Nasty teachers

vvw1970 · 12th February 2008, 02:59

Ugh I need to scream! It seems my son has a wicked witch of a teacher this year and she has been abusing him psychologically and yesterday physically as well.

I'm keeping him at home for the moment but this is not what I need right now. I am angry with her not just for treating him the way she has, but for placing me in a position where I have to deal with her crap on top of my daily list of things I already deal with. Ugh.

I can't cope with telling you all the details at the moment, but I'll probably do so later. I have spent the past four hours drafting up a letter to the principal describing all the abuse my son has copped in just three days with his new teacher.

Some people simply should not be allowed near children.

)$#%^&*()^%&*)(^%&*$%^&^()P(
lol I wanted to swear but random keystrokes will have to do.

..

Carey2 · 12th February 2008, 06:54

Keystroke as much as you need,that is what the section is for.

Any teacher that can do that to a child should be struck off permanently,here they would also risk a jail term.

I can remember teachers like that ,but then when I was at school daily lashings with a cane were supposed to be an accepted part of the curriculum.

Your son has been doing so well and been able to communicate his problems to people ,now he could well end up terrified of school and teachers in general.

My boy got to the point where he became phobic about school and has serious trust issues as so many so called professionals have basically lied to him,he still finds it almost impossible to believe what people say as he has been let down so many times and had teachers/staff frighten him so badly he would cry for days on end.

I hope your young man is not too badly affected by this,do let us know how you get on.

vvw1970 · 12th February 2008, 10:44

Thanks Carey, it's nice to know there are people on here who understand.

I have to say, I can completely relate to your son's feelings about school. Sometimes schools terrify me beyond my wits, and I find it very difficult to trust much of what staff say - they do tend to close ranks after all. I think in my boy's case, he knows that he has a lioness in the wings to fight for him, so he copes pretty well. But I get so very anxious whenever I have to confront any school staff with things that aren't working. I end up sick in situations like this.

We have been blessed several times with wonderful teachers, but we have seen just as many terrible ones. In this case the principal has arranged a meeting for early in the morning so that we can resolve the issues. I was hoping to deal only with the principal, but she has invited the teacher as well. This is scary for me. I have arranged a support person to go with me - a friend who is awesome at confronting teachers and seemingly totally unafraid (she has two ADHD kids and often has to go into battle for them).

I wrote the letter because I knew my anxiety would get the better of me if I did it verbally, and I would leave out things or not describe things so well. This way it's all out there on the table, in black and white. Nobody can twist what I have said and make it into something else.

I've asked for a new classroom, and a written commitment that my child will be safe and treated with respect from now on in that school environment. I've also asked that the teacher have her mistakes pointed out to her and that she be clearly told that she should not seek retribution against my son within the school. At the very least, the paper trail should help if things continue to not work out.

What I'm expecting in the meeting tomorrow is that the teacher will deny what my son has accused her of - why would she admit it? This denial is the part I am bad at dealing with. I want to be able to say, "Why would I believe you?" but I'm really not good at making such confrontational statements.

Ultimately, my son has that lovely Asperger's trait of always being utterly honest, which makes it very easy to know that my view of things is clear and true. He has told me all the things he did wrong in reaction to her behaviour. He made some pretty poor choices (eg consciously chose not to obey her because he didn't see why he should respect someone who was treating him like that) but he still didn't deserve what she has dished out to him, no matter what he did. In fact, I kind of agree with his stance, because he does deserve to feel respected at school, and the demeaning treatment he received is something I would want to stand up to as well. Even if he wasn't on the spectrum I would be totally upset at how he has been treated.

Anyway, he has reassured me that there is nothing that he has done that he hasn't already told me, that they shouldn't have any surprises they can spring on me. Hopefully that will help. Any tips on how to deal with liars would be great.

I suppose in the end I can say that I know my son, and I know that he is always honest. The problem with this is that a school will only see this as parental bias.

Carey2 · 12th February 2008, 12:24

Taking your friend along is a very good idea.

Get all the points and challenges you wish to raise listed out , if you can't say it get your friend to raise them .

