Thursday, January 27, 2011

Are you kidding me? Principles, teachers, my husband and me.

So, one of my three children is a 2nd grade girl. Yes of course she is cute and funny and fantastic. I do however try to be a realist when it comes to my child. I don't want to be the mother that lives in a fantasy land, has the best child that has ever existed and can do no wrong, and this is how I got into my recent predicament.
At my daughter's parent teacher conferences in October, the teacher seemed happy and pleased with her progress. So, naturally, was I.
I have since started to worry. I got a call from the teacher telling me that she is 12 homework assignments behind and that he is giving her a second chance to finish them. He didn't know she was so behind until he went through her desk. How does a teacher not know this? Anyway I said I hadn't seen those assignments and I will make sure she gets them done right away.
Then I saw the assignments, some had pictures on the back, some had the teachers writing on the back, some were pages I had helped her finish before. When asking my daughter about the homework with stuff on the back she said they were papers from the recycled homework pile that she would use to draw. They weren't unfinished homework, they were doodles.
And then there it was, a stack of 15 or so assignments that the teacher had just corrected and sent home. One math page had 18 questions, 15 out of 18 were marked incorrect.
She wasn't asked to do them again, but marked wrong. Most of the other pages were journal entries which apparently had a total of points per entry. Some entries had 2 sentences and she scored 4 out of 5 points. Some entries had 5 sentences and she scored 2 out of 5 points. Never did any entry have notes from the teacher or things marked or corrected, they just had the score out of 5. Frankly Mike and I didn't even know what "5" was.
To put a final "what the hell?" The teacher spelled her name incorrectly on her homework folder. I am usually not this picky, however her name is Sophia. This teacher has taught her for 5 months and spells her name Sofia. Really?
So, half of the homework wasn't real homework, she obviously isn't learning math and her teacher can't spell her name. Should I be worried?
When talking with the teacher about the problems he said he hadn't looked in his grade book and noticed what was or wasn't turned in, his teaching is just fine, and sometimes he spells phonetically. (that is why he can't spell her name correctly), I wonder if the 2nd graders can spell phonetically on their spelling tests, will the teacher care?

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