Reply #24: Sadly, it's not uncommon [View All]

[alwynsw]

Not uncommon, but not all the time, either in any given school.

Short story:

Before my wife's retirement, sometime in 200/01 school year as I recall, I stopped by the school to pick her up at the end of the school day. I arrived about 15 minutes before the end of the day. Because the folks in the office knew me, I was allowed to go to her classroom where she introduces me to the class as Mr. X and sits me behind her desk. Important point: she kept her maiden name of Y. The kids did not know me from Adam. I'm just a guy in a suit visiting the classroom.

A kid got up and walked to the front of the room while my wife was illustrating a point on the board. He demanded to go to the bathroom. My wife said that class would be over in 3-4 minutes and that he should wait if he could. He stood there and flipped her off! (I later learned that he was a problem. he was in the district alternative school within 2 weeks for violent and abusive behavior.)

All this occurred with a stranger in the classroom. Several of the kids thought I was an auditor or assistant supt. from the school board.

Granted, this kid had problems anyway, but my wife comfirmed that it happend to virtually all of the teachers in her school at one time or another.

BTW, my wife is far from disliking kids. To this day, we're still finding things around the house that she bought with her own money for class recreation and education. before the liability issues got so bad, we used to have entire classes to our place (in the country) to swim, play volleyball, cookouts, camp outs, etc.

Oh yeah. She taught in a rural school. No inner city or urban kids in the classes.