Hot for Teacher

I'm hot for my daughter's teacher but not in a Eddie Van Halen sort of way.

From the time I met the woman I had concerns. She seemed too stern, too harsh to teach kindergarten. The first meeting between all the parents and her the start of the year set the tone;

"Your children will probably hate me and hate their class. Be prepared for this. I'm hard, I don't give in. If I do they will run all over me."

"For the first few weeks your children will come home and be very nasty to you. This is because they will be on edge from all the rules in the classroom. It will keep them on their toes and they will want to let all that repression out when they come home."

"Your child must arrive 10 minutes early to class. Failure to do so will put them behind. As a class we start promptly at 8am sharp. Your child will suffer for your lateness so be early each day."

I looked at Jimbo several times during her lecture. She even had the nerve to reprimand parents. When she mentioned the notebook in front of them she said we had things to fill out. A few of the parents, myself included, pulled out the papers to take a glance.

"You fill out the papers AFTER I'm done speaking. Do not fill this out while I am talking."

So as school started, Arwen did exactly as Mrs. B said she would. She came home each day complaining about school and how much she disliked it. Then she said Mrs. B didn't like her, picked on her, said she was "sloppy". I emailed Mrs. B but each time got zero response until finally I wrote a letter to the class asking for a meeting to take place. She called my house that morning.

"Hi Mrs. S. This is Mrs. B. I'm calling about your concerns with Arwen."

During this phone call I met another person. A person concerned about my health issues, my children and Arwen. She told me we would work something out, a instant punishment like time outs, instead of later penalties with obviously didn't work. I assumed all was well.

Yet shortly after, perhaps a couple of weeks, Arwen was back to square one. Complaining about the school and Mrs. B. Then I get the notes about her homework and waited for the parent/teacher conference.

As I sat in the class I watched this woman interact with these 5 year olds. My heart broke as each approached her, eyes downcast, arms reaching their little folders out.

"Is this your best work? This doesn't look like your best work. Remember what I said about using your best work? Go back and redo this, this isn't good work."

"What does this say? Can you read what this says? Because I can't read it. What is this supposed to say? You can't read it either huh? Well this is definitely not good work."

"Does the sentence match the drawing you made? What did I tell you about that? How many times have I told you about this? Go back and redo this."

She had no shame when addressing each child. I watched as they came by me and would smile, itching for any positive attention. I wanted to reach out and hug them all, tell them that this woman isn't what they should always expect when going to school.

As class was dismissing Arwen ran to me to kiss me, I was explaining to her that I would be down shortly to get her from after care. Mrs. B interrupted.

"It's time to go, your Mommy will come get you when it's time, get in line now Arwen."

I looked up and told Mrs. B. "I'm talking to my daughter right now. Please let us finish our conversation, thank you." I looked back to Arwen and finished before gently patting her on the rump and sending her on her way.

When the "conference" finally got underway Mrs. B once again went out of her way to be nice. Yet she still allowed some of her bluntness shine through. Comments like;

"We all know who Arwen is, she is a topic at our dinner table often."

"It's a good thing I love her because otherwise she would drive me nuts."

"She's a good child but can't focus on things for long. She's alot like many other ADD children."

Didn't bode well with me. I know my child but I felt comments like these were immoral, unprofessional and unethical. Teachers are trained to deal with children, that is their profession. If you are not equipped to handle that then perhaps you need another job. Talking at the dinner table about a student is not something you should admit to, ever.

Then after my surgery Arwen contracted Hand,Foot and Mouth. Mom and Jimbo saw it and decided to keep her home. They didn't phone the school as they both knew I'd emailed and called them to make them aware one child in my home had it. They figured the school and Mrs. B would put two and two together. I suppose the school can but Mrs. B has problems with common sense.

The call from her to my home wasn't so bad, she wanted an email that until this point I'd never failed to write. Yet when she is told the situation she is brash with my Mom and demanding as well. To add insult to injury, I climb out of the bed to write this all important email and as per the total norm, I get ZERO response from the woman.

I'm beyond tired of this. During the birthday party I took my daughter too, I had a couple of Moms complain about Mrs. B. One even told me the office had received, "several complaints about her, parents say she is too strict with the children." So it isn't just me.

I'm thinking about how to proceed. This woman needs to be taken down a few pegs. She is a bully and it's time she picked on someone her own size.