opinions please on teacher's note home

I had to laugh because I did this as a child (and I am not ADHD!). I remember complaining that the teacher never called on me and later my mom said my hand was waving in the air all the time! I think my teacher just ignored me!

I would simply tell your child that teachers are different and teacher X finds it distracting when kids have their hand up in the air when they are trying to explain something. She wants kids to ask questions when she asks for questions. Can you try waiting until she asks for questions?

I teach college students and do not generally find it distracting to have a student asking a question when I am talking. I have occasionally though had a student who won’t wait for my explanation before asking the question. I simply tell them—wait until I am done and if it is still not clear I’ll answer your question. Your daughter may be in the later category which honestly does get annoying. I do have a hard time though understanding why the teacher can’t simply manage it without bringing you into it. It isn’t that big of a deal. The fact that she feels she has to bring you into it raises the possibility that it really isn’t your daughter’s behavior but the teacher who can’t handle anything interupting her train of thought—not a good trait for a teacher.

Hard to know without observing but either way the solution is the same—have your daughter just wait until she asks for questions to ask hers. If the teacher is just intolerant, she is not likely to change so your daughter will have to change her behavior. Part of surviving school and life is adapting to other people so as long as you frame it that way, I would think your daughter would be receptive. And if she can control her desire to know enough to raise her hand, I would think she would be capable of waiting, even if it isn’t her preference.

Beth

Was that what the detentions were for or was there another issue?

I can understand the annoyance. Sometimes younger children ask what you just said (ie, “turn to page 37” and child raises hand and says ‘what page?”-not just once, but ALL the time ,so the reaction is LISTEN. Ive seen them ask AS they are turning to page 37 so it appears to be habit more than need)

My guess is that this is what its about and she just threw in that she will answer questions at the end because she didnt want you to be thinking your child was not understanding material and she was unwilling to explain

I would try to get to the specifics of the situation-what info is she seeking? Get your daughters side and both the teachers’ sides

Then offer other ways your child can get information. If she isnt sure what book she was told to get out, she can look at her neighbor and see what she has taken out. She may simply not have thought about doing this

If it is a question about the material, teach her to jot it down instead of raise her hand. Chances are she is going to forget if she waits. Then she can approach the teacher with the list

Sometimes, especially when I’m teaching math, I am going through a multistep explanation and a student keeps jumping in with “why do you do that?” “what do you do next?” “can’t you just do this?” “I know a better way” and so forth. Well, if the problem requires three or four steps, it is important to show those steps connected, without stopping for five questions between each couple of steps, and quite likely the question will be answered by the next step or the one after.
If the student is suggesting a correct approach I do try to say yes, that is exactly where we are going next, or yes, we’ll get there in a minute, but if the questions are *constant*, it interrupts the flow of the demonstration. And the student who knows a “better” way is a real problem, because if a better way were known to the math community I’d be using it — it’s almost guaranteed to be either dead wrong or a dead end.
The student who is constantly asking and commenting without letting the teacher get a full sentence out is distracting herself and others.
In some cases it is a misunderstanding of what math is about — an expectation that everything has to be an instantaneous memorized answer; the student gets uncomfortable if it takes more than a fraction of a second to work something out. In other cases it’s a need for attention and nothing to do with the subject at all. And with junior high students (probably not yours, but a habit to avoid for the future) it’s often a deliberate sabotage of the class, a way to avoid work.
You can’t develop listening skills if you’re concentrating all the time on what you plan to say (a message to many of us adults too …). It is important for the student to learn to give a few minutes to listening first, then asking questions after hearing the answer to the previous one.

Oddly enough I just had an experience related to this last weekend. In the car for over an hour with an eight-year-old while his dad was driving the other broken-down car to the repair shop. The kid was quite nice and really fairly well-behaved, but he had one problem that drove me up a wall within the hour; I would have the screaming meemies over a longer term. He kept asking questions, fine, good thing for his age. I like to teach and will answer anything I can. But every time I started to answer him, he interrupted me after three words. This kid has a reading problem (hereditary) and when he was telling me stories it became clear that he has a mass of half-understood and confused junk in his mind, for example he seriously believes that the Chinese can fly through the air by “sould force”. It is painfully obvious that he needs to learn listening skills.

I think this is the direction your teacher is getting at, maybe not in the best manner, but we can learn even from people who are not to our taste.

I have inattentive adhd. When the teacher is explaining something and I have a question, if I don’t ask it when I am thinking about it, the teacher will go on to something else and the question will disappear. I might remember it 2 hours later. In the meantime, I still don’t have an answer to what may have been an important part of the lesson but don’t realize it until I remember I had a question. Annoying yes, for both parties.

