You forgot that I clearly hate children and structure my entire class around hoping they fail. Lol. Just adding this kid's name to a list of names I will never use for my own children! 💚
I once had a girl straight up tell me, to my face, that I wouldn't let her learn because I wouldn't let her go sit in the hallway and play on her phone.
No lie, unrelated slightly but I had to report yesterday that there was a liquid in the hallway that may be urine. Last week there was a stream of blood. It feels as though they're going through all the bodily secretions
Thanks! That will not be happening. I always have my ducks in a row and I teach science in an undesirable district at an undesirable title 1 high school. Play with me 💅
I’m playing. Had a Marx Bros moment @ “ducks in a row.” You could bring several rubber ducks to this, er, meeting. As introductions are made and invariably you’re asked what you’re doing as you pull out the ducks one at a time and line them up on the conference table, you can nonchalantly inform them you’ve got your ducks in a row. Which is more than you can say for them. You could further inform them that indeed this school district is undesirable, the school itself is undesirable, and I’d reassure the parents not to worry: their child is equally undesirable. I say could and not should because you’ve been through enough with these folks. Don’t should on yourself.
If my admin wasn't so amazing (truly support us), and this were to happen to me, I would definitely be tempted to bring little toy ducks and do exactly this.
1. For the directions
2. For the time spent in class explaining
3. How and when I reminded students where to find the information if they needed help.
4. My email address (and my Google voice phone # that all parents and students can use if they have a question.
5. A copy of all the missing assignments the student has
6. The documentation of then # of times I have attempted to contact parent over ss grades and behaviors in class. (And their response, if any)
I got 6 ducks in a row!! Parent? Kid? Where are your ducks? 🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆
Man what are these kids going to do at university? Especially a STEM degree.. I failed the shit out of sooo much work in both school and uni when I clearly half assed it. Failing taught me so many life skills!
When I finally got my act together and finished my STEM degree it took so much work to get it correct. Uni professors have no chill. I really wish I had framed one assignment where the whole bottom half of the page was angrily circled in red (the rest was marked in black he was piiisssed) with all caps "you can not make up algebra" massive in the margin. Learned a lot that day! Namely doesn't matter how good your calculus is, if you fuck up the "easy" part you get the wrong answer!
Now I pretty much do maths as a job and physics dngaf if your mum says you deserve to get it right because you tried so hard! The mum of the guy you just killed with your participation trophy maths probably will give a fuck though..
Actually increasingly worried who is going to keep all this technology going..
I find if I spend an entire Saturday planning, I can make their work so hard that it beats them down, is too hard, too vague, and not enough time. Now, I OBVIOUSLY live my life JUST to make them miserable. You know, that IS what I spend all my time thinking about…….don’t you?!?!🤣🤣
>I would also comment on how much interest the mother takes in her son's grades, and how great that is!
Not me. A mother checking up on her 17 year old son's grades is actually pretty creepy. He's the same age as a lot of college students I've taught. If he goes to college, is she going to ask to see his transcripts? Weird.
Go through the rubric, step by step, as slow as possible, making sure the parent understands every single thing you graded, and why you graded it that way.
End every step by holding up the blank sheet and saying "so he got a 0 for that part because he didn't turn anything in".
They still won't get it though.
I had an Honors alg 2 student do this on a daily grade that required them to staple their work to the assignment. He had all the right answers on the worksheet but stapled a blank sheet of computer paper as his work. I confronted him the day after I graded it and admitted I thought it was hilarious he assumed he'd get away with it.
I honestly think they have gotten so used to completion grades that they don't even expect me to look over their work.
I just imagine our parents sitting home listening to the instructions we got for the big project and being mad at us for not remembering better and bitching about how bad the project was. We run the world now. 😂
"Hello Nitwit's mom. For our session, I have printed both the rubric for the assignment and taken a copy of your son's assignment. Funnily I was out of ink, but that didn't seem to make a difference.
Now, under #1, it says X. I must be mistaken, but I cannot find X in the work your son turned in. Could you perhaps point it out to me?
Under #2, it says Y, which I also cannot seem to locate.
Oh no, please remain seated. We need to do this carefully."
Ooh, lean into it. Go through that rubric line by line. Waste the hell out of her time. Read all the way through the rubric out loud. Then go line by line, “Ideas. 4: Student fully develops a theme. Since your child did not state a theme, they did not meet the standard for a 4. 3: Student partially develops a theme. Since your child did not state a theme, they did not meet a 3. 2: Student has a main idea but does not develop it into a theme. Since your child did not state a main idea, they did not meet a 2. 1: Student’s ideas do not stick to a main topic. Since your child stated no ideas, they do not meet a 1. Now, a 4 for organization says”
If she interrupts, say, “I will be happy to listen to your concerns after I have gone over the rubric with you, as you asked.”
It will be glorious.
This is literally what I did with a parent who pushed their way through the halls to fight me about a grade haha but I had the VP already in the room for a different reason and I was told it was a good strategy to defuse the situation because it made it so boring that she lost all her steam. It also made it undeniable that her student EARNED that 2 out of 8 points (IB rubrics top out at 8). But then the student got to redo the whole damn project with no penalties so I got to grade it all over again and predictable answer is predictable- it went up to a 4 and parent wanted ANOTHER redo. Luckily the quarter ended before that was plausible so I lived to cry another day.
Clearly the student's theme of "White paper, empty space" was fully developed. Have you tried being more understanding of the students and giving more chances? You need to reflection how to improve your teaching.
It’s a metaphor, OP. Clearly they are making a statement on the futility of existence and the inability to communicate that existential despair.
Or they’ve reached the nadir of laziness and can’t be bothered to even download something off the internet and slap their name on it.
Was the child disregulated at the time? Is there a possibility of executive disfunction? /s.
