Since I'm home with my four and one-year-olds all day long I have a lot of time to read "BOB" books, play blocks, teach the alphabet and play in the park. What I don't have a lot of is adult conversations where I can pose the question, "What do you think?" Granted, I could ask my four-year-old what he thinks about my mind meanderings, but I have a feeling the answer would be something in the neighborhood of, "Huh? [pause] Can I go play Wii now?"
I have a fourth-grader this year. She's my oldest. I love her teacher. A lot. But I personally hand-picked her so I guess I'd better like her! I was lying in bed today thinking about her upcoming fifth grade year and wondering what teacher I should request for her when I realized that I did not know a single fifth grade teacher. Then the thought occurred to me that I could go and observe each fifth grade classroom and decide from there who to send her to. And then I had a memory.
When I was in fourth grade I remember the class being interrupted briefly as a mom was escorted into our room and the secretary explained that this is Mrs. So and So, her son would be coming to our school and his mother was going to "observe" all the classes. As a 10-year-old I remember thinking, "Wow! This kid must be from a really important family! Maybe he is a prince from another country or something!" The idea of a parent "observing" a classroom to determine which one was the best one for their child was completely foreign to me. I don't think my parents did this or even knew about that option. But I never had a teacher I didn't like.
So, my question today is, What do you think about requesting teachers for your child? Do you think it's too controlling? Too helicopter-parenty? Or is it just being an active participant in your child's education and doing all you can to ensure your child has the best possible chance of succeeding? Do you make requests for your child(ren)'s teachers? Has it always seemed beneficial? Leave me a comment (I accept annonymous, too!) and let me know what you think!
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6 years ago
3 comments:
I don't think there is anything wrong with requesting a teacher for your child. My mom always did it when we were growing up. I think it shows you are an active participant in your child's education, you know who the teachers are (good and bad), and only want for your child. Just wait, there are going to be moms calling you with who is the best teacher around.
Oooh, good question! I can't really answer, but I can share just a little bit from THIS teacher's experience:
In my first school district, there were two teachers in the school who got all of the requests. They previously taught for 20+ years and everyone in town knew them. That also meant they got most of the "needy" and more vocal parents, if you know what I mean. Those parents demanded things to be done a certain way and I'm sure there were even fights over who got to be room mother, etc. These teachers also had bigger class sizes than the other new teachers to the district. It was insane because they weren't happy at all about being requested so much. You'd think they'd be happy, but they complained about getting the squeaky wheels and having all these demands placed on them by parents.
In my second school district, they made it to where there were no requests. However, I taught a special "multi-age/looping" class and so any parent who wanted their child in there had to go through a request process by filling out an application and all that jazz. My last two years of teaching I did this and I loved it. I loved that certain parents wanted their children with me and that they were totally backing my philosophical approach to teaching by saying "I want my child here." Yes, many of them volunteered throughout the week, several worked together on all of our parties, and we did tons of stuff together outside of the school day. But this was all possible for me because I didn't have my own children yet and so I could hang out with parents in my evenings and often even over weekends.
So...all this to say that I don't think there's anything wrong with requesting. But the system of requests isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination. The more requests a teacher gets, the greater expectations/demands he/she feels and sometimes it stresses him/her out. But sometimes it builds him/her up and encourages. It all really depends on the teacher and it's hard to really get to know a teacher by watching them teach for a couple hours. We used to lovingly call it a "dog and pony show."
I think that if we ever stopped homeschooling, I'd be on my knees in prayer 24/7 for the right teacher to emerge. We all know that whatever teacher our children get will teach them FAR more than the curriculum mandates. They'll be teaching them about appreciation and beauty and justice and respect and mercy and forgiveness and all sorts of other lessons that we teach primarily by example.
Good luck and God bless on your decision!! Keep us posted!
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