Just Venting

[kiwik]

Parent teacher interview today. Apparently ds9 is doing well in testing but often chooses not to do his work but talk to his friends instead. He says he could seperate them and make them do their work but 'that would deny them the chance to make the right choice'. I think it is a little unfair to give him a choice and then say you have to make what i consider the right choice. Either it is a choice or it isn't. Either the work is useful or necessary or it isn't. And either a child is ready to self manage or they aren't. Ds9 isn't.

[QueenCityMom]

In our district this is a movement called Love & Logic. Though on it's surface it sounds admirable-- teaching children to be accountable for their actions-- in practice it's a total cop-out. We, as adults, cannot possibly expect elementary-aged children to inherently have the tools they need for proper "choice making." As adults we should set the standard AND be prepared to enforce it with proper consequences. That's how children LEARN proper behavior.

 

Pushing the decision-making onto the students, and then blaming them when they make a choice we don't want them to make, is common in both of my children's classes and throughout our school. There are no consequences for "poor decisions" other than chaotic classrooms where all children suffer. Teachers just shrug their shoulders and lament their students' poor decisions. It's asinine because the kids, for the most part, aren't being "bad" they just haven't been given the proper guidance. 

 

I feel your pain, kiwik. Teachers just don't have the backing from their administration to set the standards and hold kids accountable anymore.

 

[TranquilMind]

Parent teacher interview today. Apparently ds9 is doing well in testing but often chooses not to do his work but talk to his friends instead. He says he could seperate them and make them do their work but 'that would deny them the chance to make the right choice'. I think it is a little unfair to give him a choice and then say you have to make what i consider the right choice. Either it is a choice or it isn't. Either the work is useful or necessary or it isn't. And either a child is ready to self manage or they aren't. Ds9 isn't.

 

That's crazy. He is NINE.  If he needs help in being quiet by not sitting with his friends, they should help him.  Or just repeat a few times that he needs to stop talking.  What's the big issue.  He likes to talk! 

 

He's probably just a fabulously extroverted kid who needs to interaction more than he needs the "sitting in a chair for X hours" experience. 

[TranquilMind]

In our district this is a movement called Love & Logic. Though on it's surface it sounds admirable-- teaching children to be accountable for their actions-- in practice it's a total cop-out. We, as adults, cannot possibly expect elementary-aged children to inherently have the tools they need for proper "choice making." As adults we should set the standard AND be prepared to enforce it with proper consequences. That's how children LEARN proper behavior.

 

Pushing the decision-making onto the students, and then blaming them when they make a choice we don't want them to make, is common in both of my children's classes and throughout our school. There are no consequences for "poor decisions" other than chaotic classrooms where all children suffer. Teachers just shrug their shoulders and lament their students' poor decisions. It's asinine because the kids, for the most part, aren't being "bad" they just haven't been given the proper guidance. 

 

I feel your pain, kiwik. Teachers just don't have the backing from their administration to set the standards and hold kids accountable anymore.

 

WE can't even make the right choices all the time.  Of course kids can't.

 

There is a reason my husband does the grocery shopping. Not once does he ever come home with candy bars.  I went yesterday. I bought candy bars. 

 

They need to help the kids as much as possible, and set them up for success, not failure. 

[Arcadia]

There are two issues here though.

 

The work - would his teacher let him  skip the boring work as long as he is doing something else and not talking?

 

The talking - if your son can doodle or do puzzles or read or whatever else might keep him happily occupied instead of boring work, does he still need to talk? My younger has a need to talk so his teachers needed to be firm with reminders or he would be sitting all alone away from other kids. Besides there are chatterboxes among his classmates too so it is not feasible to isolate all the chatterboxes.  My generation passed paper notes because we weren't allowed to talk, most times my teachers pretended that they didn't see papers going around.

[SKL]

Yes, I too have been frustrated when they set a kid up for failure like that.

 

"She should be able to do X."  But she apparently can't do X, so tell me something helpful.

 

I get to the point where I don't want to hear about it.  If there isn't anything I can do about it, just don't tell me.  The school should be dealing with those minor issues without bothering you.

[Bluegoat]

I think it can be ok to let kids manage their own time, and in fact it is important.  But there needs to be a few things added to that.  One is they do actually have the ability to do this.  I will say that sometimes parents can underestimate on this.

 

But also - the way kids learn about making poor choices is that they have a consequence.  Not just that they get out of boring math - why would anyone make the choice to do it if it makes no difference? That seems to suggest that actually, the work is not important.   They need to see the result.  Maybe it would be a failed test, or staying late to complete work, whatever.

 

If that was where it was going, and there was also habit building help, I might let my child reap the consequences.  But without that, I think it is just creating a bad habit.

 

Also - I am wondering if that math is in fact necessary.  Because if it isn't, that is a whole different issue.

 

[kiwik]

I suspect the problems crop up mostly when he is supposed to be 'writing his learning reflections' or when he isn't actually sure what he is supposed to be doing. It isn't like he has a textbook or whatever, everything is sort of open ended and self driven. He will be fine except in writing where he needs soecific, detailed instruction. And I doubt worrying about doing a speech and a production will make him more confident at speaking out in class.

[Tanikit]

So he had the opportunity to make the right choice (and it seems there was a right choice - based on whose priorities?) and he made what the teacher considered the wrong choice. People manipulate each other all the time - advertising is made to manipulate people into making the choice wanted by the advertiser. The teacher needs to manipulate the situation better in order to get the children to make what he considers the "right choice."

 

Then they can have an ethical discussion about which choice is the teachers priority and why the child's priorities are different. Its all part of a persuasive essay technique... except that when we put kids in the car we strap them into car seats - we do not argue, we do not have persuasive discussions with them, we do not even discuss that it is the law. We just tell them: this is what is best, this is what you must do. It is ok to have that attitude about many more things in life too.

 

I think adults these days are often lazy. They do not want to take charge and be good leaders. It is good leaders that people follow... good leaders that lead people to make good decisions and sometimes by limiting other decisions. Quite frankly, maybe that teacher wants chaos and then he deserves it when it happens.