A colleague of mine almost got a teacher fired...
By doncris
@doncris (637)
Romania
January 30, 2007 12:51am CST
Do you think it's fair? I'm talkign about the music teacher, in the music class. At the begin of the semester, she tried to be nice to us, she didn't teach us much, because we asked her and because she said we already had enough on our minds. She let us go home and skip class a lot of times, because she was nice. She only demanded that we deliver her each a project about a famous composer's life and prepare for a singing class, just to have marks in the register and for her to be able to close our situation. But I have a colleague (a she) who thinks she's the center of the world, she's a hipocrit, and she thinks she can do whatever she wants to. She skips class a lot, so naturally she missed the one where the teacher kindly told us to prepare. She showed up unprepared, the teacher kindly told her to sing, but she didn't want to and she made a big scandal out of it, because the teacher gave her an F. She threatened the poor teacher, she said she'll be going to the principal to complain because she would be a bad teacher who had tought us nothing (because she was kind enough to elt us go home every time we asked her). To make things worse, this girl has a younger sister who also created problems for this teacher. Their father (who obviously believed his girls, who play nice and tidy before him) came to school and complained to the principal, and the principal was blind enough to belive his story, so he yelled and threatened our poor teacher. She had nothing to say about it, nobody asked her how things had really gone. We promised her (our class) that we would help her, if she needed. What else could we do to save her? What should we do with our nasty female colleague? Frankly, I just wanna give her a peace of my mind, but I guess that wouldn't bring nothing but trouble...
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4 responses
@victorwzj (539)
•
2 Feb 07
I am confuse, are you referring to "classmate" or "colleague"?. Classmate is the one that you study with and colleague is people that you work with. Since you mention it is a music class, I gonna assume that it is classmate.
I know some teacher are being too nice to let the class go and this will end up biting her back. It is good that she trust the student to go home and study but in reality not all student is hardworking. Some student only study or practice under supervision from the teacher, if the teacher let the student off they will misinterpret as "day off" and end up didn't do anything. What you can try is ask your classmate to sign partition and explain the whole situation to the principle. If the whole class partition is siding with the teacher , there is not reason why the principle would believe her. Still she need to take some responsiblity in the matter, In the future she shouldn't let the student off before the bell ring and be more strict with student. I am not saying that she shouldn't be nice to the student just that she need to have a balance. Student tend to bully the teacher if the teacher is too soft.
@doncris (637)
• Romania
2 Feb 07
Thanks for the correction! In my mother tongue, the term "colleague" refers to both person at work and classmate, so that's why I made this mistake.:D You're right about the measures of precaution: she said she isn't going to be nice to us anymore in the following semester, because she regrets having done it in the first one! (not surprising)
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@schoolteacher15 (15)
• United States
12 Feb 07
As a teacher, our profession has become a joke. The world sees us as robots, babysitters, and individuals who could not make it in other fields of study so became teachers.
The fact that the teacher was lax in her responsibility is the first problem of all. If the teacher was doing her job, teaching, then there would be nothing to tell and get in trouble for.
This is not to say that the student is right for taking total advantage of the situation. However, a good rule of thumb for teachers would be stick to the objectives, stop trying to make your students your friends, and things like this will be avoided.
What should you do to this student? If she is a very close friend I would make her very aware of the wrong she has done. Since the teacher has become a "friend", by error, I would also tell her that she needs to change her pattern of behavior. I know this will put you and your friends at a disadvantage, but good advice is only good when it is the truth.
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@Cherry_Eve (285)
• Indonesia
30 Jan 07
No, I don't think it's fair, since your teacher had trid to be nice to her. But I also think that the teacher is false too, because he didn't teach your class, I know that he is trying to understand your situation, but he also has his own responsibility to teach your class. Of course the principal won't believe him, I think the principal think that he (the teacher) skipped the class for his own goods.
Well I think you and your classmate can do nothing, except collecting signatures that saying all of your class are with the teacher, and come to the principal to tell the truth about it.
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@doncris (637)
• Romania
1 Feb 07
Thanks for the answer! I can assure you, that the teacher (Which is by the way a woman) let us go home and she would stay alone in class and listen to the music she had brought for us to audition! So she no interest in letting us go, only that she was being very nice! Trust me, she's a very nice person! [how do I know this: me and a colleague had left school to copy some papers before the music class, and arrived at the half of the music class, thinking how to apologize that we were late; when we came in, she was all alone at the teacher's desk listening to music; she said, she let the class free again, because my colleagues said we had a test paper to prepare for--which wasn't even true, by the way...]
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@pilbara (1436)
• Australia
12 Feb 07
I am sorry but as another teacher I consider the behaviour of this teacher to be unprofessional. Where I work letting students go home and skipping classes is failing in the duty of care towards those students. For example who would be responsible if one of her students decided to walk home and got run over while they should have been in class?
It's all very well and good to be nice to students, but at the end of the day a teacher is hired to do a particular job and it is not right if they are not doing that job.
@doncris (637)
• Romania
12 Feb 07
Yes, I know that. That's exactly why the teacher wrote down our absences in the register, and the next we went to class, she would cancel them, so that she wouldn't get in trouble if something should happen to us....It's not good what we did, I know.
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