Great column, great comments. All are funny, sad, smart and true. I had similar bad experiences when I was a kid and that’s what made me the nonconformist-slacker-artist I am today.
Before I broke in as an artist, I was a substitute teacher. I was amazed to see all the same sh*t from when I was a kid, except I saw it from an adult point-of-view. (Ironically, I stopped resenting my old teachers and started pitying them) Elementary education was and still is the domain of deeply dissatisfied middle-aged women.
This is not an attack on women, I just didn’t see many male educators at the primary level. But these women come in, young and enthusiastic, and the toughness of the gig wears them down. They get disappointed and exhausted almost immediately. Then their lives don’t turn out as they’d hoped (like all of us). They often get divorced, their own children rebel, they get used. And twenty years later, there’s a wrecked forty-something who can’t handle one more difficult kid.
If you want to protect your kid from a burnt-out teacher, be proactive. Call the Principal (I assure you, not every teacher is a b*itch, but every Principal is a coward), talk to the teacher in a non-angry way (the mean ones don’t scare easy, but at least they’ll know you’re watching) or volunteer to come in and “help out” (they hate that and will leave your kid alone immediately). The burnt-out Teacher and her cowardly Principal will assume you’re too busy to mess with them. Make it clear you’re going to invest some time and they will fold.
Also, before getting involved take a step back. Be honest and evaluate your own kid. Really, seriously. Make sure he or she doesn’t turn into a wild dog after you drop them off at school…
