What is your biggest concern with your child's teacher?

Question

As a teacher without children I am always trying to relate to my student's parents...you can see the possible difficulties here.

What are you concerns with about your child's teacher? What do you wish your child's teacher did, or simply did more often? What do you wish your child's teacher would not do?

Any other parent to teacher advice would be appreciated too.

Answer 1

I am a homeschool parent/teacher.  My concern with myself is making sure that I keep my student on task and not let the parenting side of me hinder the teaching responsibilities.  On the whole I think I do a great job of this.

Answer 2

I absolutely love my daughter's teacher.....

She has a clear grasp of the my daughter's individual learning style.

When preparing for lessons she takes great care in researching the material and being well informed about the objectives. She  knows my daughter's strength and weaknesses and is able to tailor each lesson to strengthen her abilities. She has worked with her for three years and worked very hard to lay the foundations of phonetic awareness, the basis for a good reading program.  She has  nurtured my daughter's mathematics abilities so that she is one full year ahead. My daughter is excelling in every area of her academics. And this has been clearly shown by the required mandatory state testing.

      I found that traditional school was not able to nurture my child's curiosity for education because the classes were too overcrowded and the teacher had to spend too much time correcting unruly students. Homework was excessive and the curriculum was lacking due to the disproportionate presentation of math and reading so that the school would meet AYP as required by NCLB. I was tired of parents who were not as committed to their child's education as I was to mine. There are some great teachers out there but their voices are muffled by oppressive teacher unions who promote  mediocre cookie cutter education.

   ---- Did I mention I am my daughter's teacher?

Answer 3

my son is in the 4th grade. he has always been a great student. never had a problem with any of his teachers. till this year. i should have had him transfered to another classroom, but i honestly thought things would get better. his teacher is so stuck on herself, and her family. she is always telling her students how she can speak several different languages, telling kids they are 2 fat, or 2 thin. constantly talking about her home country of portagul. (no clue how to spell it) how she was a singer over there, and that she is the most famous person over there, trying to give the kids her c.d.'s, then gets upset when the kids refuse them. this woman brings portagul into everything, oh, and her kids, (her own kids) are just perfect, they are the correct weight, will eat anything she gives them to eat, never complain, they are angels. lets not forget about her perfect husband. he invented a healthy chocolate.and is learning every language she speaks because she asked him 2. always bragging about her family. she has disliked my son from the moment he asked her what her home country and her family has to do with school work. and asked her if she would please just teach the class, because she has talked about her family enough, he is in school to learn.from that moment on, he has gotten zero's on his papers, been sent to the office, been sent home, and made to write her a note of apoligywhen he told her she has to show respect if she wants respect back. dont get me wrong, my son is to respect adults. but this lady is so rude to him, the other day, he had a shoe box, was supposed to cover it with wrapping paper, he cut it himself, another kid said my son took it from him, the teacher yanked it out of his hands, and sent him to the ofice, then called me, and said he was being rude to everyone in he class room. he got a zero on that project because he was not allowed to finish it.also last week, she came into the class room in a really bad mood. yelling at the kids. making a few cry. my son, and another kid told her she should leave her personal problems at home, and they were sent to the office, with pink slips, saying they were being rude to other students. i have a parent teacher conference with her on friday, that woman is going to get a piece of my mind. my son has been counting down the days till summer since the first month of school. first time ever for that. the woman is pure evil.

Answer 4

That teachers  do not believe children about homework even if they have a note... that just bugs me... ARGGGGH!

Answer 5

I have no worried about my sons teachers. However I do about the class sizes.

My sons abilities are above the average in his class but because the class is so large the teacher has told me she finds it very difficult to push him to his potential.

The only ways I can think to solve this is to separate the class into groups and give adapted work for each ability.

Answer 6

I wish my daughters teacher would answer my questions that I write on my daughters papers. She never ever does.

Answer 7

I really wish my child's teacher didn't give "make-work" homework - such as giving my son a list of spellings and times tables to learn over the holidays which he has known since he was 5. I think it sets a very bad precedent for bright kids to grow up thinking homework is something they don't need to bother with. I much prefer when she gives the kids different homework according to their abilities, or homework which can be done at a variety of levels (such as writing about something).

Answer 8

I can't make any negative comments about my oldest daughter's (1st grade)  teacher. She is just excellent. I like everything about her. She is very precise, firm, involved, caring, etc. I feel like she truly loves her job and enjoys it. She always makes time to talk to any parent or student who has an issue and she pays a lot of attention to each individual child. I feel truly happy and blessed that my daughter is in her class.

My youngest daughter's (preschool) teacher on the other hand, I am not so happy with. My oldest daughter had her last year and she was excellent then! But, this year is completely different. It is like she isn't the same person. My oldest daughter's preschool class was rather small and for the most part the kids were really nice and quiet. There were a few "wild" boys but, not too bad. This year, my youngest daughter got stuck in a large class where most of the kids are wild and unruly.

As you can imagine, this means the teacher is spending most of her time correcting and punishing these kids instead of teaching. The teacher is often in a stressed unfriendly mood and takes it out on the kids who don't behave so badly.

Example: My daughter forgot the rule that you should go to the bathroom by yourself and her and her friend Lara went. Okay, not a big deal. Well, the teacher blew up at her!

I thought it was ridiculous. I mean the kid forgot. The teacher has bigger things to worry about like the kid who punches everyone in the face for no particular reason.

But, since the teacher is so stressed by her class this year, the "good" kids are either being pushed aside or getting the crud end of the stick.

