Hi My son came home yesterday from school with the attendance percentages from other children including his own that he said the teacher made them guess their own. I thought this was personal info and Im not really sure how to deal with it. What are your thoughts?
29 Replies
If it was incorporated into a lesson about maths and percentages etc and the reasons for the absences weren't shared, I can't see an issue?
My daughter's class did graphs of the class parents' ages, siblings and family members, pets, blah blah...
Relating maths into real life or "personal" situations is important to learn!
I wouldn't do anything about it tbh because I don't think it's a problem but if it bothers you, just politely ask the teacher to not share that information with the class again.
It is maths and also encouraging attendance which is really important in succeeding at school.
As long as the reasons werent shared or shame or blame put on lower attendance its fine.
It’s not like the information is all that personal. Someone with a % who is low is someone who misses a lot of school - kids are well aware of who is missing each day from their classes...
Exactly, the kids have a good idea so should be able to apply it to estimate and work out a percentage. And possibly even for each other. They would have been actually engaged and thinking - thats the best kind of learning there is.
Yes, great idea! Shaming a kid who has low attendance will definitely make him/her want to attend more! Why don't all schools do it?
As mentioned, there is no shaming its just accepting the numbers for what they are and estimating and calculating percentages. Should I mention Im a teacher? You can report your displeasure to the principal, or you can, please, trust your child's teacher to hold and safely guide acceptable conversations about a variety or topics with the class.
Sorry but I don't have to agree with it just because you are a teacher. I have worked in indigenous communities before where this would not go down well at all, a quarter of the school would have less than 50% attendance and have many reasons for it, very seldom is it the own childs fault. There would be kids at every school who have poor attendance that is not their fault. They don't need attention brought to it because it's not going to fix it. It will just make the child feel ashamed and make school life even harder. As a teacher you should know that you need to consider possible implications to each student when getting the whole class to examine these kind of personal statistics and then send them home for all the family to see.
And as a teacher I TRUST that this teacher did.
I am personally very close to quite a few teachers, have observed my child’s teachers for a number of years and I’m not surprised by the above teacher’s response. Teachers are quite insensitive I find, especially to the individual needs of their students. It’s just a common pattern I’ve observed with the three I engage with regularly. I also feel they are overworked, have an incredulous amount of extracurricular responsibilities and a significant amount of work collating data (which I suspect used to fall on the principal’s shoulders). As a consequence of being overworked, they seem to have lost that compassion and connection with their students. They also seem to have a bit of a god complex, they’re always correct and have the hardest job in the universe. Both our teachers and students are suffering from data driven funding and the complexities of our education system today. I understand how you feel OP, but don’t expect any empathy from the teaching staff of your child’s school.
Notice how she validated her opinion by stating she is a teacher? This isn’t an education question,but a question of compassion and understanding. Being a teacher doesn’t make her view or level of understanding of the human condition better than yours or mine.
They are also lemmings and tend not to challenge the status quo within their individual schools. Notice how she expects you to blindly trust that your child’s teacher has their best interests at heart, without even knowing said teacher? That’s because that’s what they are indirectly taught by the system. I say this to you, never blindly trust anyone due to their rank or position, always have free thought and challenge what you perceive as not right, trust your gut.
It's very easy to see why teachers can lose their compassion though, (this question and some of the responses are enough to make me thankful im not a teacher).
Teachers are constantly questioned by parents who think they know better, teachers have less authority than ever - I have literally seen my son's teacher have to appologise to a student because she (rightfully) sent him to the principals office, his parents carried on that much she was forced into it because the school didn't want to end up in a legal battle. They are even subjected to abuse by parents and students for simply doing their jobs. Not to mention they are overworked and underpaid.
I thought it was interesting to read the teachers perspective on this topic.
If they lose their compassion, they should no longer be there. Same with nurses, doctors etc.
I find the use of caps (TRUST) quite interesting, from a psychological standpoint.
Thank you for your kindness, you get it!
Hahahaha!!!!
Going through uni the most insensitive students were the ones training to be teachers.
There are so many ways that you can adapt percentages from real life to a maths lesson that using attendance percentages is not necessary.
People who suck at maths should never become teachers
My son misses a lot of school. I wouldn't have an issue with this.
I would be really mad actually. Thats nobody elses business, its almost a passive aggressive way to shame parents. A bit like the "What did you have for breakfast?" Then the answers posted up on the wall for everyone to see. If it was purely for maths there are literally millions of other examples she could have used. There are some real nosy parents out there that would love to look at that kind of stuff and give them something to gossip about, "Did you see how many days off Chloe has, they probably let her stay up late because her Mums always posting about wine time so she probably doesn't even know what her kid is doing". Then its said in front of the kids and you get kids that say strange things to other kids. Like the poor Mum that posted here the other day because another child teased her child calling her Mum fat. It really does happen, my SIL is constantly gossiping about other kids and mums at school, even down to whats in their lunch box. Theres at least one in every class! Bring it up with the Principal.
Honestly, these types of mums will gossip anyway!
There are a couple of kids in my kids' classes who, for whatever reason, miss a lot of school. Their parents are the subject of gossip already, these types of charts would make no difference in that regard.
I commented above with my daughters class graphing parents ages, me being quite young I then became the subject of gossip because some of the mums calculated my age with my kids ages and worked out i was only 17 when i had my first. I found it actually hilarious that they had nothing better to do with their lives than analyze a bit of 3rd grade school work to find out dirt about other parents 😂
Who knows, this particular school may have a low attendance rate, maybe the teachers have been prompted to address this in the classroom and the teacher thought they'd try an educational approach.
Speaking with the teacher about it before storming off to the principal would be more sensible.
We have a really small school and the teacher in question is the principal
At my kids school, our principal (well, principals and schools across the state actually) have been under huge pressure from the education department to get attendance up. We've had notices in the newsletter basically begging parents to ensure their kid's are only away for valid reasons.
I would be pretty willing to guess there was some method in their madness here. Seriously though, just speak to them about it. Find out the reasoning but don't go in guns blazing!
Nope i dont think its a big deal. Kids arent stupid they know who is always absent and who is always there.
It is a big deal, some kids are off due to very personal reason and it doesn’t need to be pointed out. Here in SA it’s in the report for only parents to see days absent, I think that is enough. It doesn’t need to be read out to the class. The teachers was so wrong.
If a child is sensitive they may not want to be discussed in a lesson, they may be away a lot because of personal issues and may not feel it’s appropriate to highlight this in class
Look at it like this - Would it be acceptable for your boss to hand out a list with everyones full names and how many days off they have had this year?
Attendance is very competitive between schools, like NAPLAN. I highly doubt this was an innocent maths lesson, this is the Principal trying to improve attendance. Small school so percentages are probably down. In my opinion, not acceptable.
It is confidential, it’s humilating to some
Kids. The teacher is wrong in doing this. Each child’s circumstance is different and it’s no one else’s business. I would be complaining. The teacher has no right. My son suffers from anxiety and I know this would totally humiliate him.
I hated it. My child would pretend they were sick(hid diarrhoea AND vomiting) so they could keep their attendance record up. Children were obsessed with it and really upset when they didn’t get awards for their own attendance. It was a comp :/
See, this i am strongly against. Attendance is often something beyond a child's control, particularly in primary school. It's ridiculous to reward a child for attendance, that's only an advantage to kids who never get sick, kid's who never have appointments or extenuating personal circumstances. Reward them for working hard or putting themselves out of their comfort zone and living up to school expectations. Not something that really comes down to luck of the draw!
Public shaming. It’s what schools do best 😏
Not on!