Also take a large A4 note pad and pens etc and let them see you writing down what they say........ works wonders if they see note taking

Do let us know how you get on.

lynn · 13th February 2008, 00:20

I am so sorry you are having to deal with this!
I spent years going through something similar.
You cannot force my son to do things, you can reason and talk about it but not physicaly force. A Teacher disrespecting a child can cause so many problems and set backs. My son would go hide under the table refusing to go to school. If I got him to school, he would then go run back in the car and buckle himself back in the car seat.

I had to move him to another school and start over and he was not even 4 years of age at the time and did not really talk. I guess they thought it was safe to treat him anyway they wanted, who was he going to tell.

I can say he is 15 yrs old now and loves school and his teachers. My son and I both know he can push the envelope to the limit, if he does not respect someone though.
I wish you sucess.
Lynn

rainbows · 13th February 2008, 03:30

How angry this makes me.Im still battling myself and know its not easy dealing with meetings,i hated them and used to get ill also.Carey made a good point of logging the meetings..i made a complaint once to staff at my sons last school only to find the new head had no idea what i was talking about when i brought it up..i always made sure after that i told more people not just one.

vvw1970 · 14th February 2008, 02:33

As you can imagine, it was a pretty uncomfortable beginning to the meeting, given that I had to face the teacher. To add to this, it turned out that my friend also knew the principal from a clash they had at a previous school! Eep! Fortunately they both managed to be very polite to each other and the meeting carried on in a professional way.

I was asked to speak first, which was a bit daunting, but it was good because I got to open with the statement about my son's level of honesty and my certainty that he had as usual been very truthful with me. This was much better than perhaps ending up having to be defensive about it later.

The teacher of course described a very different perspective of the events I had described in my letter. I'm not sure that I entirely believed everything she said (eg: one of my son's complaints was that she was refusing to let him go to the toilet and he says he had to beg in order to get permission... her version was she had said no because one student was already at the bathroom and she also claimed that he went away and waited between requests. My son would never go away and wait between requests - does anyone know an Aspergers child who would be capable of not being insistent and nagging when they really want something? He says she is lying about him going away to wait, and I believe him, because he never quietly accepts a "no" and is very bad at waiting.)

She claimed that she hadn't intended to be rough with him, and hadn't even known that he had felt man handled at the time... I'm not sure whether to believe this, but my friend piped up at this point and made sure to hammer home the idea that it doesn't matter what the child is doing, there is never an excuse to be rough with a child.

She also claimed that the demeaning comments she had been making were only a joke intended to get a particular message through. I was very quiet, and she rambled on because I was so quiet, and I could see that she was pretty uncomfortable about that one. Once she finished, I pointed out that the comments she had made were not funny, and that there were much better ways to get her particular message through without causing shame or embarrassment in a 9 year old. I also pointed out that "jokes" such as those require trust to be in place before they will be taken the right way. I could have gotten away with saying the same "joke" she had, but that's because my son knows and trusts me well enough to know that I would never mean something like that in a serious way. It was at the very least unwise of her to do such a thing prior to a trusting relationship being built.

In the end though, the outcome is that this teacher seems to genuinely want to fix the situation (given the formal complaint against her, I think this desire is genuine even if it is only to cover her backside). The teacher also didn't try to intimidate me, or put my son down, and wasnt overly defensive - all in all, considering the situation would have been very hard for her as well, I think she handled things pretty well. And the principal, whom I trust, says she has a lot of faith in this teacher, and was also backing me up a lot on the sorts of strategies I outlined as necessary for my boy.

I suspect too that my heavy involvement in a very public body which fights for the rights of people in the school system both locally and nationally, and my consequential access to the media, may have quietly factored into their desire to make things work. Also, I do a lot of very successful volunteer work in the school with reading recovery for older children, and I am a resource that the school has no replacement for, so I think this will make them work hard to keep me happy as well. I think the Principal was pretty concerned that it was me in particular who was upset with her school.

These reasons might not be optimal, but hey, whatever works - if those are the reasons, fine, so long as my child gets what he needs, is happy at school and is treated with respect.

We ended up agreeing on - and writing down - several strategies to try to repair the relationship. All of these ideas were mine, and it did appear that they were at a loss as to what to do, which was a bit disappointing. I asked the teacher to agree to apologise to my son and she has said she will do so. I didn't offer for him to apologise but I have told him that he will need to apologise for his choices - he does need to take responsibility for his behaviour after all.