My daughter was put into preschool because she has some mild immaturity issues of her own. In other words, she is a bit of a Mommy's girl. I just don't feel like the teacher is even addressing my daughter's issue. She can't, she has to deal with much bigger things with other children. It is already the middle of April, the end of the school year is around the corner, and I don't see any improvement in my daughter.

Sorry, about rambling on here! But, I think what I would like to see more of is: Smaller classes, adequate punishment for unruly behavior (example: calling the child's parent to the school), more talks with the parents, and more work on an individual basis to resolve particular issues.

I hope I helped some and good luck teaching!

P.S. I think it is great that you are even asking this question! Good on you! :)

Answer 9

As a student I have noticed a trend with discrimination and biases are showing up everywhere nowadays. I'm in the 11th Grade and have had several teachers in the past and even now discriminate against me. Last year I was Chewed out for holding a Bible.( I wasn't even reading it.) My teacher whined and whined to the higher ups and  I was suspended on the accusation of heavily offending people. (Even my enemies defended me.)

Now I have a teacher that throws my homework away. The school says they can't do anything about it for awhile because of confidential reasons. On the other hand I have found it very easy in some classes by finding the teacher's "Soft Spot" such as a teacher's weakness to youtube.

Is any other school like that or is my school just filling with deception?

Answer 10

Some teachers only identify with the fast learners, and some teachers do not take the time to help those children that need extra time.  One of my biggest concerns has been the amount of time we have to spend with our children on projects, it seems teachers are not willing to take the time to help children anymore. It's rushed out to the home and us parents have to deal, with going to the library, getting all the appropriate things that go along with making a project.

I can remember a time where you were given class time plus going to the library to work on projects.

It seems that teachers don't want to deal with any of that part of their kids, they just let the children figure it out themselves.

Don't forget that kids, are not keyboard effecient my son is 11 and he cannot do the typing.

Answer 11

My personal concern is with my childs teacher is she does not correct my child when they she has a made mistakes on her work!  It pisses me off more than anything and she gets a sticker saying great job or wow, when she needs to learn from her mistakes.

I also have a concern that she gives the same candy coated speech to every parent at teacher confrences.

" Your child is such a privledge to have in class and she is one of the best, she is excelling in every subjects"

Then, I think how would you know because you obviously don't look over her work, and correct her mistakes!

Answer 12

It just bugs the sh*t out of me that the TEACHER can't correctly spell the spelling words on the list she sends home. There's also plenty of mistakes in the instructions for the weeks homework. She marks my son absent for days he's there, resulting in my receiving nasty notes from the school. Also rarely responding to notes sent to school and today I put my sons completed homework and signed report card in his folder so he could take it back to school...she didn't even take either one of them out of the folder.

I understand SOME mistakes but this is just the tip of the iceberg and in my opinion....ridiculous.

BTW my sons in kindergarten, so we're not talking big words here. We're talking about words like the days of the week, colors, and numbers. Easy stuff.

Answer 13

My biggest concern with my teacher is that they don't make the children get involved  enough in learning the material. I hope they would do more than just hand out  assignments and give tests.

Answer 14

I have a 7 year old in first grade, and I guess my concerns are is the teacher making learning too stressful?  Too many expectations?  I have had my daughter cry herself to sleep before because she was worried she would not pass a spelling test the next day.  Mind you, she is not crying because she is afraid she will get in trouble at home, she is crying because she hates to get a bad grade, period.  Is the teacher stressing perfection too much?  I can't say.

Good question.

Answer 15

My third grader has an absolutely wonderful teacher who really inspires the kids, meets each kid at their level, and communicates well with the parents.  She's one of those teachers where you feel she knows your child as well as you do as a parent -- and cares about them as much as you do.  Both my older kids had a teacher like that in kindergarten, as well, and two of my kids had an amazing preschool teacher.

The concerns I've had with other teachers have ranged from one teacher who was constantly yelling at the kids; a couple teachers who were so (legitimately) busy with struggling kids that they completely abandoned kids who were working above grade level, and one preschool teacher who just is clearly in the wrong line of work and who radiates annoyance, boredom, and a desire to be somewhere other than her classroom.  

I'm guessing that since you are writing this you're not like the preschool teacher.  ;-)

Answer 16

ok I am one of the parents that don't sit down at night and do homework, I dread it and all the homework given they need help with (younger ones) like the reading etc, I understand that they need to do it and it helps them but at 3.30-6.30 this is a war zone,

the kids are tired from school (from wed on it gets worse) i have a 3yr old that won't quit and a 1 yr old that by 4.30 is ready for bed which is not till 6 and still to do is showers tea etc etc. so finding time for homework is really distressing for me.

I also like to know if my kids are not doing as well as they should be, total honest blunt and to the point, for me that does not reflect the teacher, it indicates that my kid needs help and the sooner i can get it the better.

I remember being told by a teacher that my son was fine, that was until i got his report card (not sure where fine is in your son cant read or spell)

honesty is great and homework well there is so much going on between 3.30 and 6.00 and 7.00 is bed ?

I know that you teachers don't get as much time to do one on one stuff with struggling kids but if you are doing a task would it be bad to say ok so does everyone understand what needs to be done? does anyone need a bit of help?and if there are kids that don't get it, while the other ones are getting on with it group them together and go over it differently.

Answer 17

I have no problems with my son's teacher. I guess I'm blessed. When i was in school though i felt like teachers picked favorites and that alone is the one thing i wish would change.