I am not perfect. I am not perfect in anything that I do and have never and will never claim to be! I have so much to learn about everything that I do, and I love to learn. I think that this is one part that makes me a good teacher. I did say GOOD teacher, not perfect, not wonderful, nothing like that. I do want to get to that point and with hard work I know I can, again not perfect, but a great and wonderful teacher. But there are so many people that HATE teachers that it makes it so hard!
I had a "situation" this week with a mother of one of my little girls. This little girl has some learning disabilities and can be a challenge, but nothing that I would even put on my TOP 25 list of difficult students thus far. We were going on a field trip and this little girl did not have her paper work filled out that would allow her to go without it. To make a long story short, mom would not come in to take of this, nor would she call me after I sent home three notes that informed them that they needed to. When the little girl could not go she had to stay at the school because school district policy forbids a teacher to take a student off the property without permission....and I am not even going to push that button. I tried to call home and another teacher called home to see if we could reach mom at the last minute to come in with no luck. Finally, after lunch mom called to see what the messages were all about. She was informed of what was going on and BLOW UP! She came and got her daughter and left a message for me to call her.
Now I knew that this phone call was going to be ugly. Of course she was mad that her daughter did not get to go with us, but I also knew that I had to stay strong and let her know my points and the reasoning and be done. I am not always calm on the phone and so I asked another teacher to be in the room, in case I needed to be reminded to stay calm....also as a witness. I was so calm and nice, it was almost sickening! And this woman let me have it, she called me everything but a white woman and told me of all of faults. After about 20 minutes of this complete attack I decided that I could not handle it nor was I going to get anything accomplished and asked if she would like to be transferred to the principal. Of course she jumped at that chance. Once I calmed myself down a bit and got some Kleenex (NO, she did not hear me cry!) I went down to listen to the remainder of the conversation.
Mom told the principal a great amount of lies and false accusation about me and told her that she was calling the superintendent and school board to have me fired. WOW! Who would ever want to hear that about themselves? I was about to loose it again when my principal let her have it! She told her that she would not talk to her like that and most definitely would not talk to me like that! The mom ended up hanging up on her. Not the best ending or an ending that I would have ever wanted.
Thought it was over, oh no! Mom DID call the district office and we are set for a meeting on Monday at 4pm! I have all of my grounds covered and I know that I am not in the wrong, but that is a pretty deep cut! I have spent numerous hours getting all of the student's work together, all my documentation together and everything else I might need for this meeting. What a weekend! I have ran every possible outcome through me head about 100 times now and I know I am making it way worse than is even possible because I did nothing wrong. One great thing about the state of Idaho, I could press charges of harassment for talking/yelling at me like that on the phone. Not going to do that, but makes me feel better knowing it! :)
One of my favorite parts, the little girl came up to me on Thursday, this all took place on Wednesday, and said "My mom said that me, her, and dad are going to have a meeting with you, the Principal and her boss on Monday. I am so excited!" and tried to hug me......I did the lovely side hug, because it is not her fault, but WOW! So excited?!
My principal, all other teacher, and the superintendent all know this mother, because it is not the first time she has done this and have let me know a number of times that she will more than likely not even show, but still! I hate this waiting, I just want it over! I have been told that I do not even have to go if I do not want because they know that I am not wrong, but I do not think I can sit and wonder what she is saying knowing that I could be there hearing it for myself.
So now I wonder what kind of parent I am going to be. I know the type of teacher I am and as much as I change that everyday, I know I am still very set with my goals and how I am going to get there. This is not something that I want to change because I know that my students are successful and that makes me successful in my job. I love my job, I love my students, and I love where I work. I know this is just a bump in the road of life/ work, but its a pretty big bump that I would like to do without! If it were only that easy, huh?
