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What to Do When Your Child Hates His Teacher

6 Steps to Take When Your Child and his Teacher Just Can’t Get Along

What should you do when your child doesn’t like his teacher? Should you call the principal or sit on the class? Or should you brush it off as a normal childhood grievance and move on? 

You beat the back-to-school shopping blues, mastered your hectic morning routine, and haven’t had one homework headache to date. Then, just when this school year is promising to be smooth sailing, your star student comes home with the complaint all parents dread: “Mom, I hate my teacher!” (Drat! You knew things were going too well!)

So now what do you do? Ignore the problem and hope it goes away? Write a nasty note to the teacher in your child’s planner? Storm into the principal’s office to complain?

The correct answer is: “None of the above!” Instead, you have to give the problem careful consideration and think before you act in any capacity.

The negative feelings a child has about his teacher can have any number of origins. It can be anything from frustration over a bad grade on a test to a more serious situation that could potentially impede his learning. But you can’t know for sure until you follow some simple steps and do some investigating of your own.

Here are six steps that any parent should take in order to effectively address her child’s accusations about his teacher.

Step 1: Expect It

At some point, most kids are going to come home complaining that they hate their teacher. Admit it, most of us had our share of teachers we weren’t so fond of when we were growing up as well—and most of us stuck it out and eventually discovered that the teacher wasn’t so bad after all. So don’t be too alarmed when you hear those first complaints as you are pulling out of the carpool line after school. It’s completely normal for children to feel frustrated with their teachers at some point during their school years.

Related: 4 Academic Lessons to Teach at Home

Just stay calm, don’t jump to any conclusions, and certainly don’t take any action before you’ve given the complaint and your child some time and careful consideration.

Your best initial response in this situation is to be calm, to listen to his complaints and be reassuring. Then remind yourself to tune into to your child a bit closer over the next few days to see if the problem goes away or sticks around. If the complaints disappear- great! If not, then its time to take the next step and form a plan for resolving whatever issue is as hand.

Step 2: Don’t Fly Off the Handle

Just because Sally came home from school one day full of complaints about her teacher, it doesn’t mean you should pick up the phone and start demanding that she be removed from her classroom. The best policy is to be patient. Her complaints could be the result of a particularly bad day, her frustration with a difficult test or assignment, or embarrassment over being called down in front of the class. If she continues to complain-and if the complaints are consistent-then you can be confident that its time to take some action.

Don’t be too quick to call the principal and demand that your child be reassigned a new teacher. Doing so only sends your kid the message that you are going swoop in and solve every little problem for her – and she does need to learn how to get along with all kinds of people. Be careful not to badmouth the teacher in front of your child. If the problem miraculously disappears within a day or two, you will run the risk of tainting her view for the rest of the year.

Step 3: Get to the Heart of the Matter

So your child has come home and told you that he hates his teacher. But what does he really mean when he says that? Getting to the root of the complaint is paramount to you finding a solution. Asking your child “Why” questions will typically reveal little in your quest, so pose “What” queries instead.

When you sit down with your child, ask him the following: “What does your teacher do that concerns you?” “What have you tried to make this work?” “What could your teacher do to make it better?”  “What do the kids who are happy with the teacher say about her?” The answers to these questions will help you to figure out if this is your child’s problem or an issue with the teacher’s style or personality.

Getting to the heart of the issue is the only way you can begin to solve it effectively. Is this a personality conflict with the teacher in which your child feels the teacher is unfair or too strict? Or is your kid concerned he won’t succeed because of his teacher’s expectations? It could be that it’s not really an issue with the teacher at all, but instead a reflection of other problems your child is experiencing at school.

For instance, if he is having trouble making friends, is being bullied, or has a learning problem, he may be channeling that frustration into a problem with her teacher. Once you know the real issue you’ll be able to create solutions.

