And on the other side, I had a student in 4th grade one year who couldn’t read, write his own name, NOTHING. I checked his records, he had been attending the school since pre-k and had NEVER been tested for problems. He was considered a behavior problem and I was told by some of his previous teachers to “forget about him, he’s a waste of time, won’t amount to anything”...of course, them’s fighting words to me! I immediately went to the SpEd supervisor and got the process started for him to be tested...turns out he was dyslexic and it had never been caught. Kid couldn’t read, but he could draw like nobody’s business, and that’s how I taught him to read and write—he’d draw pictures (he loved military tanks, aircraft, etc and drew great pics of them) and we’d work on his writing to describe them. He learned how to go to the library and research military things, then he’d write basic reports and present them to the class. Pretty much all behavior problems ceased, and one of my best memories of him is that he was interested in science and wanted to meet Dr. Robert Ballard who was giving a speech in Dallas, and the teachers were given free tickets. I took him with me and afterward he got to meet Dr. Ballard and shake his hand and talk to him, which delighted the kid to no end. :*) Said he wanted to be a scientist after that...I learned years later that he *did* graduate and got a scholarship to the local junior college, so hopefully somewhere he’s a functioning adult who could have turned out very differently and badly if things hadn’t changed for him.
For every bad story about teachers, there are good stories too. I would just like to respectfully ask people to remember that instead of lumping everyone all together.
I’ve actually had more problems with bad administrators than teachers.
Our school district office is full of chumps, and I loathe the principals at my daughters’ old school and my son’s school.
I think a good principal would have handled the situation with my son differently.
The teachers at my daughters’ old school were actually fighting for her. In fact, she quit after last year. She was a really special lady. The school psychologist and the special education director were really horrible. They had never even met my daughter, and they would not budge about anything. The school psychologist was a real B****. The neuropsychologist that tested my daughter said it was the worst IEP she had ever been in. She couldn’t believe that they weren’t trying to help my daughter.