Sigmund Freud was a comedian...

[jchl]

This week I was entertained by Freud’s concept that all of our decisions are pre-consciously determined. As a person who was once at the complete mercy of my id, I can attest, that for the most part the concepts of *control* and especially *choice* are largely manufactured by our culture. The choice between Pepsi and Coke creates the illusion of

Comments

Re: teachers and Freud

[jchl]

Our boy goes to all of the 2nd grade teachers in the afternoon and spends the mornings with his homeroom teacher. We got a letter from his homeroom warning us of problems in school and most of the areas checked off were behavior issues. Our son has never had any problems with cooperation or following directions before, so we were very concerned and asked for a conference with all of his teachers and the Principal.

None of the teachers reported any sort of behavior problem except his homeroom teacher, who did not say one positive thing about him and was making fun of his writing in front of the other teachers and the principal, and not in a nice way. The other teachers assessed his writing sample and all said it was great. Whenever she talked about him she looked angry and disgusted and the other teachers and the principal looked openly confused by her behavior and her assessment of him. Very strange...He has tons of support at home so it is not as damaging as it could be, but I worry about other children whose parents might just take the word of a teacher that something was *wrong* with their child and that child may get a distorted reflection of themselves.

I really wish it was miscommunication...That would be easy :-)

Re: teachers and Freud

[mdulay]

Sorry to hear that your son has to have her for his mornings. Perhaps your son is gifted and she cannot keep up with his interests. (*smile*) Or maybe it is a generational divide, and his teacher likes rigid class structure. Or...

There are so many possibilities. If there is anything I can do to help, let me know.

Mike

Re: teachers and Freud

[silverapache]

my mom had a similar problem like this with me when I was in kindergarten. In a conference my teacher told my mom that I was disruptive and had behavior issues. As my mother soon found out, there really was no problem except that the work was not challenging enough and I was bored in class so I would talk to my friends. I have found out that a lot of elementary school behavior problems are among the smarter children who finish their work quickly then become bored. Good luck with your son.

Re: teachers and Freud

[jchl]

Yeah, (of course! ;-) the gifted thing is a possibility...lol! but his classroom is full of remarkably gifted children and he's the only one having 'problems'.He is in a unique position this year because of space issues at the school. He used to be in the dual-language program, but the program got badly mangled. In the afternoon, they were teaching Science and Social studies in Spanish to 1st and 2nd graders without any Spanish Language Arts instruction. He loves Science and Social Studies and without support in the language, and a less than challenging science curriculum, he was beginning to really "hate" school. We asked to have him pulled at the beginning of the year. There was no room for him anywhere else so the solution was to have him mix with the other second grade classrooms in the afternoons.

By the end of our conference, his morning teacher admitted that she wasn't really having behavior problems w/ him and I told her that she needed a more neutral concept of him because her characterization of him was unfair. I know she's human and we all like some people more than others, but you have to at least attempt to keep bias out of the grading process. The thing that's strange about it is that our boy is very well liked by everybody at school, kids and grownups alike. I'm his mother so obviously I'm biased :-), but I'm at his school a lot and I observe him with his peers and he's a really nice kid even when he doesn't know that grown-ups are watching. His previous assessments have always commented on his advanced level of ethics and fair-play.
I don't care about his grades, he's eight years-old...But, I DO care about the fact that he sees his grades and he will notice that he's dropped from 3's and 4's to 1's and 2's in behavior. She checked off more than half of the behavior options and his other teachers protested, so he will be graded by the group.

The fact is that he's adjusted VERY well to a situation that could have been very tough for him and has 'cooperated' just fine. she checked him off for 'works with a group' but he adjusts to 4 different groups very easily. She checked him off for 'takes responsibility' but he gets himself to his different classrooms and deals with a middle school level schedule.

I really didn't think it was a personal issue until I saw the way her face changed when she said his name or talked about him. Now the principal and his other teachers are keeping an eye on the situation, but as I've said, I'm more concerned about other children in his class that may not have the support at home.

jchl