Step 4: Get Perspective from Parents and Peers

When your child comes to you with a problem, its natural to want to take her word for it so that you can swoop in and make it better as soon as possible. However, a good indicator into what’s really going on in your child’s classroom is how other students and parents feel about the teacher. Before you take your kid at face value, or brush him off completely, talk to some of the other parents to see if their children have expressed similar concerns. At their next play date, ask your child’s friends what they think about their teacher. If what you hear is in line with the complaints you’ve been hearing at home, then it may be time to take action. If not, then it may call for a little more investigation before you stage a teacher takeover.

Listen to your child’s friends and their parents to get their take. Go to open house night at the school and listen to the teacher’s expectations and watch her style so that you can get a feel for how she may interact with the students and run her classroom. You can even plant yourself outside the classroom door as a ploy that you’re picking your child up early so that you can watch how they relate to one another. It’s important that you don’t just jump to conclusions-and into action- before you get the story from all sides.

Step 5: Make a Date with the Teacher

If the complaints last at least a week then it may be time to set up a conference with the teacher. Of course, or if you see a sudden change in your child’s behavior: he becomes more anxious and clingy, has trouble sleeping, is in emotional or physical distress, or starts refusing to go to school, call for a conference, ASAP.

And while confronting the situation head-on probably isn’t on the top of your list of things you’re looking forward to-don’t wait. The best approach is to use caution and listen to the teacher’s side. Begin the meeting positively by briefly describing the problem and sticking to the facts as you know them.  Once you’ve laid it out on the line, ask the teacher what the two of you can do to solve the problem. Letting her know that you are willing to work with her, and not against her, will go a long way towards garnering results. Remember, kids do act differently in different situations.

If your child is older, then it might be helpful for him attend the meeting with you and that you let him do the speaking. Explain to the teacher that you are there to support your child but that he needs to try and work things out on his own. Once there, watch the teacher’s interaction with your child. Are you catching positive vibes and a genuine concern? Is your child more anxious or relaxed?The goal in the meeting is to see if your child and teacher are able to talk through their differences and come up with a positive solution.

And do let your child know he may not be able to transfer classes before you go into the meeting. Its important that he understands a positive resolution with that particular teacher is the best solution, in the likely event that he will remain in the same classroom for the rest of the school year. Much will depend of the dynamics of the situation, but if your child has had a pattern of expecting to be bailed out-and you’ve complied-refrain!

Step 6: Take Your Issue To the Higher-Ups

If you have exhausted all the other options and things continue to be tens then its time for you to involve someone from the school’s chain of command. Whether it’s the principal, vice principal, or your child’s guidance counselor, it’s important that you get someone involved that is in a position to address your concerns about the teacher with some action. When you meet with them, make sure you remain calm and tell your side of the story from a factual point of view. It may also be helpful to have a written record of the complaint and any steps or actions (like the previous teacher conference) that you have taken up to that time.

If you find yourself in a situation that is continuing to decline, then its time to involve a third party. If things continue to be tense despite the meeting, if the teacher refuses to meet with you or if your child’s behavior or learning begins to slide set up a meeting with principal or counselor immediately. Keep in mind that you may still end up having to switch schools but a positive learning experience is crucial for your child’s education. In the end, you just want to find the solution that provides the safest, healthiest environment for your child to learn and grow.

Like any other parenting problem, the key to solving this one is patience. I n most cases, our children are spending their days with qualified educators who will help them to grow and prosper as the school year progresses. If there truly is a problem that needs to be solved, it will benefit both you and your child if you handle it in a calm, respectful way that isn’t accusatory or attacking. After all, you are your child’s teacher outside of the classroom…so always keep in mind that those little eyes will be watching!

Michele Borba, Ed.D., is an educational psychologist, former teacher, and mom. She is recognized for offering research-driven advice culled from a career of working with over one million parents, educators, and children. A frequent Today show contributor and recipient of the National Educator Award, Michele is the author of 22 books including Building Moral Intelligence, No More Misbehavin’, and The Big Book of Parenting Solutions: 101 Answers to Your Everyday Challenges and Wildest Worries.

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Cell Phones in Classrooms?

In the battle for the hearts and minds of students, the front line for educators has changed over the last couple of decades. Rather than the age-old struggle for access, the foremost concern today is one of attention.  

