I've just spent some time with our younger daughter walking through various class syllabi; today was her first day in PS middle school. Frustratingly, one of her 6th grade teachers is still listed on the 8th grade website, and none of the Internet links in the documents she was given appear to work. Here I am wondering why, after an entire summer, these obvious details were not sorted ahead of time or checked by the teacher. Thankfully, my wife stops me from complaining and counsels patience. As she rightly points out, the teachers are basically good people doing their best - and probably worked a second job during the vacation weeks. Anyway, snafus will happen. I can't help but remember the time when the assistant principal at our daughter's elementary school once sent home a one-page note to all parents. Since I happened to see it first, I circled the twelve spelling mistakes and grammatical errors and wrote 'Redo' on the top of the page. Frankly, I was appalled that an assistant principal could send out official correspondence containing mistakes so basic that her own elementary students could have done better. My wife, ever the voice of reason, assured me that it was probably a school helper, and not the assistant principal, who wrote and sent out the note. Still, in my mind, the AP should have proof read the letter before sending it out. (Of course, my note never made it back to the assistant principal because my wife sensibly hid my marked up version.) What can I say? My wife keeps me out of a lot of trouble!
LOL! I'm sure she only keeps you out of some trouble. A woman can only do so much, you know. In my house, my husband is the even-tempered one. In regard to the edited AP's letter, I would have addressed the envelope for you!
My step dad did the same thing to one of us kids' english teachers. And boy was that person ticked off! After that though, they made sure they knew what they were doing when sending a letter home with one of us kids. BTW, my step dad is an english professor...so he knew a little bit of what he was doing. And I found out today from my dd's friend that at one of the ps teachers will actually keep assignments from kids and send them to detention for not doing their homework when the kid turned it in just because she didn't like them. She actually saw a pile of her's and other kids' work that had never been graded that they never got credit for. Which I am now wondering if that's why a friend of mine's dd is having trouble with the same teacher. I wonder if I should say anything though?
Perhaps your wife is too nice. LOL! I too would have addressed that envelope for you as the pp mentioned.
I too would have addressed the letter for you! I am not shy about my opinions which can get me in trouble sometimes. Around here my DH is the one with the task of keeping me out of trouble. We balance out though since my DH hates to "make waves" and I refuse to "be a doormat" so we meet somewhere in the middle.
I think I like your wife! Tell her to come visit us sometime; maybe she can go by MrsTroll, lol! I am forever calming down Carl, or calling him to account for something. But I am, without doubt, married to the best guy around!!!
That is part of why I homeschool. If they run the schools like that and the teachers cannot spell or have proper grammar, why do I want them teaching my children? I know there are plenty of good teachers, but just because someone is a teacher does not make them capable or better than me.
^that's horrific, I second the "call the b**** out" motion. God, I know, I just found out that this awful, vapid little thing that my dearest friend knows from his highschool days just got her certification and is going to be teaching. The girl is complete idiot, she has to have basic conversations explained to her, the idea of her being relied on for other people's educations is actually a bit horrifying.
Cornish Steve, I used to work in public school as the school social worker, and many times I reacted the same way you did to misspelled, mispunctuated, and in general poorly expressed notes from teachers as to why this kid in their class should be evaluated, or in providing info to me for such an evaluation. I'm one of those people to whom this type of error in written communication jumps off the page and flies in my face! And I, too, would have gladly hand-carried that paper to the AP for you and stapled it to the person's forehead! I used to have to observe in classrooms constantly to collect information for those evaluations. If I had a nickel for every incident I observed that revealed how poorly prepared teachers are -- elementary, middle, high, whatever -- for actually instructing kids. Once I observed a history class, in which "pioneer authors" were a topic. Not one of the 3 teachers (3 separate classrooms) made the connection for the kids that the Laura Ingalls Wilder mentioned in the lesson = Laura Ingalls on the television series (in syndication at the time) Little House on the Prairie.
