Here’s a fun little breaking news story:
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=5919703
A woman allegedly made numerous threats against the school where she teaches, including leaving threatening notes written to mimic a child’s handwriting and fashioning “fake” bombs and leaving them around the premises to be found by others, all because she’s angry that she didn’t get to teach fifth grade this year. Instead, she was told to teach fourth grade students. And she’s pissed off about it.
Because fifth grade is SO MUCH MORE EXCITING AND CHALLENGING THAN FOURTH GRADE???
Sorry, but I just don’t get it. Maybe it’s because I’m only teaching first/second grade stuff right now? And I am, of course, teaching in somewhat OPTIMAL conditions. I don’t have to answer to any administrators or school boards. I have to answer to RegularDad, I guess, but he’s pretty happy with our educational plan so far. He’s the farthest thing imaginable from an irate, dissatisfied parent. Sure, we have parent-teacher conferences. Just as often as we can. And they’re really, really FUN. If you get my drift.
Ahem…ANYWAY…
If this woman taught in conditions such as mine, perhaps she would have found a better way to handle her disappointment. And seriously, if a teacher doesn’t get her way, and starts doing things like this woman, what kind of message is she sending to her students? Like, what if they get angry with her because they didn’t get an extra 10 minutes of recess, and they threaten her and leave bombs in her desk? What recourse does she have? She is, after all, TEACHING them that this is the proper way to express one’s anger and disappointment.
This story is happening not far from where I live, by the way. It’s not the same district, but it’s damn close. And then, also close by, another district is on strike.
All’s I’m sayin’ is: Homeschooling ROCKS!
Too bad she doesn’t sleep with the principal, huh?
Just one more advantage to homeschooling.
;:snort::
I’m with Ami! LOL! OMGees! This lady needs to grow up!
Ami…LOL…of course, sleeping with the principal is reserved for students, right? Ha ha…yeah, I know…not funny. But not necessarily inaccurate either.
kitten, you’re right on target. She does need to grow up. It’s an interesting cycle of immaturity that happens in public schools: teachers were educated in our system and emerged from it unprepared to be adults, and then they get certified to teach and teach a new crop of kids, and THOSE kids subsequently emerge from the system EVEN LESS PREPARED than the teachers that taught them…and so on, and so on, and so on….
It’s just endless.
Yuck, scary. It makes you wonder how she’d react if her anger was channeled at an individual student.
Unbelievable. I mean really…what’s your overall mental state if at some point you’re thinking to yourself, “I know, I’ll scrawl threatening notes to them in babyish handwriting and plant fake bombs throughout the building!” and then you DO IT?
Sounds like she was the one being taught by her students.
Oh wait, fourth graders are smarter than that.
-RegSis
Yeah, do you get the feeling that ALL her students bring her apples (or candy or something) EVERYDAY?
“Okay class, let’s all be really good and nice to Teacher today otherwise she’ll either a) blow you and the class to smithereens because let’s face it, you’re all just a bunch of FOURTH GRADERS and not nearly as rockin’ as those uber-cool fifth graders; or b) make threats to the school in general and try to frame you for it by mimicking your penmanship.”
And people still think homeschooling is crazy. (sigh)
Clearly this teacher was way out of line, and needs to grow up, fast. I want to be very clear that I am not defending her in any way.
But… it could be that the reason she wanted fifth instead of fourth is that the testing situation is really challenging in fourth grade, and fifth is more relaxed. In my state (NY), fourth grade teachers have to prepare kids for something like four different high-stakes standardized tests. When I say high-stakes, I mean that the kids can be held back and the teachers can be disciplined for a failure to bring scores up. And with NCLB, virtually every child takes these tests, very few exceptions.
If I were looking for a job, I’d be psyched about a fifth grade assignment, and seriously bummed out about fourth. It’s just not much fun for anyone.
Which is just one of the many reasons I am homeschooling my fourth grade son.
Lizabeth, you bring up a good point. Testing requirements surely do make some grades more desirable to teach than others. And how sad that it can come to this…when the testing itself is part of the problem.