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theherd123

One for the teachers

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These are actual comments made on students' report cards by teachers in the New York City public school system. All teachers were reprimanded but, boy, are these funny!!!

 

1. Since my last report, your child has reached rock bottom and has started to dig.

 

2. I would not allow this student to breed.

 

3. Your child has delusions of adequacy.

 

4. Your son is depriving a village some where of an 'idiot'.

 

5.Your son sets low personal standards, and then consistently fails to achieve them.

 

6. The student has a 'full six-pack' but lacks the plastic thing to hold it all together.

 

7. This child has been working with glue too much.

 

8. When your daughter's IQ reaches 50, she should sell.

 

9. The gates are down, the lights are flashing, but the train isn't coming.

 

10. If this student were any more stupid, he'd have to be watered twice a week.

 

11. It's impossible to believe the 1 sperm that created this child, beat out 1,000,000 others.

 

12. The wheel is turning, but the hamster is definitely dead.

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Actually it reminds me of something some friends told us once... they went to a parent/teacher meeting when their child was still very small, and told us teachers were to say something positive about most children, wanting to encourage abilities at that age, rather than condemn anyone... so comments such as 'quick learner', 'good with his hands', 'very artistic' and so on, were the main flavour of the evening for most families.

Apparently, when our friends sat down in front of the teachers, they were told that their son was 'very honest'... a bit puzzled, they asked 'okie... so, what does that mean?', to which they were told, 'he always does bad things... but he always owns up to them'....

 

Poor parents weren't sure whether to be proud or not!!!

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I remember a couple of years ago being very cross when it turned out that every child in Rosie's class had virtually the same report bar a couple of pasted in items to give them 'individuality'. When I spoke to the teacher about it, she was very defensive and denied it... I pointed out that saying that Rosie had 'good ball skills' was a dead giveaway (she has appalling hand/foot/ball co-ordination, bless her). I'd also compared notes with some other parents and we'd all got more or less the same.

 

I spoke to the head teacher and said that I'd rather not have a report than have one, which quite plainly wasn't about my duaghter at all... he didn't understand until I showed him copies of about 8 childrens' reports and they were all more or less the same. :roll:

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That's very true Claret... with three daughters in the same school, I see some interesting similarities in the comments cards over the years, especially when teachers feel there was nothing special to say... it changes for a child's specific strengths or weaknesses, but the bulk of the report is blaa blaa copied and pasted from a template!!

 

Also sometimes you feel sure they mistook your child for another... my husband was cross when my then 5 year old second daughter report said 'should work on IT skill'... suki is and was very good with computers from a very early age, she started playing with the pc when she was 2... with amazing mouse skills by the time she was 5, and surfing the internet from the moment she could remember how to spell a website address... I remember DH looking from the report card with sparks flashing out of his eyes 'I've never heard of a five year old who can operate a computer like she can, who on earth are they talking about, it certainly can't be suki!!!' :roll:

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An interesting debate here. I am a teacher and our school has done away with the full written report in exchange for 3 short reports a year. We have also replaced parent's evenings with target -setting days.

 

Many parents are up in arms because they feel parent's evenings are really valuable.

 

Being someone who has sat at a desk from 5pm till 10pm seeing about a dozen parents for 5 minute appointments and twiddling my thumbs in between, I have to say it's no great loss.

 

Sadly, parents are often too reluctant to contact class teachers on an ad-hoc basis to see how their child is progressing (or you just can't get through on the phones)

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Well true... don't get me wrong, this was not on attack on teachers, my girls teachers are good teachers.... the point about the report 'templates' is, there are no 50 different ways to say when a child is doing fine, but when you are on the reading end reading the same lines all the time you start wondering if it's useful...

I for sure wouldn't know how to make 20 different reports sound totally individual in each line, or how to keep up with 20 sets of parents at a meeting.

What I do like about reports is they summarise the year/term a bit, each paragraph for each subject tells you what has been done, what the child achieved and what they enjoyed most. A very short report telling parents only what is particularly relevant to their child would strike a more 'individual' approach, but would miss on the detailed summary of what happened in the term. In most subjects I know what the kids have been doing, but not all, especially the ones for which no homework is done and all the work is done in the classroom.

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I always think it would be far more useful to sit in on every other child's parent's evening! You know how your own child is doing so then you could guage how well they were coping in relation to everyone else. I'm always interested to know the results the rest of the class got in tests - then you've got something to compare your child's mark against. I'm not a "competitive mum" in case you're wondering :wink: - I just like to know if my kids are coping and you can't always tell from just a test mark (unless it's 100% obviously - and that's never happened here :roll: )

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My eldest son was described by his year 4 teacher as "a subversive influence" Tell me - where do you go from there? :shock::shock::shock:

 

Every parents evening we have been to and I mean every it starts out fairly positive and then there comes to a break in the conversation and you get "but" - we wait for it now - we say it for them - we say it together!!!!!!!!

 

Hey ho - he's 17 now - not much longer to go!!!!!!

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many years ago my freind went to her 6yr old daughters parent evening & read through her news book, "at the weekend I was a bridesmaid & the teacher asked if the bride wore a pretty dress, I said dont be silly she wore a pregnant dress" my poor friend was so embarrassed

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parents evenings at primary school are really useful because the teachers know the children on a much more individual basis but by the time they get to secondary school they haven't a clue unless your child falls into the excellent or dire category.

 

My ED is happily sitting in the mid range of yr9 at a very good grammar school and up to now most of the teachers don't have a clue who she is :( Their parents evenings are so badly organised they have most of the teachers around the hall with chairs in the middle and as someone leaves a teacher there is a scrumage of parents trying to be next, so if you are timid and polite like me you don't stand a chance

 

My son however is also at a very good boys grammar in yr 7 who picked up very quickly that he was a bit overwhelmed and put him onto a daily reporting system which will hopefully mean that most of his teachers know who he is when we go to his parents evening next Monday. He is now doing fine he is definately a good advert for single sex schools, his school know their way around boys and how to motivate them :D

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