I read a really funny email one time about comments that teachers WISH we could put on report cards. It’s hysterical – you can read a similar post here: http://tinyurl.com/lfsh5se
Today I finished my 19th year teaching. I hope and pray daily that I can make it to retirement, but sometimes I wonder. I send home a letter at the beginning of the year to parents, and I have a mental letter that I wish I could send home. Here it is:
Dear Parents,
Today your child starts 6th grade and entered my class for the first time. I’m very excited and hope you are too. This will be a big year full of changes for your child, so brace yourself. Here are some things you need to know about my class, about me and about middle schoolers in general.
1. Your child behaves differently when you’re not around – and your child WILL do things when they are with their friends that YOU don’t think they will do.
2. Your child will most likely fib to avoid trouble. It’s the nature of the beast. . .
3. Why would I lie about or want to hurt your child? Why do you think I do this job –f or the fabulous pay, the amazing support and because it’s such a respected position? Oh yes, you think I do it for the three months of summer??
4. Your child may be one of the few who comes home and does their homework every day with no complaints, and turns it in, with their name on it all the time. But they may not be either – which means it either
A) may not be complete.
B) may not have been turned in
or
C) may not have had their name on it.
5. It is YOUR job, not mine to make sure that your student has supplies at school.
6. You are not doing your child a favor when you speak badly about his or her teachers and they hear you. Or dropping whatever you are doing to bring your child’s __________________ to school.
(insert your own item in the blank – PE clothes, homework, binder, etc.) They can live without it today and it may help them be more responsible tomorrow.
7. There is a line between advocating for your child and making excuses for your child.
8. Please, please do not be your child’s friend. Most of your child’s issues w ill come from their friends, and they have enough of those. Be your child’s PARENT.
9. In our county, we have a tool called the Parent Viewer. Sign up and use it. It’s free – you can see your kid’s grade at any time. Please don’t be surprised when your sweet baby has not turned in 3 of 6 homework assignments and then has a bad grade. BUT, please do not fuss when your angel still has a 95 for the quarter, but did badly on one assignment and got a 50%. Everybody has bad days sometimes. Look at the whole grade, not EVERY, SINGLE assignment.
10. My classroom is not a dance club, it’s not a beauty parlor or hair salon and it’s not the Dating Game. I don’t want to see hair brushing or picking, any of my students “shaking what their momma gave them” or hugging, kissing or hanging onto anybody else.
11. If your child gets their way at home by asking you the same thing over and over and over again, that doesn’t work for me. It just makes me more determined NOT to give them their way.
12. There are certain parts of your kids body I should not EVER see. I don’t want to see armpits, bosoms, belly buttons or butt cracks.
13. There are certain words that are NEVER appropriate in my classroom. I will never say them to your child and your child needs to NEVER say them to me either. I don’t care if it’s OK with you at your house, and if you don’t care if you child says the F-word, but it is NOT OKAY to EVER say that word in my classroom.
14. I want your child to be nice. Nice to me, nice to other students, nice to my classroom. Just be nice.
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