I need your disaster stories co-op/small groups

[Bang!Zoom!]

Please tell me all your disaster stories in forming small learning groups, formally or informally.  I need to go back and read these as I fight off the urge to make them.  I promise to put up on my wall to motivate myself from doing it at all.

No shows

Complaining parents

Excuses

Schedule conflicts

Interruptions, personality clashes

Lost materials

Everything you can think of that really causes you to wish you'd never done it in the first place.

No success stories allowed for this one, k?  :)

[Dmmetler]

All of the above!

 

And more:

Parents not on the same page (there for social, not academics, including parents who want to chat to the point that your class doesn't work)

 

Parents drop and run

 

Class gets too big

 

Too wide age/ability level

 

Cliques within the group (both kids and moms) and all the social/relational stuff that comes with them.

 

Having said that, I currently run two such groups ;)

[laundrycrisis]

• Unrealistic expectations of what the group can provide, combined with unwillingness to contribute

Parents expecting the owner/organizers to bust their rears to come up with ways to entertain all the kids, but not being willing to contribute efforts or ideas

Parents refusing/neglecting to supervise their children or enforce appropriate behavior at events  - treating this as either a ridiculous expectation or something the "people in charge" should take care of for them

Parents who don't contribute, but are happy to show up for the activity, then afterward offer about 30 nitpicky complaints about how it could have been better - but then aren't available/willing to help with the next event

Parents expecting that all events should be free, all year, in exchange for membership dues

[Dmmetler]

Add to the above-parents who insist that membership dues are unreasonable, even after seeing a budgeted breakdown.

[regentrude]

Different expectations about the academic level of the work

Kids who are not interested,  not doing any homework/preparation, not participating in discussions

 

NEVER again will I subject myself to teaching a coop class or my kids to sitting through one.

(Please remind me of this when I get the urge to  teach a class for homeschoolers)

 

[dbmamaz]

My experience never got off the ground, but I really blame the person starting it.  She wanted it to be secular and happily offended any religious people who came because she really didnt want them in her house.  

 

Then she had a chemistry curriculum she insisted we use.  I really wanted mostly social and art, we do academics better at home, but she started it esp for the chemistry, so it had to be chemistry.  Fine.  

 

But she was an art major, so she was going to teach art.  One mother ran a craft business, so she was going to help with art, but couldnt make any real commitment because her special son might need her to leave class at any time.  

 

I said I could teach chemistry, since I took 2 years in high school and one in college, and the 3rd mom would help me.  the fourth mom was supposed to do some drama something.  She never came to any other meetings I was at, or she brought kids she was babysitting . . . 

 

Well, i bought and read the entire chemistry curriculum - it was elementary and half our kids were middle/high school.  "Well, you dont have to teach chemistry if you want, then, or we can buy something else!"  Fine, i find supplements I can use for the older kids for free and buy one book I was thinking of using 2 years later.  

 

Because we were splitting the groups in to two groups by age, alternating between classes, I suggested maybe I could teach chemistry in my house, 2 miles away, and she could do art here, so we each had a big table to use.  "No, you can do chemistry in the garage".  But there's no table "Have you ever heard of FOLDING tables?"  No heat, no running water . . . sounds lovely?

 

During one of the meetings the entire group agrees we will do a schedule of 4 weeks of teaching, and then a week to re-asses and see if we want to continue as is or change things.  I finally say I will make a commitment to the first 4 weeks of doing chemistry and then re-asses to see if its working.  "No, that wont work, the chemistry teacher has to make a full year commitment.  I'll teach chemistry"

 

Huh?  After I've already spent over 20 hours prepping?  

 

"And you other moms need to take more responsibility, I cant teach everything!"

 

I'd had enough and I quit.  No one spoke up for me.  One mom finally apologized months later - the one with the special needs son.  He got in a fight with a girl and pulled her hair.  When confronted, he apologized.  The woman organizing the coop went on to berate him in front of the entire group . . . so his mom left.  

 

Well, thats my only horror story . . might not stop you, though. 