Sure, there will always be issues of access, but for the most part that battle has been won. We’re no longer suffering from an information deficit; we’re suffering from an attention deficit.

The shift from access deficit to attention deficit has some very practical ramifications for schools. Certainly it gives perspective on the question of whether to allow cell phones in the classroom. On KQED MindShift (and reposted here on MediaShift), Audrey Watters argued for cell phones in the classroom because they (or at least smartphones) are powerful research tools. But the ability to get to information is not the problem; what students lack is the critical thinking skills to sort, filter and interpret information. Recent research has shown that students are good at getting to information, but weak at knowing what to do once they get there. So we must be protective of the classroom as a uniquely effective learning environment.

In 1997, writer and critic Howard Rheingold proposed two rules for our rapidly changing world: “Rule Number One is to pay attention. Rule Number Two might be: Attention is a limited resource, so pay attention to where you pay attention.” This was before text-messaging, smartphones, Facebook, Skype, YouTube or Twitter. Not surprisingly, the business community responded quickly to the importance of attention. Business strategists like Michael Goldhaber began referring to our economy as an “attention economy.” Echoing Rheingold, Goldhaber stated in 1997, “What counts most now is what is most scarce now, namely attention.” Their words are much truer today than they were in 1997.

Distracted students

This scarcity of attention is certainly an issue with today’s media-multitasking students. A study released in January 2010 by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that total media exposure per day for young people ages 13 to 18 increased from 7 hours and 29 minutes in 1999 to 10 hours and 45 minutes in 2009. Use per medium increased, but the largest increase was time spent multitasking. My work as a teacher confirms this. At the beginning of every semester, I ask my students how many media they use while doing homework. The great majority of them admit using some combination of two or three of their cell phones, laptops, televisions and iPods while studying. Out of a class of 25, only one or two still value shutting everything off and focusing completely on their work.

Taking Rheingold’s two rules and applying them to the classroom can give schools the framework for a well-informed policy regarding cell phones.

Rule #1 – Pay Attention

Teachers are vying for their students’ attention. Of course, this is a venerable struggle, but in the past students’ only options were looking out the window, passing notes, or throwing spit wads at each other. Most teachers will tell you the struggle is much tougher today; it’s one of those things they talk about at meetings and lunch breaks. Just the other day, the topic was brought up at a departmental meeting where I teach, and the stories and opinions (universally negative) immediately came gushing forth. The teacher sitting next to me told me he has a “one-and-done” approach: The students are warned in the syllabus and on the first day of class, and as soon as one of them pulls his or her cell phone out during class, he or she gets the boot. While I have a hard time being so strict, I respect his strategy; we teachers are all aware that our top competitor is that little electronic wonder lovingly buzzing in our students’ pockets or purses.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been under constant pressure to lift a ban on cell phones that he instituted in 2007 for New York’s 1.1 million-student school system. According to CBS News, New York had long maintained an “out-of-sight, out-of-trouble” approach to cell phones until Bloomberg’s department of education started using metal detectors to not only search for weapons, but confiscate cell phones as well. Bloomberg has remained steadfast, surviving not only the outrage of parents and students, but a court battle as well. In March 2008, an appellate court ruled that “the Chancellor reasonably determined that a ban on cell phone possession was necessary to maintain order in the schools.”

New York schools are not unique. School systems everywhere are outlawing cell phones, but students are undeterred. In a recent survey (PDF)by Pew Internet, 65 percent of students admit bringing phones to class even though they are banned. They put them in their socks, their underwear, their sandwiches, whatever it takes. Fifty-eight percent of the students in those same schools admit sending a text message during class.

To make matters worse, parents are not allied with teachers in this. As a matter of fact, one can safely assume that the majority of students’ texts during school are exchanges with parents. In the same Pew survey, 98 percent of parents of cell-owning teens say a major reason their child has the phone is so that they can be in touch no matter where the teen is (a blessing and a curse to students). This business of parents always being connected to their children has wide-ranging implications (in her book “Always On,” professor Naomi Baron points to “the end of anticipation”), but as pertains to cell phones in the classroom, parents are simply added to the growing list of distractions.

