Thursday, January 19, 2012

At the School

I finally got to go help out in Jansen's classroom for a couple hours today. I've been wanting to all year, but it's difficult to ask someone to watch the girls. It was an interesting experience. His teacher is pretty mean. There are very few teachers that I've had or observed that are as negative as she is. She was giving me a knot in my stomach just listening to her. It seems to be the trend at his school, and I'm not sure what to do about it. I've heard the choir teacher really rail on a group of children and I was horrified. Doesn't anyone there know about the power of positive words and encouragement? 

Funny thing is, Jansen never complains about his teacher or school. He loves his friends there. He loves riding his scooter to school. But I wonder how this type of teaching is affecting him. I don't need a teacher who is only rainbows and roses, but I hate to think that half of Jansen's day is spent in that atmosphere. I've got some thinking to do to decide where I want to go from here.

5 comments:

Meggin said...

That's so hard. Especially since you have background in teaching and have seen (and were!) really great teachers. Good luck with that one.

Anonymous said...

Grrrr. Good thing I live 5 hours away (and that you would kill me) or I would have to take her out to the playground for a little talk.

Knudson Family said...

Ugh. Brooklyn's kindergarten teacher was like that at the first school she went to here. Same thing happened...went in to help and was quite surprised at how frustrated and mad she was. I'm not going to giving you any advice because I've got none...but I hope he gets a better teacher next year.

Monica said...

So sorry, Jessica! That is sooo hard. I guess it is a good thing that Jansen hasn't been affected by it. Hmmm.. Do they have charter schools out there or anything like that that you can try to enroll in?? Or maybe there will be a better teacher next year? Bummer!

Anonymous said...

Ugh, sorry Jessica! That's got to be frustrating. Does the school allow requests for teachers? Maybe you could observe the choices for the next level up and see if you have a strong preference.