Little James* is 3 years old. He is the youngest son of a couple who are both doctors. They came to the center and wanted to enroll him in our reading program. Though we recommended that he take the Playcamp first, after all, he is only 3, the parents insisted that he be assessed for reading, and so we did. As the parents expected, James passed the assessment because he knows all the letters of the alphabet. Against our recommendation, the parents enrolled him in Phonics level 1 which is the introduction of sound of each letter.
So, on the first day, we were not at all surprised when James wouldn't want to work. He didn't want to speak, he didn't want to trace, he didn't even want to look at the teacher. At the end of the session, the teacher talked to the daddy, who happened to be the one who fetched James, and explained what happened. She said that James has a difficulty coping with the lessons and that he was being left behind by the older kids which resulted to the class being held back. The teacher said that she will observe James's performance on the second session and if she thinks that the lesson is too much for James, maybe we could consider another option which could be to pull the boy out of the class and give him another schedule without any classmate so that the teacher could focus on him alone and help him with his difficulty. The father, with an unreadable expression on his face, didn't answer. He just took James's hand and silently walked the boy out the door.
Barely an hour later, we received a call from James's mother. She was so mad, our officer-in-charge could hardly understand what she was ranting about. To cut it short, she said that our play school teacher insulted her husband and underrated her son's capabilities, that her son is studying in a prestigious school and that his lowest grade is 85. She said our teacher is incompetent and is not supposed to teach small children like James. Our teacher, sure that she didn't do anything wrong, talked with the mother and said that James's father might have misunderstood what she said. But the mother wouldn't let her talk, I heard her saying 'Mommy, can I explain myself first' many times. Until I finally heard her invite the mother to come over and talk to her personally and settle the issue.
Later that day, the mother did come, tagging her husband along. The teacher explained what she meant, but the couple kept on cutting her out and insisting that she belittled their son. Our teacher explained over and over again that she didn't say James is not good, only that he wouldn't want to work, so maybe he is not supposed to be in a class and must be taught alone instead. But the parents wouldn't have any of that. So, our teacher very sincerely said that she apologized if she offended them in any way, but firmly added that she wouldn't apologize for something she never said. But the parents were implacable.
Having felt that the discussion was pointless, the officer-in-charge, thanked our teacher, sent her back to her class and asked the parents for their decision. The parents said they want another teacher because James WILL NEVER learn from THE TEACHER who just left. Our officer-in-charge apologized but honestly said that we have no other teacher at the moment, and that another teacher (she was referring to me) will be available by June. So, the parents asked if they could just pull out their child and refund their payment. Our OIC, feeling that that was the best way to settle the issue, gave back their payment.
IN GENERAL, teachers NEVER SAY that a student is not good. The worst we could possibly give as an assessment is that a student needs improvement, then we give recommendations on how to improve a student's performance. Parents and teachers are supposed to work together, side-by-side, with the common goal of helping a child learn. Parents must not regard us as enemies, instead, they must work with us and together, we will mold a child to be the fine and responsible person his parents wish him to be..
No comments:
Post a Comment