From the other side

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Home : 2003 : January : 31

From the other side
By Cathy-Dee

This is a difficult spot and I can't see any way that you'll be able to talk with this teacher without alienated yourself and perhaps stirring up a big pot of trouble for yourself. And not totally defending the other teacher
but you did not witness what had happened in the classroom prior to this. She may have tried to work with the student who for whatever reason decided not to do their work.
From the sounds of it, he got upset with the assignment and perhaps didn't even want to have help with it. I've seen a few children like this. I know of a couple who respond well to one teacher and not to another.

I had a student today who pushed all my buttons perfectly. When I gave him a chance to come into the room and work quietly or to go to the office -he actually chose the office. So I handed him his work and about 20 minutes later he came back with everything done - was an angel in the office as well.

Or the teacher could be handling everything wrong with this student.

But other than asking her not to leave students at the table by your room as it is a distraction for yourself and your class you probably shouldn't do more than that. If she refuses or gets angry about that, then you can mention to your administrator that you have a problem with students being left outside your class because you then feel responsible for them. This may make him look closer at her class.

All I can say is please do not talk to her while you are still angry as chances are you may say things you'll later regret.

If you feel you can trust your administrator you might want to have an informal meeting with him and just discuss this one incident with him. Approach it more from how it made you really feel uncomfortable to be put into that position with the teacher putting down the student and the student obviously being so upset. Don't question her methods, her teaching, or bring up that she's done it before. Tell him you were really hesitant to bring it up at all because you do not want to say anything behind your colleague's back, but you just didn't know any other way to deal with it. This may still backfire but it might be the safest way to at least try to deal with the situation.