Some teachers! ...A Rant...

Nikki goes to public school because her mother wants her there. Every school year since she started Kindergarten, I keep everything the school sends home all year. I put it in my file cabinet and keep it until June. Then I sort through it all and keep the things I think express her at this age. I put it all in a book with her picture and signature and all that. I just got through doing this for her 6th grade year.

We always had a problem with her "core class" teacher. Otherwise known as home room. She is a real pain to us all. I tried emailing her to get specific instructions from her because I thought Nikki wasn't re-telling it right, or wasn't asking the right questions. And guess what? I can't figure out what it is that woman wants either! There was a time when she wouldn't grade her work because she hadn't brought in and used the right three-ring binder that was requested. We had already had a system of keeping work organized and neat and it was working perfectly, except that she couldn't get a good grade because she didn't have the binder. I know you are thinking that it is understandable. Maybe she had a special way of using these notebooks or something but that wasn't the case. I looked into it.

The other thing is that as I was going through the years work, all her papers from that teacher had either nothing at all on them or some nasty note like, "needs work!", "neater writing please!", or "use all the same color ink!". Never a "nice subject" or "creative idea" at all! You have to know Nikki's work to understand this. She may not be the cleanest writer, or the best at organizing or getting things in on time, but she IS brilliant. She is creative, intelligent, and mature in her writing. It is the one thing that I would say she excells in. Her essays and reports are researched and a lot of love and time has gone into them. They are interesting to read, too. Not your every day, "The battle of Gettysburg was in...." blah blah blah. Now I'm going to have to post some of her work here just so you understand what I am talking about.

I just don't think it is fair or a good thing, to have to suffer through a year of school and just "get through it" because a teacher has decided to ride their time out until they retire and bring down as many children as possible until they do!