Teacher Responds
Dear Doctor,
I am a teacher, writing in response to your July 29 Lawrence Eagle-Tribune column about a "funny" child who gets into a lot of mischief.
This child’s mother wrote you, concerned that her child needed a teacher with a sense of humor. You suggested that the mother go in to talk to the principal over the summer, to find a good match for her sun. I’m sure I’m not the only teacher who had a visceral reaction upon reading the headline. In response to the words "Child needs teacher with a sense of humor," I immediately thought, "child needs to learn how to behave in a classroom setting."
I teach eighth grade. Some of my students think I’m funny. Some think I’m mean. Most don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other. However, when it comes right down to it, I’m trying to teach them — not entertain them or be entertained by them. Imagine having 25 14-year-olds in front of you, while you try to conduct a lesson about density — a dry topic, to say the least. Now, imagine that one of the 14-year-olds is being "funny" in the back of the classroom. Guess who is going to get more attention from the other students — the teacher lecturing about "boring" facts, or the class clown who’s making jokes? Imagine how frustrating it is to be the teacher in this situation — given the job of instructing students, while being prevented from doing so by one of the students himself.
One of the biggest problems we teachers run into is parents who defend their children’s behavior, no matter how bizarre or inappropriate it is. All too frequently, poorly behaved students are given a pass by parents, who find it easier to blame teachers and schools for their children’s misbehavior than to actually work on correcting the misbehavior themselves. If Johnny is being disciplined by a teacher, it must be because the teacher doesn’t "understand" Johnny, or doesn’t "like" Johnny. It couldn’t possibly be because Johnny is behaving inappropriately! I understand that in your answer, you were being sympathetic to a particular type of youngster.
However, I feel that you failed to present the teacher’s perspective: that kids need to learn how to behave in a classroom setting in order for the classroom to function at the most basic level. I hope, in the future, you’ll consider all points of view when giving answers to questions such as these.
Teacher
Dear Teacher,
Maybe I am dense (no pun), but isn’t there a difference between a class clown in full disruptive form and a youngster who likes a sense of irony, levity, and laughter?
Maybe I am also not listening correctly, but it seems to me these parents were sufficiently concerned to write a letter and follow up on what they viewed as a problem. In fact, my experience is that parents, on the whole, are interested. They do care. somewhere between MCAS and common sense they find it difficult to be heard. You see parents as defending bad behavior. We simply do not agree.
Tags: class clown, classroom behavior, teacher
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