The first homework my 7th grader brought home was for me. I got this letter from his Language Arts teacher:
“I am excited to have your student in my Language Arts class this year! You know your child better than anyone else, so please write back here to introduce me to him/her. You might want to include their strength, interests, skills, and challenges. I would be interested in knowing anything you find important to share with me.”
Here’s what I’ve come up with:
He likes to read and especially likes Harry Potter and other fantasy stories and historical stories featuring boys about his age.
He is predisposed to like people and get along, but is also shy and needs encouragement to be sociable.
He benefits from lots of structure and defined expectations.
Please make it clear what the homework is. Writing it on the board in the same place everyday is very helpful. Vague instructions or “suggestions” will be lost on him.
He often finds it difficult to deal with a noisy classroom and in the past has missed important instructions because “everybody was being crazy”
Is any of this a bad idea to share with the teacher? It is all true. What is also true is that he loves video games with an unholy passion and can easily spend all waking moments playing those if permitted. It is also true that he hates school thought does pretty well if I lean very hard on him (video game time provides valuable leverage). Is there any reason to share those things with her?
I like what you have so far, and wouldn’t add the stuff about games or not liking school – the former stuff is potentially useful for her, while the latter, not so much, and might prejudice her in unhelpful ways. Besides which, who knows? maybe he’ll find himself enjoying her class.
What you’ve written so far is good. I don’t see any reason not say to video games are one of his hobbies. Chances are good his teachers play as well. Ledzepkid is in 8th grade and has one teacher who plays Call of Duty and another who is a Level 85 Undead something or other in World of Warcraft. She actually adds the kids who play as friends on her server.
I hope that doesn’t bite her in the butt – the judge in I think Missouri? just said the state can’t ban teachers from Facebook-friending students under threat of getting fired, but several states are trying something like that. Not a sane climate at the moment.
Ouch. I think that’s a poor decision. The last thing I want when I’m playing WoW is contact of any kind with people from work. If she does pvp, her students can and likely will PWN her ass without mercy. If she doesn’t, there’s still much potential for mischief there.
Yeah, I’ve had to refuse a student from joining his TF2 group or Facebook friends several times. I’d never do it: there’s just very little upside.
All those things sound good. I wouldn’t say, “He hates school,” but I might say something like, “He’s had some negative experiences at school and has trouble seeing school in a positive light.” As a teacher, it’s helpful for me to know which kids come in predisposed toward negativity. First, it can help me not take it personally if they’re ugly about school, and second, it might encourage me to spend a little more time trying to find a way to persuade them that school is relevant.
I think it’s a great idea to add something about his interests outside of the classroom (i.e. video games). It sounds like she may be partly trying to get some ideas for hooks she can use to engage the students.
This is a nitpick, but since you asked, the bolded part here
strikes me as bit preemptively critical. The first two sentences get the point across sufficiently.
I would also say that she is trying to learn as much about you as she is about your son. She wants to know from what you’ve written how you view your son, how educated you are, how involved you seem to be in his education, etc. so she knows when helping your kid exactly what she is working with on the other side. If a parent sends her a letter that says, “He reeds good but he dont like history books” versus “He’s an excellent and voracious reader but he finds historical nonfiction boring” she can better determine how to best meet his needs based on what kind of educational exposure he has at home.
Whoa, seriously? That chick must really love her job. I can think of very few things less pleasant than being interrupted by a student in the middle of gaming with a question about a test or homework or my personal life. What if boundaries start getting crossed, as happens often in the game world? Yeesh, sounds like a clusterfuck waiting to happen.
I’m quite sure my sister (who is a middle school teacher, and doesn’t love it) would agree with me.
From what I’ve been told by players, you can buy multiple WoW accounts, but you have to pay for each of them. I think you can only play one of your characters at a time, too.
Carlotta, I too would suggest that “Vague instructions or “suggestions” will be lost on him” should be removed. If you want to elaborate, use part of "He often finds it difficult to deal with a noisy classroom and in the past has missed important instructions because “everybody was being crazy” to explain the importance. Maybe:
“Please make it clear what the homework is. Writing it on the board in the same place everyday would also be very helpful due to noisy classmates having prevented him *and other students ** from catching important details of assignments in the past.”
*it’s no doubt true, and sounds more like you’ve got the interests of the whole class in mind instead of asking her to write it down just for his benefit.