gossip

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Home : 2002 : September : 9

gossip
By Susan

While I'm sure the teacher was trying to be helpful, what she says is still gossip about the past. Create your own relationship with the child and mother based on what actually happens in YOUR classroom.

I say this because
I've been guilty in the past of assuming that negative things I was told about someone else were true only to discover that the bearer of bad tidings had an axe to grind that I could never have known about at the time the negative things were told to me.
Conversely, I've seen "bad" kids turn out to be great in part because I and other teachers had not yet been told these were supposed

to be "bad" kids (and by the time we were told, we had already decided these kids were terrific). Had we known what previous teachers thought, we might have reacted to those children in ways that told them we expected them to be obnoxious or lazy.

I'm not urging you to ignore anything you feel needs addressing as it happens with this child, just to take the child and her mom as they are at present. Even if what your colleague says is 100% true about the past, bear in mind that some parents do change their opinions and approaches over time, just as some teachers do.