Parent-teacher relationships - The good, the bad and the ugly
My children goes to a very well-known International private school. This school is brilliant at academics, have a strict code of conduct and has mostly young and energetic Irish teachers. They organize events such as 'fun days', 'music concerts', 'sports days' and 'International days' occasionally, which the children find very exciting and are usually very eager to attend. I can tell you about all the very cool and great things but that would take away from my story, so back to it...
One thing that this school does NOT ALLOW, is communication between parent and teacher. None. Teachers are not allowed to be friends with parents of the school either. The only time when parents and teachers see each other is on the first day of school when you take your child to his/her new classroom and you may only drop your child off and go. I am then usually very curious to who she is and where she's from and would ask my children the names of their teachers so that I can investigate LIKE ONLY A MOTHER CAN.
I want to know who they are, where they're from and what kinds of pictures they have on social media. I got them all! My son's KG 1 teacher (2014) turned out to be all boobs and no brains at the end, like her Facebook profile suggested.
Now don't get me wrong...I am not one of those mothers who would annoy teachers with lots of questions and accusations, but I do feel that there needs to be some kind of communication between a teacher and a parent. I know that the reason for this rule is probably to keep teachers from having favorites, but also to protect teachers from angry parents, but really??? No communication at all?
So what they do is, when you have a question, a complaint or an enquiry of some kind, you have to make an appointment with the supervisor. The supervisor will then get reports from all the teachers about the child(ren) and is then able to assist you...or so they think! In 4 years, we've been to such an appointment only twice and on both occasions I have been able to corner them with questions they were unable to answer, on purpose, because it was things that only a teacher would be able to answer. They would then have to scurry and phone around to try to get me an answer.
One of the other things that this school DOES NOT allow, is for a child to give a gift to the teacher on the last day of school (or any other day, mind you), whether it's a card, a pen, a chocolate, a letter, flowers. Not allowed. My 5 year old daughter was heartbroken because she wanted to give a 'thank you' card to her KG2 teacher on the last day of school, which she made herself, and the teacher could not accept it. Is that even human? I know it's not her fault and rules are rules, but it's not money, diamond earrings or drugs. It's a creation from the heart of a 5 year old. I explained to her that the teacher's boss is a grumpy old man and that the teachers are not allowed to accept any gifts and told her that I would send it to the teacher in the mail :/
One day she will understand.
But the fact is, there are just those things that teachers should and should not be able to do. How can a parent put his/her trust in someone they have no contact with. Obviously, there should be limits, but it's not normal to have no contact at all. E-mail communication, at least, is not too much to ask for, is it?
Was Bob Beauprez talking nonsense when he said this?:
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I would like to hear more views about this from fellow teachers.
