Teacher, at your service
By Angela Watson
Some parent requests are SO above and beyond the call of duty. Here’s a (partial) list of outlandish things I’ve been asked to do over the years. Let me know which ones YOU would honor and which you wouldn’t by adding a comment to this post (just number from 1-5 and put yes or no for each). After the weekend, I’ll share which requests I allowed and which ones got the hand.
Scenario 1:
Parent calls me. “Can you not mark my child tardy anymore? We live out of boundaries and I always get stuck in traffic on the way here. That’s why she’s twenty to thirty minutes late everyday. If we have any more tardies, they’re going to make me switch back to our home school.”
Scenario 2:
Child raises hand. “My mom wants you to call her. She wants to know what’s for lunch today.”
Scenario 3:
Child approaches me. “Can I pass out birthday party invitations? Except I didn’t have enough invitations for everyone in the class, so I made my own.” Pulls out piece of loose-leaf paper with party details on it. “My dad says can you make photocopies for everyone in class?”
Scenario 4:
Parent sends in note. “Our family leave tomorrow October 4 to go to Mexico. She come back January 19. Please you can send work she will miss.”
Scenario 5:
This happened when I taught HeadStart, and the student in question was three and a half years old. “My child doesn’t know how to wipe himself. I need you to take care of that, especially when she goes #2.”
I’m looking forward to reading your responses, and hearing your own outrageous parent demands.
And by the way, I did say yes to two of those requests. Can you guess which ones?
Angela Watson
Founder and Writer
Discussion
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J,your answer to #5 is a good one!
TJ, thanks SO much for sharing those stories. Preschool teachers get the brunt of unreasonable requests (although it’s been 7 years since I’ve done it, and I think I’ve put up a mental block because I don’t remember most of the horror stories!).
I do remember being cussed out in front of the class by two different parents for two different reasons: a kid got sand in his hair on the playground (“Don’t you know how long it takes to wash that out!!”) and when I wouldn’t open a child’s milk for her and instead insisted she follow the 3 Before Me Rule (ask 3 friends to help you, then ask me). Really, the kid was sitting at a table with 5 other kids who COULD open milk (after my three thousand mini lessons on how to do so), yet I was a negligent teacher for not doing it myself. Sheesh.
Okay, enough ranting, this is why I blocked out most of my HeadStart parent experiences!
Kiri8, you’re right about one of those guesses!
SLH, I agree that having advance notice about #4 would definitely have changed the situation.
Anon, I love the idea of sending lessons for the parent, too. Hah!
1. No, not my problem.
2. No
3. Yes, depending on the kid, I pick my battles.
4. Yes, I do what I can. If I don’t, it only hurts the kid. But I won’t bend over backwards and I will remind parents that those are unexcused absences.
5. No, I don’t go there. That’s why I DON’T teach preschool.
my answers:
1.no
2. No
3. I’d ask my coordinator if I’m allowed to to that.
4. yes, I’ve done it before.
5. n o !
I already read to which ones you said yes
🙂
1 No
2 No
3 Yes
4 No
5 No
I have no patience for parents that think we have nothing better to do. For the birthday party one- I would appreciate that the child wants to invite all the kids. One request I can remember is a parent asked if I could write down her child’s homework since he was having trouble doing it. This was Third Grade! I definitely said no to that one.
YES! I had a parent interrupt a lesson to complain about the number of tardies on her child’s report card. I showed her the little plastic basket where students leave their tardy slips when they come in late and invited her to go through them and count her daughter’s. There were over 300 slips in the basket. She declined and went to complain to the secretaries in the office.