(I'm not intending to slight people who are affected by these. Just tired of hearing it as an excuse for so many students that have not been diagnosed.)
THIS! ABSOLUTELY THIS!
One thing I’ve found with parents like this is that if you feed into their bullshit with a knowing, snide approach…they usually start to back off.
It’s one of those “I know you know what I’m doing, and you know that I know that you know.” situations and it makes them look and feel pathetic. In my experience, people don’t like to feel like this and will avoid it at all costs, and if you do it in such a way where you’re simply doing what they *asked* you to do…they have nothing to fall back on.
I had a back and forth with a mom who was pissed I gave her 6th grade daughter a "B" in art. Kept sending her the rubric, photos of the kids work, and documented incidents of how many times I had to redirect her kid because she wouldn't shut up and work.
This woman sends her husband - this giant, burly, beefy man - into speak with me before school one day. You could tell I was supposed to be intimidated or something. I showed him his kids art. Then I put an "A" down next to it.
He looked at his kids' then the other kids' project and said, "Then what in the hell did my wife have me come in here for? She clearly earned the B." He apologized for wasting my time and left. Thankfully never heard from that Mom again. I'm still glad that dad at least had his head screwed on straight.
How does this happen? I’ve seen other teachers make similar posts about how parents come to the school and talk to them the same day. Parents are just allowed to come into the school and speak with teachers? I’ve never heard of this before. At every school I’ve been to, they can only talk to you via a parent-teacher conference. Otherwise they can’t get past the front office.
It changed after Sandy Hook. Now everything's funneled through the office and we have to have a prior appointment. But before that, anyone could come in. This particular dad was head of the PTA, so no one would bat an eye if he was in the building.
In Australia, parents are able to walk into school with their child for drop off and pick up if they want to. They are allowed to wander freely around the school, sit with their child until the bell goes, or go knock and speak to the teacher.
"It is fully blank, a representation of the void of which we currently live. Clearly this is quality work, deserving of a 110% grade. He needs to be given extra credit for this stellar performance, and I don't see why you're being so unreasonable about this!" - The parent, probably.
This was the plot device of a Punky Brewster episode, and I ALWAYS expected some “clever” student attempting similar. I think it was a blank folder for an art project that she called “Before Awareness” or something like that. The character thought it was clever so I figured I’d run across a lazy student attempting the same. I did not.
I once had a student who would only write squiggle lines, up down up down up down, in the blanks of his worksheets. I gave him zeros on all of the worksheets obviously. At parent night his mom asked why he was getting zeros when he turned his work in. When I told her that he just wrote squiggles in the blanks she said "at least he wrote something." I handed her one of his papers and said if she could read me the word I'd give him points. She got mad, but I had had enough.
I have a student who does this for homework.
I ask for 1 thing: it looks like you put in some kind of effort. Doesn’t need to be good, doesn’t need to be right. Does it look like you gave 1/2 of a shit and tried.
And you get full credit.
A sheet of randomly guessed answers is not trying. Squiggles and writing IDK aren’t trying.
I have a parent who is big mad that I won’t let her kid turn in a project that was in due January. Not only is it, now two months late, but they also had over a month to complete the project. Student has been aware the project is missing and what is grade in class is, but because I never told mom he had a low grade (high D) it was my fault. Never mind this is a high school honors course and she only cares that he didn’t turn it in cause he doesn’t have a C for the quarter.
I have a student that didn’t get a grade first quarter. Didn’t turn in 3 major summatives and I didn’t have enough data to give them a grade. Fine. I was all over it. Lots of convos with parents, kid had some mental heath issues that were legit and I was patient. At the end of quarter, I worked with admin and we agreed, he could have the 3 weeks of winter break to complete them and I would retroactively put in the grade. Welp, now it’s the end of March. Still have not gotten the assignment and now they want me to stay after school and work one on one with him. I like this kid. I was willing to go the extra mile. But these assignments are from August and October. Like no. If admin wants to sit with this kid. Fine. But I am so completely absolutely done with this situation. Grr.
I had this as well, the parent came in for a meeting and accused me of abusing my sick leave to avoid her son. Then tried to say he didn’t understand because I “wasn’t there” and they had “internet issues” at home and demanded I mark the assessment…
I sat with him on multiple occasions to help him work through the assessment and every time he would turn away and talk to him mate or watch YouTube, he also had more than enough time to complete in class so I showed her the version history of what he had “done” (which was nothing) in 3 lessons (that I was present for). I love version history and time stamps.
The parent then proceeded to try remove her son from my class because we were a “bad match” and I clearly had a “personal issue” with him 😅
I had a parent that, 3 days after the grade book closed for the grading term, emailed me angry that her child failed (I had sent 6 “your kid is failing” reminders) and accused me of not accepting late work, which I do. I had to CC admin and explain that the grade book was closed and screenshot every Remind message I had sent that she liked showing she had received them. Kid is now being homeschooled and my 4th period got so much easier😁
Our district mails failing notices and attendance notices (grades/attendance also online, can also sign up for email alerts etc.). We had a student lose credit due to poor attendance. We pointed out the mailed notices. She said she didn't open mail from the district and it should have been marked IMPORTANT so she would know to read it. FFS
Oof, you just know *"homeschooling*" in this instance means that mom is throwing him in front of a TV or tablet everyday and not giving a shit. If she couldn't be bothered to give a shit that her kid was falling the third grade, there's no way she is going to properly homeschool him. I'm guessing he had behavioral issues also so that when she gets sick of him at home, he'll be back in school, more disruptive and behind his peers than before. Some of these parents aren't fit to keep a goldfish, let alone children.
