Here’s an e-mail that one of my collegues received from a “concerned” parent. Names have be changed to protect me from a lawsuit:
:eek: :eek: :eek:
For a woman, she sure has balls!
If it’d been written to me, I’d’ve pointed out a few things to Mommy:
Besides trying to teach Johnny my subject, I’m also trying to teach him lessons on responsibility and consequences. Those lessons will be lost if I change his grade just for basketball.
Next quarter, have Johnny “buckle down” and become willing to do any regular credit work and participate in any regularly-scheduled classes that may help.
If Johnny does indeed make it to college, he should start learning now that Mommy won’t always be there to bail him out.
If mom is all that concerned about her son’s education, perhaps she’ll keep better informed on how Johnny’s doing, and take steps to help him improve his grades, *before *quarter grades are finalized. Somehow, I don’t think Johnny’s all that surprised at his grade.
My husband coaches 15-19 year olds in high-level baseball every summer - from the stories he’s told me of the pandemic of entitled attitudes going around, your OP doesn’t surprise me at all. You and your colleagues have my sympathy.
The team he coaches on doesn’t take prima donna kids or kids with prima donna parents - he’d have quit coaching a long time ago if they did. They’ve got a kid right now who is asking to be traded because the coaches have the nerve to ask him to actually participate in practices and listen to their advice! The nerve! Trying to turn his raw talent into a bankable skill!
Actually, he may be wide-eyed and shocked by his grade. He shouldn’t be, of course, but he may be all the same.
At least it isn’t the coach that’s pressuring the teacher: I had a softball coach rip me a new one because I had “ruined his team” by catching a little girl cheating and telling another teacher, who then uncovered cheating from the little girl herself. Never mind that said little girl was on the brink of complete emotional collapse–really the root of the cheating–and that we were talking to her mom to try and get her some help–no, what mattered was that he needed an outfielder.
Of course, the same coach, when he couldn’t field a full team for a tournement, played a girl who had graduated the previous year under another girl’s name (one who was eligible but absent), and then told the whole team to lie about it if asked. When that came to light, they audited his records and discovered that another girl wasn’t eligible–he’d told her and her mom that her grade had been changed but it hadn’t been.
The weirdest part was that until the end he had people defending him because he was a pretty good coach. Lousey human being, but a pretty good coach.
While I know sports can take students away from classes, if he’d getting a D he’s not trying hard enough. I’ve known plenty of people who maintained high grades who played on sports teams, because they worked hard at school (And this while routinely missing math class due to a boneheaded scheduling idea that year)
This is ridiculous. I hope your colleague sent back a kind but firm letter of absolute refusal. Do teachers ever actually respond to this sort of pandering?
Even if I *were *inclined to change the grade and work with Johnny, which I wouldn’t be, the fact that Mama wanted until the day before report cards came out to even attempt to conact me would garner her a bolded, underscored, NO!
I’m just waiting for the first parents to call me because their kid recieved a bad performance review. “Are you a shareholder or client of ours? No? Oh…then fuck off.”
Once the kids get to college, the institution can (and often does) simply dismiss the parents using privacy issues. “I’m sorry, Mrs Smith, but federal law and our own privacy policies prevent us from discussing Johnny’s grades with you.”
Phooey. I have yanked my son off the track team because of poor grades. I made him go to the coach and tell her he would have to quit because of his grades.
Wow! It’s happened. Back when I used to work for a well-known coffee purveyor, we had a young (18yo) employee who was counseled for not showing up for scheduled shifts and frequent tardiness. This employee’s mother subsequently called to complain to the manager that this was creating anxiety for the employee and demanding leniency due to external influences. If I remember correctly, the manager informed the mother that she was unable to discuss matters of employment with anyone who wasn’t employed with the company and suggested that the employee come in to directly discuss job expectations and consequences of not meeting those expectations.
Though most of us found it shocking and sad, yet amusing, that an adult would allow their parents to become involved in their employment to that extent, the employee in question was unphased by it. Most of us assessed her as immature for a variety of other reasons and that event just nailed it. I’d say the general response to that was: :rolleyes:
The amusement park I worked at had horrific problems with this 10+ years ago. After one summer of dozens of parent confrontations over their “widdle precious” being made to do things like empty trash cans or sweep or other (as I am fond of quoting one parent) “mundane tasks beneath them”.
Our solution, brutal but effective. Just like if a SO came in and made a scene, the employee was held responsible. 4 months, 3 suspensions and a firing later, the problem evaporated.
This is out of as many as 150 employees with a very young workforce.
Helicopter parent: “But I pay Johnny’s tuition! I have the right to know what his grades are!”
Department secretary’s response: “If Johnny isn’t showing you his grades, that’s between the two of you. The Communication and Journalism Department and the university can’t make him tell you anything, and we certainly can’t.”
Yeah. When the parents do it, it’s frustrating, but I can sympathize and I explain, calmly, the situation. When the coach does it (and it rarely happens, but very, very occasionally it does), I go ballistic and there’s gonna be a Goddamned mediation at the administrative level.
I feel sorry for Johnny, I really do. He obviously has a mental handicap.
After all, his mother is instilling a damn poor attitude in him. I still don’t think that he should get his grade changed, though. Losing his sports eligibility might be the best thing that’s ever happened to him.
There are times when the school’s basic responsibility to the planet at large should be to maximize each individual’s greatest talent to it’s fullest potential, and the hell with the rest. From a strictly economic standpoint, Johnny’s jump shot may enhance his and many others’ educations far more than his study habits and your efforts in this class.
This argument is perfectly true, but I hate it, so let’s try this:
The world and each part of it that Johnny may end up in will be better off after he learns that work is rewarded at a higher rate than pleading, whether he ends up in the NBA, the Department of Public Works, at a Gas Station, or in Education. By learning this lesson, he could improve any of these fields and many others.
Decide whether this lesson, should you choose to impose it, will gain a net advantage, then do what you decide.
:rolleyes: 