24.
“My first year teaching was at a very affluent private Christian school. As such, entitlement was RAMPANT. One day I had one of my 6th-grade male students come to class incredibly upset. I pulled him aside before the bell rang to ask him what was wrong, and he said that at lunch a female classmate had mocked his ADHD and told his table of friends that he was ‘off his meds’ that day, so he would be bouncing off the walls and would probably get the class in trouble. His class was a rambunctious one, but essentially, his fear was that if his class wasn’t on their best behavior and say (for example) lost recess privileges, all his friends would blame him. So this poor kid was incredibly anxious about his behavior and not getting his class in trouble.”
“Making fun of a diagnosed learning disability is obviously no laughing matter, but since I didn’t overhear the actual conversation, I didn’t want to level any false accusations, so I chose to just observe the class’s behavior. Sure enough, there was snickering, pointing at the boy, blaming him when the class got loud, etc. Under the advice of my partner teacher, I pulled the girl in question aside later during recess and asked for her version of the story. She feigned confusion, as if she had no idea what I was talking about. So, I decided to talk to some other students, including her twin sister, whom she was incredibly close to. All of the other students including her sister corroborated the boy’s story. Her sister even went so far as to say that she warned her twin that she was being mean to the boy.
Despite all this, since I didn’t overhear the conversation myself, I didn’t want to punish the girl based on student hearsay. Instead, I addressed the class as a whole and talked to them about the weight of our words and how even an innocent comment can sometimes be hurtful. I didn’t use a single student’s name, nor did I specifically mention the event from lunch. It was just a general conversation about kindness and choosing our words wisely.
That night, I got a NASTY phone call from the father of the twin girls, telling me that I shamed his daughter and falsely accused her of mocking a student’s illness. He said his daughter was so embarrassed and felt bullied by me and targeted in class. He then proceeded to write me a LONG email with my principal CC’d on it, accusing me of bullying his daughter and flat-out saying that I must have been bullied as a child and was taking out my pent-up trauma on his innocent child. He said I was a joke of an educator and a toxic influence in my classroom.
My principal called me in to his office the next morning and allowed me to share the events that transpired from my perspective. My partner teacher corroborated my version and insisted I had done nothing wrong. Despite all this, my principal told me I needed to fall on my sword and apologize to the girl and the father, since he was the school’s largest donor.”
—Anonymous
Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/angelicaamartinez/teachers-entitled-parents