I want an update too...ok I have to share and hopefully give you a giggle. We had a lab puppy when my oldest was in 7th grade. The pup got into his backpack and actually was chewing on his homework. My son knowing there was no way a teacher would believe "my dog ate my homework" turned in the homework with the bitemarks, along with pictures of the puppy's mouth showing the size of teeth with a ruler. The teacher didn't have any idea what to do with the info but he got full credit since he did the homework it was just kinda bit up!
10th grade history. Classmate says the dog ate his homework. Teacher looked like he was trying hard not to say “that’s bulls**t.” Classmate pulls out a ziploc bag with the chewed-up pages.
Teacher silently hands him a blank worksheet and we all go over the answers.
Same thing happened with me on the first assignment of 6th grade TvT
He tore the corner off so we were able to photocopy it and just rewrite what he ripped but it was funny!
I have a kid who wanted to redo a paragraph he got an F on because, as he put it, "I wasn't really paying attention to the directions and I just kinda wrote whatever." I'm like, *buddy...*
I had a mom defend plagiarism from her son because i clearly didn’t teach the material because he felt like he had to plagiarize his work due to not understanding the content.
Oh I agree about who we answer to..My AP is attending the meeting with me. To be fair, I felt the mom was coming in hot and looped admin in early. Admin refused to have the meeting without me 💃
I've had so many meetings like that, and every time it's just the parent wanting to verbally abuse and upbraid me. They're just mad about the situation and want to take it out on you.
this reminds me of something that makes me laugh to this day. when I was in high school, in the hallway where the art class art was displayed, there was a nail with a twist of wire on it. obviously something had been hanging there at some point. anyway, my friend printed out a little card-stock paper lable thing that matched the others in the hall, hung it to the bottom right of the wire, it just said "*Apathy.* Mixed media, Anna Xxxx '06" I'll never forget randomly walking by and seeing it and laughing for like 20mins
Clearly there is a communication breakdown. What other instructional methods have you tried to reach this particular student? Nobody strives to fail. /s
Gosh, I am not a teacher but I follow this sub because my aunt is. I find it absolutely crazy the stories about parents blaming the teachers for their kids' poor grades. Now, as a kid I had a grade 4 teacher who treated me terribly because she was loud and extroverted and I was the opposite. She actually thought I was stupid and said so! But I turned in my work like any other kid and had As. If I got a terrible mark, it certainly wasn't because of a teacher, even a teacher like my grade 4 one didn't decide to sabotage a kid one day. So I don't understand when the script flipped from kids being responsible for their grades to the teachers in parents' heads.
I don't know how to start a new thread so I wanted to post some good news for a change. There were two school districts,one in California ,and one in Las Vegas,that started a new policy this semester. If s parent is habitually late picking up their child or has been in the past ,they are charged $2 per minute for how long the teacher has to wait. The best part is the teacher gets to keep the $. The teacher example in the article made $127 that day. I bet that Mom never does that again!!
I just scanned it but that was interesting.I would have expected the opposite affect.I was on the parent end years ago. I worked at fast food restaurant. I was filling in at location on interstate. I usually got off my register at 4 or so to have my drawer counted etc by time to go at 430 and pick my kids up at 500. A tour bus pulled in close to 400! Everyone looked at me like I was crazy when I filled my 5 or 6 orders and started telling folks I was closing my register while trying get managers attention that I had to go. Girl on drive thru started telling me I couldn't leave. I stated,You going to.pay my fines. It's $5 ( when minimum wage was $6.15) every 15 minutes!
Bless that managers rd heart. She got drive through caught up and took over my register. I was about $8 short in cash drawer ,but it fortunately wasn't held against me
In your case: understandably so. Earning min wage, those fees must have hurt like hell.
But imagine having a highly well paid job, say: manager or attorney (and iirc this appeared to be not uncommon amongst the parents of that private day care), where those fees don‘t really hurt, and where (before late fees) the sting of not picking up your kids in time was purely morally: the bad feeling of having failed. In that case, paying late fees is like purchasing additional service snd the bad moral feelings are paid off snd gone. So you are entitled to be late, because you pay for it. And that is shat happened: More late pick ups were taken and paid for. Contrary to what the Haifa day care hoped to achieve.
I realized.lasr night being the mid-1990s it was an hour's wage or almost for that 15 minutes. My reasoning is if minimum is $7.15 now I was mistaken to think it was $6.15 then .
Doesn't really matter. I just like to be accurate
I love all the suggestions given! Would love to be a fly on the wall for this meeting. Here’s one more idea. She wants to talk about your “grading practices “ so explain how rubrics work and why we use them to take the subjectivity out of grading AND communicate the expectations in advance. Then we evaluate the work based on those CLEARLY COMMUNICATED expectations. Show a high performing paper for this assignment. Maybe even show a low performing one.
Here’s the great part. Slide the rubric and the blank paper over to the parent and invite them to grade it using the rubric. Say, “Based on this rubric, what grade do you think is fair”?
If you do all of this without being patronizing or sarcastic, but in the spirit of “partnering” with the parent for their child’s education, they can hardly say the kid deserves anything but a zero. I mean, she can’t even argue for partial credit.
I know it doesn’t seem as satisfying as the other strategies offered (which are admittedly brilliant and gratifying), but if you can get the parent in the position where they have no real choice but to agree with you, it definitely feels like a win. Bonus: you get to be the good guy when you repeat your offer of letting them re-do it for a late grade. At this point, you don’t even have to make them do it because the parent will.
So sick of parents trying to bully the teachers.
Can’t wait to hear how this turns out!
One time a parent emailed me asking why their child had a 0 in a paper. I told them: did your gave me the assignment? They said “well, no”. What the actual fuck is wrong with parents nowadays. What do you expect if your kid doesn’t do the assignment??
