An open letter to the parents of my students

Dear Parents,


I am writing to you about a confusion of our duties. You seem to be under the impression that my job as an educator is to give your child self-esteem. It is, in fact, your job to do that. My job is to teach your child, along with about 40 others, English. While through the course of this endeavor he or she gains confidence, wonderful. However, by placing your child in a class which is far below their level and age group, no matter how brilliant an idea it may seem at the time, you are doing far more damage than good. First of all, they are not learning anything new. Your child will only be repeating material he or she already knows, which of course will make him or her feel as if they are advanced. However, what are you going to do when I start teaching more complicated vocabulary, grammar structures etc? Are you going to move them to my kinde class? Have I not offered to make special arrangements with you? Private tutoring? Extra help? Anything to keep your student on level. I love my job and I am very dedicated to his or her success. Please be the same.

However, the repetition of material  is not the only problem with putting your child in a class far below level. With this new found "confidence", your student is blurting out all of the answers and not allowing the children who are being exposed to this material the chance to wrestle with it and learn it themselves. Also, since this material is review, your child doesn't need to pay attention and talks through my instruction, completes tasks I didn't ask them to do, and generally interferes with my class, making it difficult for the other students to learn anything.

Lastly, by allowing your child to be in a class full of children far younger than they are, it does not encourage proper social maturity. It is perfectly acceptable for a six year old to hug me, sit on my lap during lessons or hold my hand while walking to class. It is not however acceptable for an eleven year old to do this. This sort of retardation of appropriate social interaction can have serious long term effects and will really fuck him or her up in high school. 

So if you really want to help your child, don't encourage them to be less than they can be. If they require outside help, like tutoring etc, get it for them, especially if the teacher offers it. In the long run it will be better for their confidence. Trust me.


Sincerely,

Gillian Bradford.