TEACHERS

When my son was in first grade he had a teacher who was....let's just say that Thomas had a horrible year due to a personality conflict. He hated school and was getting headaches. After that experience I decided to start requesting the teachers that my kids would have. I know that some people do not believe in requesting, based on the idea that kids need to learn how to deal with all types of personalities. I respect their feelings. My decision is based on the fact that kids are given almost no power in their adult/child relationships and are expected to always bend to authority. I am their voice. I've had better luck trying to get a good match to begin with than with trying to work with a teacher to get change. These are their formative years and I think this time in their life is too important to leave things up to chance. Once they hit middle school I stopped requesting but made sure they were in the appropriate level.

I have not always picked the right teacher for my kids. I can think of one bad choice I made for each of them - oops - but I'm getting better at choosing. I've always at least tried to rule out who I would think would be the worse match for them. I've learned a couple things. One thing I've learned is that a teacher that can be a good match for one of my kids can turn out to be a horrible match for another one of my kids. I've also noticed that many teachers can fit into the following three categories. Lovey, dovey, super patient and makes school fun. Regimented, organized and predictable. Drama queen (or king) but with a great passion for teaching. These are not the only categories, but they seem to be the three that all my kids teachers have been in, although now that my two oldest are in middle school I'm starting to see there is the category where the teacher is "just doing their job and picking up their paycheck". This last kind of teacher is relatively harmless and I realize that they will more than likely get a few of them, no big deal.

I've been helping out in my youngest daughter's class and since the beginning of the year two students have been transferred out of her class because of "personality conflicts" with the teacher. This is a teacher that my older daughtered had and I requested her for Sarah knowing full well that she fit into the "drama queen" category. I warned Sarah about her drama queen side and told Sarah that the teacher is not half as upset as she sounds. Last week when I was in the classroom it dawned on me that someone seeing this teacher in action would wonder why on earth I would request her. I chose to request this teacher because I was pretty sure that Sarah could handle the drama (and maybe even learn from it) and that Sarah would learn A LOT academically. I see Sarah blossoming. This experience has taught me that lovey, dovey is not always the best choice.

Other things I've learned:

I now see that its not always good to base my decisions on what other parents say because their kids experience is going to be different than my kids. Although I listen to what everyone has to say.

Warning your children about a teacher's not-so-nice quirks helps them to deal with them a lot better. Teacher's are human so all of them will have flaws.

After a rough school year its good to point out to your kid that its great that they learned how to cope in a difficult situation. This way they learn the value of the phrase "this too shall pass".

The most important thing I've learned is that sometimes the obvious choice is not always the right one.