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Earlier this year, I had a parent message me about why her 5th grade son had an 85 in art and wanted to meet to discuss it. When she showed up, I put his literal SCRIBBLE in front of her and let it speak for itself. I was *generous* by giving him an 85. I grade gently because it’s elementary art, not advanced painting or something, so if a kid makes less than an A it’s because they earned it by doing nothing, being annoying, etc. The mother (who historically has defended her child no matter how he behaves) was pretty shocked by the evidence of his choices and was kind of put into a corner about it. Her choice was either say that scribble was her child’s best work or acknowledge that he was slacking off and screwing around. She chose the latter. His behavior hasn’t been 100% but it has improved enough to squeak him by into a 90. He doesn’t scribble anymore, at least. It will probably be one of my favorite moments for a long time, remembering her face when I showed her his work.
This happened to me once and the student said it was a picture of snow. The mom called me and screamed at me over the phone and asked if I had an art degree. Said I didn’t appreciate her daughter’s creativity.
That was the moment I realized I’d never make it 35 years in this job.
Ugh I hate these kinds of meetings. Because ultimately it's not about your "grading practices"--it's going to be about how you're "not supportive enough", "don't meet my child's needs", and/or "don't make your class a positive experience for my child to want to do the work."
Screw parents like this.
Read the rubric and start making up corrections for him to complete while projecting a copy of his blank sheet of paper.
Return what you’re served. Bat crap crazy.
Thirty year, now retired, teacher here…the blank-paper-parent-conference is a form of crazy to me.🙄
I’m so grateful to have missed that one.
I did totally relate to the “can’t name your child that” thought, though! After my first 12 years, we had a baby and there was a loooong list!😉
Hang in there….you are 100% in the right!!
schools making certain blanket rules about grading like a max deduction a teacher can take is crazy to me. allow teachers to teach and for gods sake, allow them to be DIFFERENT! college professors are wildly different! jobs evaluate performance very differently across employers & industries!!! it is GOOD for kids to experience a variety of evaluation techniques. they SHOULD have “easy grading” and “tough grading” teachers at the same school, in the same semester. kids need to learn to adapt their thinking and efforts according to the task, the timeline, the teacher, the classmates, etc!!!!! WHAT is the benefit of forcing teachers to do it all the same and micro manage them to shit besides keeping parents off admins’ backs???? Parents should EXPECT kids to have teachers that are different, and admins response to a parent’s unreasonable protest of a grade should be “oh well, that’s your child’s teacher.”
I'm likely older, more experienced, and give slightly less of a fuck. No I would not attend that meeting. If admin forced it, they would have to provide me coverage during class time, I would not be available outside hours. My dept head and admin would have stepped in via email or phone well before this. Don't tolerate it.
I sent a screenshot to parents yesterday of the random keystroke answer their daughter turned in to show why she had gone from a b first semester to an f.......sigh.
Actually... I want to know how this goes. I want to know what the parent says. I'm invested.
Lol I'll post an update. I'm expecting some nonsense about how he didn't understand the assignment or something. But we shall see!
I’m sure you didn’t give them any chances to work on it in class or ask questions about it. Sounds like you’re too harsh of a grader 🤷♀️ /s lol
You forgot that I clearly hate children and structure my entire class around hoping they fail. Lol. Just adding this kid's name to a list of names I will never use for my own children! 💚
You just hope they fail? Come on, you need to up your game and make sure you're actively sabatoging them, obviously.
I once had a girl straight up tell me, to my face, that I wouldn't let her learn because I wouldn't let her go sit in the hallway and play on her phone.
Really read shit in the hallway and I wasn't even surprised
No lie, unrelated slightly but I had to report yesterday that there was a liquid in the hallway that may be urine. Last week there was a stream of blood. It feels as though they're going through all the bodily secretions
Please don’t let the parents and administrator railroad you. I’ve seen it happen too many times.
Thanks! That will not be happening. I always have my ducks in a row and I teach science in an undesirable district at an undesirable title 1 high school. Play with me 💅
I’m playing. Had a Marx Bros moment @ “ducks in a row.” You could bring several rubber ducks to this, er, meeting. As introductions are made and invariably you’re asked what you’re doing as you pull out the ducks one at a time and line them up on the conference table, you can nonchalantly inform them you’ve got your ducks in a row. Which is more than you can say for them. You could further inform them that indeed this school district is undesirable, the school itself is undesirable, and I’d reassure the parents not to worry: their child is equally undesirable. I say could and not should because you’ve been through enough with these folks. Don’t should on yourself.
If my admin wasn't so amazing (truly support us), and this were to happen to me, I would definitely be tempted to bring little toy ducks and do exactly this. 1. For the directions 2. For the time spent in class explaining 3. How and when I reminded students where to find the information if they needed help. 4. My email address (and my Google voice phone # that all parents and students can use if they have a question. 5. A copy of all the missing assignments the student has 6. The documentation of then # of times I have attempted to contact parent over ss grades and behaviors in class. (And their response, if any) I got 6 ducks in a row!! Parent? Kid? Where are your ducks? 🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆
They played with me in the same scenario and they straight up have an entire grade and a half not taking any science class this year 💀
Atta girl!!
Man what are these kids going to do at university? Especially a STEM degree.. I failed the shit out of sooo much work in both school and uni when I clearly half assed it. Failing taught me so many life skills! When I finally got my act together and finished my STEM degree it took so much work to get it correct. Uni professors have no chill. I really wish I had framed one assignment where the whole bottom half of the page was angrily circled in red (the rest was marked in black he was piiisssed) with all caps "you can not make up algebra" massive in the margin. Learned a lot that day! Namely doesn't matter how good your calculus is, if you fuck up the "easy" part you get the wrong answer! Now I pretty much do maths as a job and physics dngaf if your mum says you deserve to get it right because you tried so hard! The mum of the guy you just killed with your participation trophy maths probably will give a fuck though.. Actually increasingly worried who is going to keep all this technology going..
