School – Verbal Abuse by Teachers!

[Anonymous]

I graduated High School in 1980, and My goodness – If I EVER here “He’s so smart, If he would only apply himself, he would do so much better in my class” again I think I will just come unglued. In fact it happened during a parent teacher conference for my son, who by the way has been diagnosed with ADD/Dyslexia/Disgraphia, and I just laid into the teacher and let them know in no uncertain terms that was not an acceptable position for them to take.

I put up with so much verbal abuse by my adult teachers being demeaned in class because I truly wanted to understand, but the subject matter just wasn’t connecting, and being “dressed down” in front of the whole class for asking an ill timed question.

My position became that if the teacher wasn’t so STUPID, and INEPT at teaching their subject they wouldn’t get so angry, and the Principal never seemed to see it my way – and we had many discussions throughout my Grade School/High School Career.

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[Ivriniel]

When did this happen with your son, Tombdragon?

The teacher who said that is woefully ignorant of Special Education issues, and I would strongly suggest (assuming that the teacher is still teaching your child) bringing that comment to the attention of your child’s Principal.

I would suggest pitching the conversation wanting to help improve the situation for everyone involved.

An excellent place to start with a teacher who thinks this way would be with the F.A.T. City Video (also known as “How Difficult Can this Be?) from Rick Lavoie

http://www.ricklavoie.com/videos.html

Most school boards should own multiple copies of it.

There are also clips available on youtube. For example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV9SvxapQTo&feature=related

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[Anonymous]

All the same things have happened to me as well, oddly enough they still are to some degree. I think often times it come down to people don’t want to adapt to ‘different’…that involves work on another level of consciousness and some don’t think they should have too.

I was a math tutor in college and my boss told me I was often favored by adult students because I knew how to explain things in more than one way. I learned later, the fact that that adult learners often times need to be shown many different methods to learn something. But as a majority I learned that many students want to just want to know the process, forget it, and move on to the next thing…point they don’t enjoy it, they just have to get through it. I think that is how far to many teachers view there responsibility as educators. My opinion and observations of course.

I really try to hide the bitterness.

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[Anonymous]

As a teacher, I can tell you that a lot of us really do try to help our kids develop a deeper understanding. I certainly do, and describing things in different ways is part of that.

But we are constrained by things:

1) The kid’s actual motivation levels. You can offer a child the world, but if they refuse your help then you can’t force them to learn. We can recommend them to wellbeing programs and that sort of thing, but ultimately if they refuse it then we can’t do much about it.

2) Inadequate training and resources. Most teachers are not <i>trained</i> to recognise and deal with learning disabilities. Some of the kids we have with LD would qualify for special schools, but are in mainstream because the parents think it’ll bring shame on their families if their kid isn’t in with the “normal” kids.

3) The requirements of the system itself. We need to get through a certain amount of content. We can’t spend the entire year on one topic, because there are about a dozen we’re expected to cover. This means that we have to move with the curriculum and when most students achieve an acceptable level of competence.

4) The number of students we have to deal with. When you’ve got an hour per day and 25 students, that’s less than 2.5mins per student per day. Unless we have prior knowledge of the kid’s exact level and needs, it can take a long time to pick up on special requirements.

5) Over-all workload. As a secondary teacher, I have 150 students to teach. That’s 150 kids whose needs I need to take into account, whose work I need to assess, whose reports I need to write.

It isn’t always easy for the teachers. It can be hard to pick up on what every kid needs. A learning disability needs to be highly obvious for a teacher to pick it up on their own, with no prior knowledge at all of the child. Or the teacher needs to be highly trained to pick it up, which is also unlikely as it is not part of standard teacher training.

The problem is a real one, a deep one, and a complicated one. We can do our best to learn and help, but please show some patience with teachers. It’s the ones who make no effort even after they know a kid has special needs that you can be angry at, but not the ones who don’t pick up on it.

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[trashman]

I went through the same . teachers when i was in school didn’t ask me if I new an anwser if they were thinking I might no. they would have no problem asking me if they thought i didn’t have the aanswer. It became a standing place to stop and give the others a chance to laugh. there were two or three of us that were dealt with in this maner. it took untill I failed grade 9 and they told me they did not want me in school. other things were going on andit did not take long for me to drop out of school. [dummy me] I spent mylife loburing with my hands, becauce my concetration couldkeep me in one place very long. It has not been easy but I am determand to learn to slow down and try learn this computer thing works. looking back I can see my adhd geting in the way.I am not like alot of you Iam told my IQ is on the low side of normal. what ever that is ha ha. the hard part is knowing that Iam not very smart, and seeing al you very smart people around me. so I tell my self not to worry,just to do my best. Its hard knowing when your best is not as good as every ones normal is better then your best.

