

Really I went back and reread everybody’s posts. I didn’t see any parent bashing. Yes, I did see some frustration with *some* parents— esp. when the government is quite willing to blame and even punish teachers. These aren’t exactly the parents that post on this board but there *are* parents that don’t really supply the needs of kids, heck there are abusive parents. Saying so, imo, is not bashing parents. I guess this NCLB law is a really frustrating one for a lot of people, because it seems to imply that regardless of what the child came into the world with (intelligence, degree of disability) or whatever poverty, etc. the kid may live in, that all children can reasonably meet the same level, and if they don’t it is the teacher/school’s fault. Oh yes, and we treat them all the same by including them and quite possibly cutting funding. Very frustrating. I wouldn’t take the comments on this thread as parent bashing so much as frustration at the system.

Not all parents or teachers are good guys.

—des

des,

I agree with your post 100%%%%%%. There’s bad apples on both sides.
I, like to think the Majority of of us..Teachers AND Parents..find alot of “catch 22’s with the NCLB Act.
I do advocate for my daughters education…but when problems arise witht he IEP…I have the “meetings”..but at those meetings I address the Principle…not the teachers..as I feel these problems my duaghter faces are a result of Administrative pressures on the teachers.
Binky

Technically NCLB has been around for decades

http://www.ccsso.org/federal_programs/NCLB/index.cfm

:wink: Thanks for the info Diane V.

[I, like to think the Majority of of us..Teachers AND Parents..find alot of “catch 22’s with the NCLB Act.
I do advocate for my daughters education…but when problems arise witht he IEP…I have the “meetings”..but at those meetings I address the Principle…not the teachers..as I feel these problems my duaghter faces are a result of Administrative pressures on the teachers.
Binky[/quote]

Hi Binky,

My best friend teaches regular 1st grade and just when she thinks the demands can’t get any worse, they do. It has gotten to the point where I can’t even call her during the week when I used to be able to do this.

Diane, NCLB might have been around or in another form but the way my friend describes it, it is horrible in the current form.

By the way, this is the type of person who opposes automatic merit raises as she feels the incompetent teachers get rewarded when someone like her gets overlooked. I am not here to debate that issue but just wanted to throw that in there so folks don’t think this is an accountability issue because it definitely isn’t. This is the type of person who will literally lose sleep trying to figure out a way she can reach a student.

Binky, I applaud you for dealing with the administrators as the pressures the teachers face are definitely the result of administrators. Her former principal quit because one reason was this person got tired of imposing demands on teachers that he/she felt were impossible.

I have told my friend that things will not get better for them until they do what doctors did regarding the malpractice insurance and literally go on strike.

By the way, this is a person who is extremely organized and loves teaching. But I really fear for her.

Finally, I have NLD/ADHD myself so I definitely am not an apologist for teachers who mistreat individuals with disabilities. But viewpoints that Anitya and my friend express are what I think people need to be concerned about.

PT

I’m also with you on this PT, as I didn’t have such a great school (except for college) experience due to having AS. A lot of my school experience would have been better if teachers had been more protective against the bullying I got (I understand things haven’t changed much, except in some school districts.) OTOH there were caring teachers who did make a big difference in my school experience, and I can still remember this pretty well even in my 50s. They had what was like a haven for me. I feel most of the teachers posting regularly on this board are those kinds of people, and the parents here are the ones who really are concerned about their kids.

—des

And on the parent thing, most of the parents who post here (all?) are splendid. You really do make this a team effort and it works so much better that way.

There are some unfit parents out there, even more than you may think (since you cannot conceive of being an unfit parent). Those people don’t take the time to read this board, much less to post. We deal with them, though and they don’t do their kiddoes any favors.

And, there is always the occasional person who will never be happy with what you do, no matter what you do.

Several years back I had a student who had real pain in the rear end parents (good and conscientious, but a thorn to us). These parents were both educators. They never stopped asking for this, then than, nothing I did was good enough for their daughter. They criticized that I paired their child with an agemate who had a different disability but similar needs re. IEP goals and functional levels. They told me, “I don’t you teaching our child with so and so. They are completely different.” I tried to explain that educationally they were not so different. Their child ended up with the Cadillac (way more service than the extent of the disability warranted).

Guess what, these good folks were both public school teachers in a neighboring district. Guess what else, they separated and divorced after several years of battling with them. The whole thing was about their failing relationship, but in lieu of taking responsibility for their marital problems, the child and the school got hammered. When they split, the demands stopped, suddenly they were happy with me and my services were just dandy the way they were.

So, the moral of the story is, I liked this mother (you could have the pop), but she drove me nuts for two years. Once she solved her personal problems, she became the great person she really was. You never know what is going on beneath the surface when a parent is difficult to deal with.

Hi guys :wink:

As I said I advocate for my daughter„always….100%…But since I’ve been [u]able[/u] to frequent the classrooms„,I’m appaud at what a load these teachers have!!!!! (Itinerant Learning Support, Inclusion to the MAX).

I’ve done some searching and found our states “ranks” have fell…in the ranking of states.

Hence, I feel this “new” thing the SD is trying is to improve thier “ranks”.

Who gets the brunt of it?…THE TEACHERS!!!!! The LS teacher and I have butted Major Heads in the past..but since I’ve become alot more “active” in her classroom„,we’ve gotten along sooooo much better, as I realize her “workload” and alway state that in meetings!!!!!

With “Intinerant” Learning Support….not only does she now have to juggle her “help” in her room…but among the Reg Ed. classrooms…JUST MIND BOGGELING.

Do I feel these kids are getting a Fair Appropriate Public Ed…NO!!!!
Do I blame it on the Teacher…NO!!!..Since I’ve seen what I’ve seen.
Basically…more monies need to be directed to hiring help for the SPED. Teachers to follow through with the demands of higher superiors.
Was this Done????
NO!!!
Oh, they hired more help…but substitutes for PE….JEEEEZZZZZZ.

In some respects…I feel teachers and Parents should band together ‘for change’..but I know that’s not possible…..as far as the teacher advancing or even having reasons “found’ to have them fired. Just ashame!
Binky