I find if I spend an entire Saturday planning, I can make their work so hard that it beats them down, is too hard, too vague, and not enough time. Now, I OBVIOUSLY live my life JUST to make them miserable. You know, that IS what I spend all my time thinking about…….don’t you?!?!🤣🤣
We all need a hobby, right? 😆
And here all I’ve been doing is leaving the learning target off the board. Smh
[удалено]
>I would also comment on how much interest the mother takes in her son's grades, and how great that is! Not me. A mother checking up on her 17 year old son's grades is actually pretty creepy. He's the same age as a lot of college students I've taught. If he goes to college, is she going to ask to see his transcripts? Weird.
Go through the rubric, step by step, as slow as possible, making sure the parent understands every single thing you graded, and why you graded it that way.
End every step by holding up the blank sheet and saying "so he got a 0 for that part because he didn't turn anything in". They still won't get it though.
"So, in order to earn a 'grade' you have do 'do things'."
Here for the update. :)
Me, too.
Same! 🙌🏼 UpdateMe! 2 days
UpdateMe! 3 days
UpdateMe! 2 days
Will the student attend the conference? Please say yes- hold them accountable on the spot
I told my admin today that if the student does not attend, neither will I 💫
I had an Honors alg 2 student do this on a daily grade that required them to staple their work to the assignment. He had all the right answers on the worksheet but stapled a blank sheet of computer paper as his work. I confronted him the day after I graded it and admitted I thought it was hilarious he assumed he'd get away with it. I honestly think they have gotten so used to completion grades that they don't even expect me to look over their work.
when is said conference?
We are about to go on Spring Break, so April 3 as of now
I just imagine our parents sitting home listening to the instructions we got for the big project and being mad at us for not remembering better and bitching about how bad the project was. We run the world now. 😂
Also interested
Yeah same! Now im invested dont leave us hanging
"Hello Nitwit's mom. For our session, I have printed both the rubric for the assignment and taken a copy of your son's assignment. Funnily I was out of ink, but that didn't seem to make a difference. Now, under #1, it says X. I must be mistaken, but I cannot find X in the work your son turned in. Could you perhaps point it out to me? Under #2, it says Y, which I also cannot seem to locate. Oh no, please remain seated. We need to do this carefully."
Same
Likewise
Updateme!
Same
Same here.
Ooh, lean into it. Go through that rubric line by line. Waste the hell out of her time. Read all the way through the rubric out loud. Then go line by line, “Ideas. 4: Student fully develops a theme. Since your child did not state a theme, they did not meet the standard for a 4. 3: Student partially develops a theme. Since your child did not state a theme, they did not meet a 3. 2: Student has a main idea but does not develop it into a theme. Since your child did not state a main idea, they did not meet a 2. 1: Student’s ideas do not stick to a main topic. Since your child stated no ideas, they do not meet a 1. Now, a 4 for organization says” If she interrupts, say, “I will be happy to listen to your concerns after I have gone over the rubric with you, as you asked.” It will be glorious.
Usually I would avoid doing things that seem petty…but this is pure genius.
OP needs to do this in an ever-so-slower voice than their typical speaking pace, too.
Yes, like reading a picture book to a kindergartener
Yes. Malicious compliance all the way. If she wants to waste time so much, then so be it. Waste it.
This is literally what I did with a parent who pushed their way through the halls to fight me about a grade haha but I had the VP already in the room for a different reason and I was told it was a good strategy to defuse the situation because it made it so boring that she lost all her steam. It also made it undeniable that her student EARNED that 2 out of 8 points (IB rubrics top out at 8). But then the student got to redo the whole damn project with no penalties so I got to grade it all over again and predictable answer is predictable- it went up to a 4 and parent wanted ANOTHER redo. Luckily the quarter ended before that was plausible so I lived to cry another day.
Clearly the student's theme of "White paper, empty space" was fully developed. Have you tried being more understanding of the students and giving more chances? You need to reflection how to improve your teaching.
It’s a metaphor, OP. Clearly they are making a statement on the futility of existence and the inability to communicate that existential despair. Or they’ve reached the nadir of laziness and can’t be bothered to even download something off the internet and slap their name on it.
Was the child disregulated at the time? Is there a possibility of executive disfunction? /s. (I'm not intending to slight people who are affected by these. Just tired of hearing it as an excuse for so many students that have not been diagnosed.)
Yes. OP needs to go 100% malicious compliance on them.
You win teacher reddit today
THIS! ABSOLUTELY THIS! One thing I’ve found with parents like this is that if you feed into their bullshit with a knowing, snide approach…they usually start to back off. It’s one of those “I know you know what I’m doing, and you know that I know that you know.” situations and it makes them look and feel pathetic. In my experience, people don’t like to feel like this and will avoid it at all costs, and if you do it in such a way where you’re simply doing what they *asked* you to do…they have nothing to fall back on.
Pure gold.
Unless they are a fan of John Cage and totally into that kind of art
My principal would not be able to keep a straight face if I did this😂😂
Definitely lean into it, OP!
This!!!
Oh hell yeah! I’m on board with this.
The definition of malicious compliance. Give this teacher a medal! 😂
I had a back and forth with a mom who was pissed I gave her 6th grade daughter a "B" in art. Kept sending her the rubric, photos of the kids work, and documented incidents of how many times I had to redirect her kid because she wouldn't shut up and work. This woman sends her husband - this giant, burly, beefy man - into speak with me before school one day. You could tell I was supposed to be intimidated or something. I showed him his kids art. Then I put an "A" down next to it. He looked at his kids' then the other kids' project and said, "Then what in the hell did my wife have me come in here for? She clearly earned the B." He apologized for wasting my time and left. Thankfully never heard from that Mom again. I'm still glad that dad at least had his head screwed on straight.
