Wednesday 15 January 2014

Teachers

A very controversial subject this, because I am fairly black and white about things and it is important not to lump all teachers in to black or white boxes. I am fairly sure that most of us can remember a couple of teachers who we loved and who inspired us to great things at some point. Then, on the other side, there are the others. The ones we hated compulsively and if we could meet them now we'd let them know exactly how we feel, you can say their name now, go on, spit it out. Then, there are those teachers who have been lost in the mists of time. Presumably, they existed, but who the hell knows who they were. It is with these things in mind that I attack these next musings.

My eldest daughter has been having a few issues with a particular teacher at school and we, as parents, have been trying to sort it out. I know a few teachers, and they are lovely people, the problem I think though, comes with teachers when they are at school. Some of them see school as armour and deliver themselves accordingly from behind their shield. This is what happens in my mind when it comes to "those" teachers and school.

Anyway, my eldest, as I have now repeated, has a few issues with this particular teacher, she's a sensitive soul. Husband and I have been really trying to get in their and sort this all out, as we have done it with one of her other teachers who actually went from being a complete zero to a total hero in about 20 minutes. Anyway, we had written about this in my daughter's progress book and a message came back saying that another teacher had left a message for the "issue teacher", and then after that we heard nothing. My eldest was still complaining bitterly and really kicking off in the mornings when anything about school was mentioned. We had to placate her to get her dressed, then we'd all lose it when it was teeth brushing time, don't get me started on putting fucking socks and shoes on, that made Japanese torture look like a holiday. You get my drift, things were not happy.

Husband then rang school and school passed message on to teacher, teacher rang husband, I couldn't be trusted to be civil at this point, I was still drying out from the water torture, seemingly afflicted on me because of aforementioned teacher. Husband made appointment with teacher and we prepared for meeting upon picking daughters up from OFSTED outstanding school.

We arrive at school, me looking like something both fashion and time had forgotten. I had a waterproof jacket on that tented my husband, some jeans that had most of the weeks cooking dribbled down them and a hat that had had a whole mug of tea spilt on it months previously. Of course, I only registered any of this when we were ushered to sit down on the tiny chairs that little people sit on at primary schools. I eye-balled the teacher to see if she was gauging and judging me upon my image, did not pick up any signs of this. 0 1 to her. She asked Something to the effect of "How can I help?" I can't totally remember as I was trying to hide a very large oil stain on my knee under the table that only dwarfs and 6 year olds are supposed to sit at. I looked at husband, having realised that I should probably keep quiet until I had the  measure of this teacher.
"Well, we really wanted to talk about our eldest, we spoke to Miss ... a while ago and we just thought that we should try and meet with you to see if we could try and carve eldests safe and happy passage through year 1!" Again, something like that was said, I was fairly distracted by husband perching on tiny seat like a Giraffe on a Budgie perch.

Long and short of it was, the teacher was just as sensitive as our eldest, she, I think, nearly cried when telling us how sensitive she was. She also seemed to have a pretty good psychological profile of our daughter and just wanted to get the hell out of this circus and back home to her house, undoubtedly made of woven yogurt and totally degradable produce. I wasn't overwhelmed by her, but I also think she's a professional, verging on jobs worth, and if anything, that is where the clash lies. Both our daughter and her are sensitive to the extreme but they both like things to be done their way and there can really only be one way with children and teachers, and that is, in the main, the teachers way.

I have to say, we were massively impressed with our first stab at teacher parent conversation, it was like talking to a normal human being who came from the same planet as us, but this time, husband and I peeled ourselves off the furniture made purely for dolls houses and moved out of the school without even really acknowledging much that had gone on. We didn't want the teacher to cry, we didn't want to cry either, more than anything we'd probably have broken the chairs and that would just have been too awful. She was a sensitive soul who had probably found her armour in the classroom and she was blown if we were going to steel that from her nor was she going to concede that anything else was up. The conversation was short, awkward and massively uncomfortable in all senses of the word, but more than that, she now knows that we know and we know that she knows and she knows that we told our eldest so our eldest also knows. I think that just about makes it as clear as the subject of indifferent children will ever be, surely?


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