We are going to have a written contract between all parties - and the teacher, myself and my son all have homework to think about what could go into the contract. He has had today off school as well and tomorrow morning we will meet with the teacher to work on the contract together before he goes back to class. I will probably stay with him to help him settle in at the start, as he's been very nervous today and there have been lots of tears.

She has agreed to try to communicate with him using more visual cues, such as cards, or writing down things she needs to tell him some of the time. She has a pretty strong voice and I think he is interpreting some of her normal speech as yelling, so I think this visual form of communicating will help.

She has agreed to ask questions first - if he is not complying or is being difficult, she is to ask him what is going on for him, not assume he is intentionally making her life difficult.

We are going to institute incentives for him to participate in activities in class - as it turns out one of the problems was that he was choosing to opt out of pretty much everything. So there will be a reward system to get him involved.

I couldn't believe it when I suggested this, but I only did so with the caveat that it would have to be a very positive focus - we are going to have a communication book between school and home. I think several things will come of this... I will be designing it so that it will record his participation in activities in class that day, a system for him to rate his own behaviour choices, a system for him to rate his day at school, and a place for comments for the teacher and myself. I am of the view that because it has been designated as an entirely positive means of communication, she will have to think of positive comments to make... this in turn will force her to look at and recognise his positives in order to find nice things to say. I am sure this will eventually change her view of him. It will also strengthen his relationship with her because the more nice things she says, the more he will like her and the more compliant he will become.

I also got the school to think about me coming in and teaching the kids in his class about Aspergers, so that they can help him. As it turns out, he doesn't have a single friend or familiar student from last year in this class, so he is feeling pretty isolated and I am hoping that educating the kids will mean that they will be more supportive and this should also strengthen his bonds with them. This is an approach heavily encouraged by the gurus like Tony Attwood and I have been wanting to give it a try for years. The Principal and teacher are in agreement but there is another child in the class with Aspergers whose parents have not told him yet, so they need to get that mother's permission.

We will also be having regular meetings, both informal and formal, to keep things on track and lines of communication open.

One really nice thing was that Principal recognised my distress and was very empathetic. She also saw that I was trying to remain balanced in my view of things, despite my lioness reflex, and thanked me several times for working so hard to be objective.

In the end, I didn't leave the meeting mentally swearing, so I think it was productive. I am kind of annoyed that we didn't get a new classroom with a fresh start and minimal complications, but in a way it's good that my son will get a chance to learn how to fix relationship breakdowns.

Thank you all for your support, it has meant a lot to me to know there are people listening and empathising. As a single mum in these sort of situations it can be a pretty lonely battle sometimes.

xx

~v

lynn · 14th February 2008, 06:28

Oh My, this is exactly what I went and filed a complaint about.
My son asked to go to the bathroom and the teacher a sub said no, you can wait until school is out. I came to pick him up from school and he was late and I could tell he was upset. He told me he almost wet his pants because the teacher would not let him go to the bathroom. He was in third grade. I asked him was his work done and was there anyone else who had left for the bathroom? He assured me his work was done and no, no one else had left the class to use the restroom.

I was very angry! I wrote a formal complaint. I told her students remember and tease kids about things. If he had wet his pants they would be teasing him for years to come. He would be remembered as the one who wet his pants in class. He did not want me to go and complain, he knew how angry I was. After I was done and he saw that it was done in a calm manner, I think he felt respected again.
I told him if something like this occurs again, politely tell them I mean no disrespect but I need to leave the classroom. After using the bathroom go to the office and explain.

I am sorry this woman was not respectful of your son. I am sure she wants to be respected, what was she thinking!
Lynn

rainbows · 15th February 2008, 03:43

vvw,you did a great job there,well done.I remember almost vomiting before my meetings with nerves but each one slowly slowly got better.

You have a good outcome there and hopefully things will run smoother now.
Im also a single parent but remember the pride will be mainly yours and thats something to cherish.xx

vvw1970 · 16th February 2008, 01:11

He had his first day back yesterday and it seemed to go relatively well - he gave the day a score of 5/10 compared to previous days getting a score of zero, so that's progress. I'm still reserving judgement on the teacher but she is definitely trying hard so I can't say anything bad about that.

Thanks again for all your support everyone. :)