There’s this mom of a student who called me up, around lunch time, complaining. Now this is pretty uncommon to me, even if I have been a teacher for almost 17 years (what?! that long already ). She raised three points and wanted explanations because apparently, her daughter didn’t want to attend our group that meets every Tuesday. Here are two of the samples of the group activities we did, The Magical Train and Little Witch’s Big Night. The second one was what her daughter attended as her first session because they got delayed enrolling in the program.

Anyway here were the points she raised:

• Her daughter wants us, the teachers, to apologize to her daughter because Teacher Terri told her that she is FAT.

Ok, first of all, we don’t call the children names. Next we don’t have a Teacher Terri in the center. And why, oh why, would a five-year old girl feel sad when someone else calls her FAT? At this age. do they have a concept of FAT being ugly or maybe because…I don’t want to elaborate anymore.

• Her daughter complains that the story we did was scary, especially about Little Witch being left during Halloween and enjoying giving her new friends a ride on her broomstick.
  

Here are reviews of the book, by the way. Scary? The other children loved the story, except her daughter who didn’t want to be Little Witch in the role-playing so we had her perform the astronaut’s role. When everybody was acting sad because Little Witch was sad, the little girl was proudly smiling, looking at us, teachers.

• Her daughter is sad because she brought a toy last week, and apparently, a boy in the group got it from her.
  

We asked the girl to tell us what toy she brought. She said it was a black bear. Then she pointed to a boy who apparently got the toy from her. The boy denied. He cried, no, he bawled. Who wouldn’t? When we asked her again, she said it was a brown bear. Hmmm….

Ok, the points given are not real issues with me. What this mother said to me not just annoyed me. Her words hurt me.

While she was ranting, I was apologetic. I told her “If your daughter wants apology, ok, everyone of us will apologize even if no one told her she was fat”. Then she felt insulted by what I said because of the way I answered her back.

She told me:

“Why do you sound annoyed? I get the feeling that you do not know what to do in situations like this. FROM WHAT SCHOOL DID YOU GRADUATE FROM? WHY CAN’T YOU EVEN EXPLAIN TO ME PROPERLY WHAT YOU NEED TO DO? IF YOU CAN’T EVEN EXPLAIN TO ME WELL, HOW CAN YOU TEACH THE CHILDREN STORIES? I AM PAYING MUCH MONEY TO BE IN THAT PROGRAM AND IF THIS IS THE KIND OF TEACHER I GET THEN I AM WORRIED TOO, JUST LIKE MY DAUGHTER. I AM NOT A SPECIAL ED TEACHER AND I yada, yada, yada… Can I talk to your director?”

How can I not answer this mother, she was talking a mile-a-minute using a voice that is a notch higher . I should have answered her, but I did not. She said so herself that I sound annoyed. Of course, I am, who wouldn’t be? I am not a cold stone, or a pebble without feelings (no pun intended). If I answered, I wouldn’t have the strength of will to stop myself from defending myself and the other teachers in my group, even if I have to raise my voice too. Do you have to make this issue personal and ask about my credentials? You even want to know my GPA? My PRC rating?

No, I did not answer her because I am a professional. Professionals do not reply back in anger, even if they have wanted to, even if I have wanted to, so much. Professionals talk things out, in a calm manner, and not through false accusations without basis and without doubts. Professionals often sweep issues under the rug, and do what they have to do, without prejudices because they know, we know, there are places and times for issues like these.

When she talked to the director, she said she was sure her daughter didn’t bring a toy last week. For whatever good it did that the girl accused a group mate of getting the toy from her, I was just thankful that this other student’s mom is understanding. Because this boy’s mom told me there was no toy last week. Yes, I told that understanding mom what her son was falsely accused of. Shouldn’t she raise a ruckus too?

I will send this mother a photocopy of the Little Witch book so she can see for herself if it was scary or not. Ok, who wants one so you can tell me if it was indeed scary? Oops, sorry, I forgot, comments are closed.

Oh, and by the way, I was not amused that this mother thought I should be, that her daughter thought about her teachers apologizing for words which we didn’t tell her. And now, this mother was sure her daughter didn’t bring a toy with her last week, as she told the director. So what was the fuss all about then?

And now she is worried that the group dynamics would be affected because of what she told me? What happened affected me, so much that I am still up, instead of resting, writing about my feelings. But that doesn’t mean I take these feelings with me inside the classroom. I am not that.

I am not perfect. I am not asking for sympathies. I know myself and what I am capable and not capable of. I am careful about how i deal with my students. I am like this, and that and as long as i am teacher, I wouldn’t compromise my reputation with name-calling the children that I work with.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 at 1:47 am and is filed under Being a (Special Ed) Teacher, Lessons in Life, My Thoughts, Parenting, behavior modification, special education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.