Suggest maybe a small notepad or on the lesson notes that your daughter write her questions as they come up so she is able to ask them at the end of the lesson.

hope this helps,
Amyf

Sorry but I don’t see the problem here. I mean it isn’t like she starts yelling out if she’s not answered immediately or something like that. Why should it annoy the teacher that a child with a question has their hand raised? That’s what they’re supposed to do.

If the teacher has a preference, why do YOU have to explain it to your child? Couldn’t the teacher just keep her a minute after class and explain why she would prefer that she not do that? It seems like normal behavior when you have a question in school to raise your hand - that’s how you are trained! So why is it your job to explain how the teacher feels? I think the teacher has an obligation to acknowledge and take responsibility for her own needs and not have you do it by way of a note. Otherwise, it comes across that your daughter is doing something wrong, rather than the teacher simply finding a particular behavior distracting for her.

There’s something else about your post that bothers me. If I undrestand correctly, if she raises her hand in class again there are going to be disciplinary consequences (moving her name). That is ridiculous. Teachers spend years getting kids to raise their hands and this one is going to punish your daughter for doing it? That just doesn’t seem right to me.

Wow! Thanks for all of the response on this post! Both the psychologist and I did handle it similar to the way Beth suggested in how we explained it to my daughter. I’ve been thinking about the notepad suggestion but not sure it would work. Being that she’s only in second grade the effort and concentration it would take her to stop and write a note may mean missing quite a chunk of the lesson. I also have a feeling this teacher may not be open to that idea. But, it’s still a possibility.

Trust me when I say I understand how things can be disruptive in the classroom. I’ve been there myself. However, I’ve never had to involve a parent or disciplinary action because of this type of thing. It seems a very minor thing to write home about. It concerns me more because of this than anything else. She is not calling out and the teacher does not have to answer the questions until the end of the lesson. And yes, she did say her name will be moved on the discipline chart to the next level if she does it again. I guess my concern is that the tone and nature of the note has me thinking that maybe this teacher does not have a good understanding of children and in particular adhd children who find it hard to wait and often do need to be told more than once!

For now I’ve only explained to my daughter that she has to wait until the end of the lesson to ask questions. I haven’t really responded to the teacher. I don’t know if I will. I signed that I read the note anyway. If we continue to receive notes like this then I will definitely have to investigate further.

I also wanted to say that my ADHD like son had a very strict not very nice teacher for first grade. He was in a lot of trouble at the beginning of the year. He did shape up for her, although we saw some fall out at home. At the end of the year he said that he wished that he’d had a nicer teacher. Fortunately, his K teacher was made in heaven and I had heard great things about both second grade teachers…so it was just one year.

If your daughter, like my son, can adapt, it isn’t really a bad thing. Not every teacher is perfect for your child. I must admit though I am very glad to be done with that teacher–even though she was very good at teaching itself. However, I did see several kids in that class that just couldn’t meet her expectations and I felt really bad for them.

I certainly think you do need to keep a close ear to the door with this one. And if you can volunteer in the classroom in will give you a much better feel for things. I did Meet the Masters (art program) and I saw how my son acted compared to others.

Beth

Beth, just curious, but what kinds of things did you notice about your son compared to the other kids when you were in the room. That’s not a bad idea you have. I am an art teacher so that might be the kind of thing that I can easily do. Plus I get done school over an hour before my daughter does!

Jen,

I was in the classroom two times but both times were several months after the worst issues in the classroom. My son and another child had been sent to the principal’s office for talking. Personally, I thought that was a bit extreme reaction to talking but used the event to find out what was going on with him. She basically told me my son was off the curve in terms of maturity/self control in class. Frankly, I was surprised that this was the first time I had this conversation at school–his preK teachers and K teacher loved him but we’ve always found him to be a challenge at home.

Basically, I taught the class for 45 minutes. I could see how the kids responded to what I said in terms of being engaged/finding what they needed/following directions/contributing to class discussion/getting work done/staying on task. It was on this sorts of dimensions that I compared my son. I later asked him if he was behaving like a good day, a bad day or the way he usually does. He gave this long winded answer about what he did on a bad day versus a good day but in the end told me it was a usual day.

Of course, it is a bit different for your child being there but I find that it still gives you a sense of the dynamics of the classroom. You see how the teachers talk to the kids, for example. Being in the classroom made me admire his K teacher even more. Being in the classroom with his first grade teacher was not great. She reminded me of myself on a bad day—but I am the mother not the teacher, if you know what I mean.

I also think that parents get bonus points for coming in the class room. You become a person to the teachers and that helps with dealing with issues in the classroom.

The program I taught from was Meet the Masters. It is an art appreciation program that is used by volunteers in the Florida schools.

But my husband who has a science background has gone in the classroom to teach different sorts of lessons over the years too. In other words, be or become enough of a resource on something that the teachers want you to come in the classroom!

Beth