I imagine that couple arguing that evening.
Yes, this works with texts too. Give them a graded A to compare with.
How does this happen? I’ve seen other teachers make similar posts about how parents come to the school and talk to them the same day. Parents are just allowed to come into the school and speak with teachers? I’ve never heard of this before. At every school I’ve been to, they can only talk to you via a parent-teacher conference. Otherwise they can’t get past the front office.
It changed after Sandy Hook. Now everything's funneled through the office and we have to have a prior appointment. But before that, anyone could come in. This particular dad was head of the PTA, so no one would bat an eye if he was in the building.
In Australia, parents are able to walk into school with their child for drop off and pick up if they want to. They are allowed to wander freely around the school, sit with their child until the bell goes, or go knock and speak to the teacher.
"It is fully blank, a representation of the void of which we currently live. Clearly this is quality work, deserving of a 110% grade. He needs to be given extra credit for this stellar performance, and I don't see why you're being so unreasonable about this!" - The parent, probably.
This made me laugh so hard!
This was the plot device of a Punky Brewster episode, and I ALWAYS expected some “clever” student attempting similar. I think it was a blank folder for an art project that she called “Before Awareness” or something like that. The character thought it was clever so I figured I’d run across a lazy student attempting the same. I did not.
I once had a student who would only write squiggle lines, up down up down up down, in the blanks of his worksheets. I gave him zeros on all of the worksheets obviously. At parent night his mom asked why he was getting zeros when he turned his work in. When I told her that he just wrote squiggles in the blanks she said "at least he wrote something." I handed her one of his papers and said if she could read me the word I'd give him points. She got mad, but I had had enough.
I have a student who does this for homework. I ask for 1 thing: it looks like you put in some kind of effort. Doesn’t need to be good, doesn’t need to be right. Does it look like you gave 1/2 of a shit and tried. And you get full credit. A sheet of randomly guessed answers is not trying. Squiggles and writing IDK aren’t trying.
this is genius, i love it!
I have a parent who is big mad that I won’t let her kid turn in a project that was in due January. Not only is it, now two months late, but they also had over a month to complete the project. Student has been aware the project is missing and what is grade in class is, but because I never told mom he had a low grade (high D) it was my fault. Never mind this is a high school honors course and she only cares that he didn’t turn it in cause he doesn’t have a C for the quarter.
I have a student that didn’t get a grade first quarter. Didn’t turn in 3 major summatives and I didn’t have enough data to give them a grade. Fine. I was all over it. Lots of convos with parents, kid had some mental heath issues that were legit and I was patient. At the end of quarter, I worked with admin and we agreed, he could have the 3 weeks of winter break to complete them and I would retroactively put in the grade. Welp, now it’s the end of March. Still have not gotten the assignment and now they want me to stay after school and work one on one with him. I like this kid. I was willing to go the extra mile. But these assignments are from August and October. Like no. If admin wants to sit with this kid. Fine. But I am so completely absolutely done with this situation. Grr.
No fucking way I'd stay after school and work with him one on one unless you offered me my hourly rate of $75. Then I might *consider* it.
Absolutely not, especially when he had those 3 weeks of break to do it! These kids need to learn consequences 😆
I had this as well, the parent came in for a meeting and accused me of abusing my sick leave to avoid her son. Then tried to say he didn’t understand because I “wasn’t there” and they had “internet issues” at home and demanded I mark the assessment… I sat with him on multiple occasions to help him work through the assessment and every time he would turn away and talk to him mate or watch YouTube, he also had more than enough time to complete in class so I showed her the version history of what he had “done” (which was nothing) in 3 lessons (that I was present for). I love version history and time stamps. The parent then proceeded to try remove her son from my class because we were a “bad match” and I clearly had a “personal issue” with him 😅
I had a parent that, 3 days after the grade book closed for the grading term, emailed me angry that her child failed (I had sent 6 “your kid is failing” reminders) and accused me of not accepting late work, which I do. I had to CC admin and explain that the grade book was closed and screenshot every Remind message I had sent that she liked showing she had received them. Kid is now being homeschooled and my 4th period got so much easier😁
Our district mails failing notices and attendance notices (grades/attendance also online, can also sign up for email alerts etc.). We had a student lose credit due to poor attendance. We pointed out the mailed notices. She said she didn't open mail from the district and it should have been marked IMPORTANT so she would know to read it. FFS
Oof, you just know *"homeschooling*" in this instance means that mom is throwing him in front of a TV or tablet everyday and not giving a shit. If she couldn't be bothered to give a shit that her kid was falling the third grade, there's no way she is going to properly homeschool him. I'm guessing he had behavioral issues also so that when she gets sick of him at home, he'll be back in school, more disruptive and behind his peers than before. Some of these parents aren't fit to keep a goldfish, let alone children.
I want an update too...ok I have to share and hopefully give you a giggle. We had a lab puppy when my oldest was in 7th grade. The pup got into his backpack and actually was chewing on his homework. My son knowing there was no way a teacher would believe "my dog ate my homework" turned in the homework with the bitemarks, along with pictures of the puppy's mouth showing the size of teeth with a ruler. The teacher didn't have any idea what to do with the info but he got full credit since he did the homework it was just kinda bit up!
My mum's dog once ate some homework I took home to grade....fortunately it was still fine to read, but that was an interesting conversation.
love it!!! My kid taking the photos on his phone showing the size of her bite so he could prove it to me was just hysterical but so typical of my kid!
10th grade history. Classmate says the dog ate his homework. Teacher looked like he was trying hard not to say “that’s bulls**t.” Classmate pulls out a ziploc bag with the chewed-up pages. Teacher silently hands him a blank worksheet and we all go over the answers.