Rule #2 – Attention is a limited resource, so pay attention to where you pay attention

 

Students need to understand that their attention is an in-demand resource, i.e., everyone wants a piece of them. When I talk to my students about this, they are very receptive. They have an awareness deep down that they are too busy, too distracted, too harried. Many of them don’t have a point of reference, a time they can remember when things were simpler, quieter, slower. This is especially true of those born in the 21st century who’ve never known a time when they weren’t “always on” – virtually connected to loved ones and the wider world. According to Pew, 84 percent of cell-owning 13-17 year-olds acknowledge sleeping with their cell phone next to them, and it is a “fairly common practice” for that group to sleep with their cell phones under their pillows so that a call or text will awaken them.

This issue of attention is more than just teachers wanting to control students; it is about the importance of students learning to focus on one thing. A growing amount of research by neurologists confirms what our mommas already told us – we think best and perform best through focused, undistracted attention. In 2009, Stanford researchers studied the cognitive capabilities of media multitaskers and came to the following conclusion: “People who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information do not pay attention, control their memory or switch form one job to another as well as those who prefer to complete one task at a time.” When comparing the two groups, Stanford researchers sought to discover where media multitaskers are superior.

Alas, says lead researcher Eyal Ophir, “We kept looking for what they’re better at, and we didn’t find it.” Students need to be challenged and trained in the art of single-tasking. Where better than the classroom? As Neil Postman urged in his book “The End of Education,” schools need to be engaging in technology education. He wasn’t talking about teaching students how to use technology, but rather “learning about what technology helps us to do and what it hinders us from doing.” In Postman’s mind, technology education should be a branch of the humanities, providing students with a historical perspective on “humanity’s perilous and exciting romance with technology.”

Preserving the Classroom

When I asked her thoughts on cell phones in the classroom, Dr. Baron, who is executive director of the Center for Teaching, Research, and Learning, pointed to the varied roles filled by the classroom. “A classroom is many places at once,” she said, “a room for sharing ideas, a space (literally) for contemplation, a setting for social interaction. None of these functions harmonizes with intrusion from the outside.”

Indeed, the classroom has a hallowed place in our society, and it still functions pretty much as it has always functioned. Countless people point to a time in their lives where a certain teacher in a certain classroom made all the difference in the world. Just ask.

The other day I was walking through a building on my campus. Inside one of the small classrooms was a goofy-looking middle-aged man holding court with 25 or 30 students huddled around. I have no idea what the man was teaching, but he did so with gusto. I slowed past his room, drawn to whatever was happening in there. He loved what he was talking about, and his students were sitting on the edge of their seats, leaning toward him. Just as I started picking up my pace, the entire room burst into laughter. He was just getting warmed up.

That scene is repeated every day in hundreds of thousands of classrooms around the world. From the most prestigious halls of higher education to my son’s kindergarten class led by the delightful Ms. Norman, teachers keep joyfully passing on knowledge and wisdom to the students under their tutelage.

There never has been – nor will there ever be – a more dynamic learning context than face-to-face in close proximity. Everything possible should be done to protect that timeless environment from interruption and distraction.

Greg Graham teaches writing at the University of Central Arkansas and is a teacher-consultant with the National Writing Project. Specializing in facilitating literacy stories, Greg is a field researcher with Ohio State University’s Digital Archives of Literacy Narratives and co-author of a chapter in the forthcoming book Literacy Narratives that Speak to Us: Curated Exhibits from the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives. You can follow him on Twitter or his blog The Digital Realist.

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Ron Huxley’s Reaction: Sorry, I don’t buy the idea that Cell Phones are useful research tools in the classroom. Put in a computer for the children to use. I do believe that the “attention economy” applies to our families use of time however. We need to make some house rules around time spent on social media like Facebook and Google Plus. Is Myspace used by anyone anymore. I really should go delete my account over there…