Word: teacher
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...Children who say they're bored are guaranteed a great response from their parents," says Year 1 teacher Anne. Convinced the boredom is a sign of the child's cleverness (rather than inattentiveness), they can't wait to pass on the news to the teacher. "I might reply, 'That's interesting,'" says Anne. "'because he talks all the time, can't follow instructions and hasn't completed a single task.'" Other parents consult child psychologists, speech and music therapists and sundry other specialists, desperate to unlock their child's potential. "Sorry," says Anne, "no therapist can fix an average...
...kids get into a selective high school." Recently, Beverly Hills surveyed its 420 pupils and found that less than a quarter played sport outside of school. "I get really concerned about the number of our kids who don't have lives," Sutton says. Adds assistant principal and Year 4 teacher Matt Ackerman: "Where I grew up (not far from Beverly Hills), Saturday was sport day. Here, Saturday is tutoring...
...Everywhere, teachers fume about parents who think their child can do no wrong. Faced with overwhelming evidence of bad behavior over many years at several schools, some parents won't budge, screaming victimization instead. In his days as a principal, it would reach the point, says P.P.A. president Pryor, where he'd say to a parent: "Do you really believe that this teacher, when he's showering in the morning, thinks to himself, 'Today I'm going to make life as tough as possible for your child?'" A high-school teacher in Wollongong chided a boy who'd been ducking...
...Discipline is becoming ever trickier for teachers. In the aftermath to trouble, some high-schoolers use their mobile phones to spin a version to their parents before the school does. Many find it easy to paint themselves as innocents, and the next thing the teacher knows, the student's handing over a phone with the words, "My dad wants to talk to you." When an incident warrants suspension, says St. Margaret's Waters, "it's often at this point that parents have difficulty supporting the school's decision. That's fairly sad, because when they opt to support their daughter...
...term, that their child's a troublemaker can push a small percentage of parents over the edge. The informed estimate is that there are as many as 2,000 cases a year in Australia of parents punching, pushing, threatening or verbally abusing school staff. Violence can haunt teachers even when they're not physically harmed. "After the bell one afternoon," recalls an infants teacher formerly based in inner-city Sydney, "a dad asked me how his son was going. I said he was a little restless, but it was near the end of term and all the kids were...