Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Learning to get off on a technicality


More end-of-the-year theatrics by parents looking to absolve their offspring of the consequences of their bad behavior...

A particularly nasty student of mine--we'll call him Donald--is learning some skills that might prove useful later in life when avoiding, say, a prison term or other unwanted consequences.

With a huge assist from his mother--it's always the mothers--he managed to whine his way back into the end-of-year privileges he lost because he had two unsatisfactories for citizenship.

It turns out that one of the teachers who had to deal with his disrespect this year neglected to fill out the proper paperwork. Mom pounced on this technicality and the administration melted in the heat of her scorn.

Once again a toxic parent protects a child from the consequences of his actions and another real learning opportunity goes down the drain.

Sigh.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's truly sad. Its shame when the parents enable that type of behavior. It's such a vicious cycle frequently they grew up the same way.

The mentee that needed this program the most has been kicked out of our program. She was disrespectful to one of the teachers based on her mothers actions I'm not surprised she acts the way she does.

Her mom has been pulled up numerous times for her behavior. Where's her dad. Well he just got out of jail after serving 15 years off and on.

I'm trying to find a program that will take her otherwise, I think she'll slip through the cracks.

Oh by the way I love your design!

UGN said...

What?! You love my design? That is such a nice compliment! I really wish I was independently wealthy so I could learn to be a designer. I think it would be so awesome to design web pages. I am not very artistic, but I have a strong yearning to be so. Thanks you so much!

UGN said...

Opal,

If you read this, I want you to know that everytime I go to your site tonight, as soon as I click on something, my computer stops responding. This is only on your site. Weird.

Jenny said...

I really do hate to see things like this happening...I feel bad for the kid...

UGN said...

Yeah, if parents only knew what they were teaching their kids. I always thought we ought to have special classes for parents to explain things like this.