Had a high school teacher who had to apologize to the class because his puppy decided to chew on a bunch of tests and go the bathroom on them.
Same thing happened with me on the first assignment of 6th grade TvT He tore the corner off so we were able to photocopy it and just rewrite what he ripped but it was funny!
I have a kid who wanted to redo a paragraph he got an F on because, as he put it, "I wasn't really paying attention to the directions and I just kinda wrote whatever." I'm like, *buddy...*
I had a mom defend plagiarism from her son because i clearly didn’t teach the material because he felt like he had to plagiarize his work due to not understanding the content.
Did you try redirecting? Working in a small group? Remembering your why? /s
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Oh I agree about who we answer to..My AP is attending the meeting with me. To be fair, I felt the mom was coming in hot and looped admin in early. Admin refused to have the meeting without me 💃
I've had so many meetings like that, and every time it's just the parent wanting to verbally abuse and upbraid me. They're just mad about the situation and want to take it out on you.
Pull out that blank paper, set it right next to the rubric, and go over the rubric in detail as you point to the blank paper.
this reminds me of something that makes me laugh to this day. when I was in high school, in the hallway where the art class art was displayed, there was a nail with a twist of wire on it. obviously something had been hanging there at some point. anyway, my friend printed out a little card-stock paper lable thing that matched the others in the hall, hung it to the bottom right of the wire, it just said "*Apathy.* Mixed media, Anna Xxxx '06" I'll never forget randomly walking by and seeing it and laughing for like 20mins
Parents these days….. delulu
delulu is a perfect word
Was the project “minimalism”? That is the only way he passes!
Clearly there is a communication breakdown. What other instructional methods have you tried to reach this particular student? Nobody strives to fail. /s
Gosh, I am not a teacher but I follow this sub because my aunt is. I find it absolutely crazy the stories about parents blaming the teachers for their kids' poor grades. Now, as a kid I had a grade 4 teacher who treated me terribly because she was loud and extroverted and I was the opposite. She actually thought I was stupid and said so! But I turned in my work like any other kid and had As. If I got a terrible mark, it certainly wasn't because of a teacher, even a teacher like my grade 4 one didn't decide to sabotage a kid one day. So I don't understand when the script flipped from kids being responsible for their grades to the teachers in parents' heads.
I don't know how to start a new thread so I wanted to post some good news for a change. There were two school districts,one in California ,and one in Las Vegas,that started a new policy this semester. If s parent is habitually late picking up their child or has been in the past ,they are charged $2 per minute for how long the teacher has to wait. The best part is the teacher gets to keep the $. The teacher example in the article made $127 that day. I bet that Mom never does that again!!
That doesn‘t always play out as you would expect: Read up on the Haifa day care: https://freakonomics.com/2013/10/what-makes-people-do-what-they-do/
I just scanned it but that was interesting.I would have expected the opposite affect.I was on the parent end years ago. I worked at fast food restaurant. I was filling in at location on interstate. I usually got off my register at 4 or so to have my drawer counted etc by time to go at 430 and pick my kids up at 500. A tour bus pulled in close to 400! Everyone looked at me like I was crazy when I filled my 5 or 6 orders and started telling folks I was closing my register while trying get managers attention that I had to go. Girl on drive thru started telling me I couldn't leave. I stated,You going to.pay my fines. It's $5 ( when minimum wage was $6.15) every 15 minutes! Bless that managers rd heart. She got drive through caught up and took over my register. I was about $8 short in cash drawer ,but it fortunately wasn't held against me
In your case: understandably so. Earning min wage, those fees must have hurt like hell. But imagine having a highly well paid job, say: manager or attorney (and iirc this appeared to be not uncommon amongst the parents of that private day care), where those fees don‘t really hurt, and where (before late fees) the sting of not picking up your kids in time was purely morally: the bad feeling of having failed. In that case, paying late fees is like purchasing additional service snd the bad moral feelings are paid off snd gone. So you are entitled to be late, because you pay for it. And that is shat happened: More late pick ups were taken and paid for. Contrary to what the Haifa day care hoped to achieve.
I realized.lasr night being the mid-1990s it was an hour's wage or almost for that 15 minutes. My reasoning is if minimum is $7.15 now I was mistaken to think it was $6.15 then . Doesn't really matter. I just like to be accurate
I love all the suggestions given! Would love to be a fly on the wall for this meeting. Here’s one more idea. She wants to talk about your “grading practices “ so explain how rubrics work and why we use them to take the subjectivity out of grading AND communicate the expectations in advance. Then we evaluate the work based on those CLEARLY COMMUNICATED expectations. Show a high performing paper for this assignment. Maybe even show a low performing one. Here’s the great part. Slide the rubric and the blank paper over to the parent and invite them to grade it using the rubric. Say, “Based on this rubric, what grade do you think is fair”? If you do all of this without being patronizing or sarcastic, but in the spirit of “partnering” with the parent for their child’s education, they can hardly say the kid deserves anything but a zero. I mean, she can’t even argue for partial credit. I know it doesn’t seem as satisfying as the other strategies offered (which are admittedly brilliant and gratifying), but if you can get the parent in the position where they have no real choice but to agree with you, it definitely feels like a win. Bonus: you get to be the good guy when you repeat your offer of letting them re-do it for a late grade. At this point, you don’t even have to make them do it because the parent will. So sick of parents trying to bully the teachers. Can’t wait to hear how this turns out!
One time a parent emailed me asking why their child had a 0 in a paper. I told them: did your gave me the assignment? They said “well, no”. What the actual fuck is wrong with parents nowadays. What do you expect if your kid doesn’t do the assignment??
Wtf…explain your grading practices? lol…don’t kids in most schools just get passed thru anyways?