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[Anonymous]

My mom told me when i tested to go into kindergarten…my IQ~65…pffffffff…i just really really try not to let people get to me anymore…it is hard but so so worth it.

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[Anonymous]

@tombdragon – i agree completely, and i know where you are coming from. for the longest time my least favorite word was ‘potential.’ i once even had a button on my backpack that read “i may be lazy, unmotivated, and worthless, but at least i’m good at it.”

so i hear ya.

i feel for you son, but at least he has you to stick up for him.

me, i spent a good portion of my elementary years with my head down, waiting for everyone else to catch up – or trying to finish what everyone else got done instantly.

my favorite worst example is about the adhd son of a friend of mine. he has horrible distraction issues, and problems talking when he shouldn’t. he’s also extremely bright. so the teacher creates an advanced reading program for him within the 3rd grade classroom. then she sits him off to one side to take his test, and does an activity with the rest of the class in which they have to shout out the answers to questions. THEN she gets mad at him because he isn’t doing his test. ……sort of like yelling at a blind kid for tripping over the boxes you sat down in front of him and asking him why he isn’t watching where he’s going, eh? i tried to get my friend to let ME go in and talk to this teacher, but i think she was afraid to

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[Anonymous]

As a veteran of adhd childhood i was left back at a private school because of my adhd and they didn’t want to deal with it. my public school was better but i was still put down by teachers sometimes. thankfully i had enough good ones to pull through. i worked in the education system myself not as a teacher but as a security guard. i had to deal with many kids’ behavior problems. i got to talk with a lot of teachers and they vented their frustration to me about what good they try to do and how it’s all for naught. i feel envious of the students because the teachers have better sensitivity training and are empowered and compelled to deal with bullies. something i wish was available to me as a kid. the kids however are not disciplined. i know that in the old days discipline was draconian and cruel but we’ve swung to the opposite end of the spectrum where the kids run around willy nilly and are growing up to be sociopaths

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[Anonymous]

Well, thank you for the comments. First,during the Parent Teacher Conference was the perfect time for my sons Teacher to mention; “He’s so smart, If he would only apply himself, he would do so much better in my class” because, if you really think about it, it is true. The Principal, Special Ed, Classroom Teacher, and the Psychologist representative from the Public School who did his evaluation were there. I did, in fact, get rather animated after that comment and the Public School Representative used my rage as an example of the, not just MIS-understanding, and frustration, but the inability for most teachers to relate to the learning challenges we have in the first place.

My son (11) has a tremendous imagination, and I believe that is the key to his success in the future – his imagination has no limits. That is the message I wanted his teachers to leave with. I recently put together a computer for him with Voice Recognition – Windows Vista or 7 & Office 2007 or greater, it is included with Windows and a USB Microphone is all you need. His teacher commented that the day after he started using the Computer with Voice Recognition his grades improved from C/D to A/B. WE still suffer with homework, and even though he has an “IEP”, his homework averages 5-7 hours a night – my wife is adimate about him completing his work, and remaining competitive with his class – I think it’s tourcher. He does get accommodations with timed tests, and spelling. I used to skive off my homework – because it was stupid! Of course I can’t tell him that – and if I’m home and his mother is out he never completes his work, and “I don’t care” because it is still stupid – in fact he is finishing his homework now – My wife doesn’t understand, but…..well, you know. He is missing out on a lot because of his homework and my wife’s inability/refusal to understand what he needs. I don’t know about the rest of you, but how many KNEW they were smarter than most of your teachers?

I told my son this “We are special, because we can do things 80% of the population can’t.” – I truly believe that the world wouldn’t work because “we” wouldn’t be around to make keep it running smoothly – Things would never get fixed, new devises wouldn’t be imagined. I can render objects, in my mind’s eye, in 3D, and color. I can take them apart, put them back together and design new products. I can memorize a block diagram easily, yet I can’t accurately transfer a measurement from the ruler to the page. We are special and I’m sure most of us believe that.

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[Anonymous]

Lot of talent goes without seeing and estimating. There are too strict means to show who has certain kind of iq which just doesn’t cut the situation with person whose talents aren’t in those certain ‘measurements’. Pieces of can show or may not show, some talents just can’t be measured by cutting the pie to slices or in larger scale they cant be put but in the whole of it but always there’s a miss.

When one is shown or hazardly put to certain standard “you must do your work like this or you may not keep up with us..” “Why must you always wait things to be quite before you can continue your work..”

It ain’t fair that’s for sure. But… as an exapmle but not as something to pick on. My first and second year of compulsive school well.. i sure didn’t have it easy but surely homework wasn’t something so intresting to stay after school to do and so on. My father had the opinion of one should have child’s mind and go out and play. Well when third year wen’t (second and third year were healthwise compromised) and before fourth year started i made compact with my grandmother that if i should raise my school numbers in certain classes to the sixth grade i would get something memorable from her.