[Dmmetler]

Parents who don't bother to buy the book.

[dbmamaz]

Oh, there was another one we tried to start - actually, with the same chemistry curriculum, 3 families 4 kids 4 year age range.  It did ok for a while, but it was just awkward - the kids only wanted to play, mine wasnt really writing yet but wouldnt let me write for him, and the two boys who were a year older than him were very impatient.  The experiments all failed and the moms were frustrated.  finally we all agreed it seemed to take more time than it was worth, esp for the other two moms who were spending precious time with their 3-yos in preschool for this.  We tried getting together for a play date instead but that failed too - my son loved playing with the kids at the hosts house, but at a park the other kids just wanted to run, run, run . .. he is slow, like me, and doesnt enjoy running.  

[quark]

You said no success stories. ;)

The only ones I can think of:

1. Uneven contribution level among parents -- some giving more of themselves than others

2. The resulting burn out/ frustration on the part of parents who contribute most

From my experience, this seems to happen even in the most well-thought-out, carefully selected groups.

[AmyontheFarm]

Asking leadership a question and being told, it's none of my business.

 

The question I asked was "Do we have insurance?"

 

 

 

[Julie of KY]

Students that come for a few weeks but never pay.

 

Administration deciding a few days before co-op starts that instead of having families pay the teachers, we'd rather teach for free. This for a class that had filled with students in spring registration, I bought lots of supplies over the summer (I was dumping the entire amount I was to be paid into supplies) and then told I was to donate my teaching and supplies rather than be paid and this decision came months after people registered with the intent to pay.

[8filltheheart]

Never,never, never. I taught high school lit classes a few times. It never worked. I had one student quote an entire page (absolutely no exaggeration) in her paper and the paper was only a little over a page and a half long. I was not teaching writing. They were supposed to be high school student who were already writing essays. When I talked to her mom about it and suggested a few books on essay writing, the response was she didn't have the time and that learning to write essays was what took place in college.

 

In another class a mom yelled at me for marking her kids papers with verb tense changes and POV shifts. She informed me that I was expecting too much for only a high school level. (I don't let my kids do that ever!!)

 

Definitely no match in academic expectations.

[Mukmuk]

I'm running a free chem co-op currently, my 1st ever. I'm a bit taken aback that despite my having posted prerequisites and having been assured by the parents, quite of the kids don't have them at all. I've had to repeatedly revise and cut back on the level of instruction, which is not serving the better (but far fewer) students in the class. Perhaps this is my mistake as I don't know the families well, but am getting to. They're wonderful people, but it looks like I should suss out the students' capabilities independently beforehand. My next class (oh yes!) will be for a smaller, more targeted group.

[Vida Winter]

Hmm... parents that use the co-op as a drop-off babysitting service for their problem children. That ended it for me right there.

[HS Mom in NC]

The mom who left the planning session early and then was shocked and offended no one called her personally to fill her in on what she missed.  Her words, "It doesn't feel good to be left out." She didn't think it was her job to make contact and ask about what had been decided.

 

The parent that hosted the co-op and invited everyone over to a potluck with no specifications about the food.  When people brought food that wasn't healthy and organic she told them in front of everyone that she didn't allow that kind of food in her house and they couldn't set it out for everyone.

[EndOfOrdinary]

Told that homework was inappropriate for a physics class and the mathematics (simple multiplication; F=ma) was far to extensive for high school students. 

 

Parents upset when younger children and older children were grouped together, because the older children will feel badly that younger kids can do the work. 

 

Secular parents upset when anything religious is mentioned; Religious parents upset when anything secular is mentioned. 

 

Complete racial insensitivity (though not intentioned, but still really obnoxious) and an ethnocentric viewpoint.

 

"My God is better than your God, even if we are both Christian" attitudes.

 

The worst for us was being alienated when my son's vocabulary and academics were much higher than the other kids his age.  It seemed to make others uncomfortable.  We lost quite a few friends.

 

Create a book club instead!  Save yourself the agony!

[bakpak]

From an outsider perspective, these are hilarious! Love the Book Club idea! :)