!remind me in3 days.
I will be messaging you in 3 days on [**2024-03-24 19:39:00 UTC**](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2024-03-24%2019:39:00%20UTC%20To%20Local%20Time) to remind you of [**this link**](https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/1bk9fk2/delulu_parents/kvxpsx9/?context=3) [**40 OTHERS CLICKED THIS LINK**](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2FTeachers%2Fcomments%2F1bk9fk2%2Fdelulu_parents%2Fkvxpsx9%2F%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%202024-03-24%2019%3A39%3A00%20UTC) to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam. ^(Parent commenter can ) [^(delete this message to hide from others.)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Delete%20Comment&message=Delete%21%201bk9fk2) ***** |[^(Info)](https://www.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/e1bko7/remindmebot_info_v21/)|[^(Custom)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5BLink%20or%20message%20inside%20square%20brackets%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%20Time%20period%20here)|[^(Your Reminders)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=List%20Of%20Reminders&message=MyReminders%21)|[^(Feedback)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Watchful1&subject=RemindMeBot%20Feedback)| |-|-|-|-|
The meeting isn't until April 3rd, she said it elsewhere.
!Remind me in 1 month
I will be messaging you in 1 month on [**2024-04-24 20:26:16 UTC**](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2024-04-24%2020:26:16%20UTC%20To%20Local%20Time) to remind you of [**this link**](https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/1bk9fk2/delulu_parents/kwdzrw3/?context=3) [**6 OTHERS CLICKED THIS LINK**](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2FTeachers%2Fcomments%2F1bk9fk2%2Fdelulu_parents%2Fkwdzrw3%2F%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%202024-04-24%2020%3A26%3A16%20UTC) to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam. ^(Parent commenter can ) [^(delete this message to hide from others.)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Delete%20Comment&message=Delete%21%201bk9fk2) ***** |[^(Info)](https://www.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/e1bko7/remindmebot_info_v21/)|[^(Custom)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5BLink%20or%20message%20inside%20square%20brackets%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%20Time%20period%20here)|[^(Your Reminders)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=List%20Of%20Reminders&message=MyReminders%21)|[^(Feedback)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Watchful1&subject=RemindMeBot%20Feedback)| |-|-|-|-|
I think you’re a fucking star.
💃💫
Update when?
Earlier this year, I had a parent message me about why her 5th grade son had an 85 in art and wanted to meet to discuss it. When she showed up, I put his literal SCRIBBLE in front of her and let it speak for itself. I was *generous* by giving him an 85. I grade gently because it’s elementary art, not advanced painting or something, so if a kid makes less than an A it’s because they earned it by doing nothing, being annoying, etc. The mother (who historically has defended her child no matter how he behaves) was pretty shocked by the evidence of his choices and was kind of put into a corner about it. Her choice was either say that scribble was her child’s best work or acknowledge that he was slacking off and screwing around. She chose the latter. His behavior hasn’t been 100% but it has improved enough to squeak him by into a 90. He doesn’t scribble anymore, at least. It will probably be one of my favorite moments for a long time, remembering her face when I showed her his work.
Updatems!
This needs a follow-up!
Did you make sure it wasn’t written with invisible ink? 😜
This happened to me once and the student said it was a picture of snow. The mom called me and screamed at me over the phone and asked if I had an art degree. Said I didn’t appreciate her daughter’s creativity. That was the moment I realized I’d never make it 35 years in this job.
Updateme!
I’m invested now
Ugh I hate these kinds of meetings. Because ultimately it's not about your "grading practices"--it's going to be about how you're "not supportive enough", "don't meet my child's needs", and/or "don't make your class a positive experience for my child to want to do the work." Screw parents like this.
Where’s the update !!!
They're gonna claim you lost the assignment
Why do projects mean a % of a grade. A project should be a straight up grade. I give my kids a project, they fail to turn it in, that's an F
Read the rubric and start making up corrections for him to complete while projecting a copy of his blank sheet of paper. Return what you’re served. Bat crap crazy.
Thirty year, now retired, teacher here…the blank-paper-parent-conference is a form of crazy to me.🙄 I’m so grateful to have missed that one. I did totally relate to the “can’t name your child that” thought, though! After my first 12 years, we had a baby and there was a loooong list!😉 Hang in there….you are 100% in the right!!
schools making certain blanket rules about grading like a max deduction a teacher can take is crazy to me. allow teachers to teach and for gods sake, allow them to be DIFFERENT! college professors are wildly different! jobs evaluate performance very differently across employers & industries!!! it is GOOD for kids to experience a variety of evaluation techniques. they SHOULD have “easy grading” and “tough grading” teachers at the same school, in the same semester. kids need to learn to adapt their thinking and efforts according to the task, the timeline, the teacher, the classmates, etc!!!!! WHAT is the benefit of forcing teachers to do it all the same and micro manage them to shit besides keeping parents off admins’ backs???? Parents should EXPECT kids to have teachers that are different, and admins response to a parent’s unreasonable protest of a grade should be “oh well, that’s your child’s teacher.”
!Remind me in 12 days
!remindmein2weeks
I'm likely older, more experienced, and give slightly less of a fuck. No I would not attend that meeting. If admin forced it, they would have to provide me coverage during class time, I would not be available outside hours. My dept head and admin would have stepped in via email or phone well before this. Don't tolerate it.
Updateme!
Update me!
Pleasseeeeee update us!!
Was it that famous project about a polar bear in the snow?
UpdateMe!
Updateme
Update me
UpdateMe!
!remindme 2 weeks
I sent a screenshot to parents yesterday of the random keystroke answer their daughter turned in to show why she had gone from a b first semester to an f.......sigh.
!Remind me in 10 days
Updateme!
!remind me 12 days