Well before on i did my homework after school (i was very adamant in the beginning that i would not make it), i started to do them by joy i enyoyed doing homework.. I truely did it after all. But after that year well it sure has been a fight never ending.. I know where the problem lies but i just don’t have strength to overcome those so easily as i always in the beginning start to think. Now going studies of mine well they have not been so easily going after all. Certainly it shows that here is the darkest season going and it seems to affect me more than i have understood.

I’ve not been diagnosed. i’ve not had the guts to go to that circle yet. Because it seems i may have to acknowledge this thing before hand so i may start it better. (in Finland it seems that ADHD/ADD Adults don’t get so easily this diagnose than for example in the Usa or Canada. Still some get this diagnose being piece of cake and some has to fight for the right to get it)..

I sure think we are special why else we would be here to express it? As “Tombdragon says it” we are kind of natural source which hasn’t been counted in for full knowledge because this source is so personal it can’t be found in every person in the same way or in the same way of expressing it.

I’m single man, no children so this to be a not so valid piece of info for Tombdragon….

If you can see things and which i acknowledge on your part truely The talent of yours this >>I can render objects, in my mind’s eye, in 3D, and color. I can take them apart, put them back together and design new products. I can memorize a block diagram easily, yet I can’t accurately transfer a measurement from the ruler to the page.<<

Your son is still to find out all of his talents but school atmosphere won’t do it at the fullest. You as his father know how talented he is but you seem to lack this as also many of us can relate to the feeling of “how should it matter when it seems nothing but nonimportance.” How Does that affect your son. We’ve had this Communication skill class and there came again and again this phenomenom of nonverbal against verbal and the other way… Well i try to say that does he himself know that you two don’t think him as a idiot who has to do so much extra hours to excel from his homework….

What about your wife. What she doesn’t understand which you understand? Have you tried to say it or show in some other context of which would explain it to her the way which would tell better if you lack the mean to say it so…

Okay.. well.. as long son of yours has your’s and his mother’s support in anyway you can show it to him then it is just fine of course.. just saying . (in quite long text too sooorryy)

All the Best for Ya

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[Patte Rosebank]

@Tombdragon, I often knew that I was smarter than the whole class (as well as several classes in the next grades up), and, in some cases, smarter than the teachers at the shitty school I went to from Kindergarten to partway through Grade 6.

That Grade 6 teacher knew that I was smarter than she was, and was in mortal dread that I’d point out one of her mistakes, thus humiliating her in front of the whole class. She made no secret of her animosity towards me, and I know she was glad to see the end of me when my mom found a really good school to transfer me to, for the rest of my elementary education.

But I got my revenge.

Several years later, I was working in the mitt camp (palmistry tent) at the CNE. I looked up during a palm reading, and saw that THAT teacher had just walked into the tent, with the poor shnook (another of my teachers) she’d married. I blurted out their names and told them to have a seat, and I’d be right with them. She looked like she’d seen a ghost—a very satisfying deer-in-the-headlights look of absolute terror. 30 seconds later, I’d finished my reading, but those two teachers were long-gone. I can just imagine the conversation, as they fled: “I always knew there was SOMETHING weird about that kid!”

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[Anonymous]

That was too funny!!!

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[Anonymous]

I had forgotten until I read these posts. My 8th grade teacher and supervisor (I was student council president) verbally attacked me one day, and dressed me down saying, “And you may be SMARTER than me, but…” I forget the rest. Smarter than him? What? I idolized him—and he was threatened by me, an 8th grade GIRL???

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[presto]

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[presto]

I had a math teacher call me “stupid” several times in front of the whole class! It was when I was in 9th grade – it also was the only class I ever skipped – Well tried to skip….. I was not good at skipping because I had never done it before, so I went to hide in the first place the teacher looked – The bathroom. Well when I got caught he asked why I had skipped I told him the truth “Because your an asshole and call me stupid in front of the whole class!” Well he acted shocked as if he did not know he was calling me stupid…. we went to the guidance office and stayed there for the whole class talking – actually the two of them did most of the talking and I sat there and felt like I was being interrogated by two cops.

Long story short he flunked me for half the year so I had to do it over again. He got fired (I heard that my mother had a hand in seeing that he was booted out!) The following year I had a completely different teacher she was great! Very understanding and worked with me. My finale grade in that class was an “A” – I was so shocked that I actually went to the teacher and said that she must have made a mistake. What she said to me I will never forget – without hesitation she said “No mistake! You earned that A , every bit of it!” I said to her “but I am way behind everyone else, and I constantly get the answers wrong.” she said “I saw you working harder than I have ever seen you work. An “A” is not about getting the right answers correct, but about working above your capabilities! That you have indeed done, you earned that “A” without a doubt!”

She made a difference in my life.

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[Author]

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