More egg on face

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30 Jun 2014, 7:21 am

I still don't believe that you were "sexist" or anything else. You didn't screw up; you were just being human. I think most people who don't dabble in "isms", to the exclusion of real life, believe that.

Ideology is stultifying; real life is what inspires me.

Adamantium
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30 Jun 2014, 7:55 am

mikassyna wrote:

Tawaki wrote:

Having worked in the school system, yeah, this is the equivalent of throwing dog crap in a punch bowl.

It would like saying, Grandpa really loves his young, pretty lady doctor.

*crickets*

Why they (not me) would be upset.

Who cares who your son gets as a teacher? Supposedly all are adequate educators.

Young? Some parents/students love young, inexperienced teachers so they can buffalo the crap out of them.

Pretty? Seriously? ...In an age of teachers getting blamed for looking at someone wrong, no teacher wants to hear their students think they are hot or pretty.

Lady? What year is this? It's always woman/women in business like conversations. I prefer lady but got my ass handed to me when a principal took offense of me using the word "lady".

So yeah, your husband is right, ageist and sexist. Lucky it was you, not your husband.

Do I think they remembered or cared after the fact? Nope. But the reasons above are why there was a whole heap of awkwardness after your statement.

Tawaki,

I've been ruminating on this since you wrote it, wondering why it bothered me so much, apart from the obvious.

I never posted my experience to get sympathy from you or have people provide me for excuses to why what I did was inappropriate. I never said it was inappropriate. In fact, I came here saying basically, that I screwed up, and shared the experience figuring that other people here might be able to relate with their "oops" moments. When other people came to be supportive it was very sweet but it didn't take away from the fact of what happened and my feelings about it afterward, which I detailed in subsequent posts.

So your angry tone, and "rubbing it in", so to speak, was really unnecessary and hurtful. You chide me like a child, and to what end? Especially when I was already feeling bad about it? Not only did it affect me, but it has the unfortunate effect of possibly precluding others from sharing their experiences, lest they get reprimanded for it too.

What's that called? "Beating a dog when it's down"? That's not very nice.

When I read Tawaki's post, my thought was: that person is nuts, or has a massive 'chip on their shoulder' -- maybe just unable to imagine context. You shouldn't let this response bother you. It is all about that person and not you at all.

Then I noticed "Having worked in the school system" and thought... that probably explains the chip on the shoulder.

YippySkippy
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30 Jun 2014, 8:59 am

Quote:

stultifying

Good word.

mikassyna
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30 Jun 2014, 8:23 pm

Adamantium wrote:

Then I noticed "Having worked in the school system" and thought... that probably explains the chip on the shoulder.

There must be a parallel term for that, the way postal workers "go postal"--
Let's come up with something good. Anyone?

kraftiekortie
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30 Jun 2014, 8:26 pm

LOL...."Going postal" has become the general term which applies to an employee going crazy, and shooting up a workplace.

If a teacher decides to shoot up his/her school, he/she has "gone postal."

mikassyna
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30 Jun 2014, 8:32 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:

LOL...."Going postal" has become the general term which applies to an employee going crazy, and shooting up a workplace.

If a teacher decides to shoot up his/her school, he/she has "gone postal."

True, but how about a public school system employee heavy chip on the shoulder grown by the daily exposure to lack of common sense bureaucracy pervasive in such organizations?
(Sorry for the extremely long run-on sentence.)

pddtwinmom
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01 Jul 2014, 6:56 am

First of all, I'm sorry this happened! We've all put out feet in our mouths at some point, even those teachers, so please don't try to beat yourself up about it.

What you said was actually ageist and sexist, in my opinion, but not ill-intended. All professionals want to be evaluated based on their knowledge and work, not their physical characteristics. If the teachers had responded to you, they would have been supporting an assessment that is inappropriate to make ij a professional setting.

The teacher in question probably doesn't want to think that the only reason that your son wants to he in her class is based on her physical characteristics. If you had said "friendly", that would have been different because that is a choice she's making, or perhaps an intrinsic quality. Ag and appearance are extrinsic.

So, I wouldn't feel bad, but I would try not to do this that again. What if his next teacher isn't pretty, would you say something and ask for someone prettier? You can't do that, and they couldn't legally comply anyway, so sharing something like that isn't particularly helpful on anyway.

Dadenstein
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01 Jul 2014, 8:35 am

YippySkippy wrote:

I got a 1950's etiquette book at a garage sale when I was in high school. I thought I had all the answers to life for a while. :lol:

Here's a gem: "A lady on the left is not a lady." When a man and woman walk together, the woman is supposed to be on the right. I don't know how that works if the curb is also on the right.
I still get frustrated when people call my house and ask to speak to someone without first identifying themselves. It's supposed to be "Hello, this is X. May I please speak to Y?" Telemarketers never follow this format and I always have to resist the temptation to correct them before hanging up on them.

I've too noticed that people don't follow phone etiquette these days! It doesn't frustrate me but I was a little amused when it dawned on me. I was raised with "Hello, this is X. May I please speak to Y?" Another one is that when a family activity was happening you had to tell the person what was going on "We're eating dinner now can I call you back?" and then call them back and vice versa, however, people just keep talking to you during their dinners or meals now. It is weird. I also remember, and this is probably just me, being allowed or told to answer the phone at relatives of close family friends houses and answering like this "Hello, [Family X]'s house!" and then giving the phone to whoever they asked for or taking a message. I always though it was fun to answer their phone.

I also remember learning the rules for walking in public, from my grandfather, and they way he put it was exactly as you put it above. EXCEPT, he clarified that you should always be to the outside when cars are present as a male. So that you get struck and die first (and potential save the lady)! He said you can switch her back to your right as soon as you walk away from the curb.

I never realized all these little etiquette things people told me over the years as a child until I had my own kids.

Dadenstein
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01 Jul 2014, 8:41 am

Having reread the discussion here two things.

1) No way that should have been such a big deal what was said in the IEP. My son has the same preferences. It was a throw away line anyway. A joke more about your child than the teacher!

2) On being a lady and a gentleman. In my post two seconds ago I was talking about my grandfather, who also told me that being a gentleman meant not acting superior or better than other people but rather that acting like a gentleman meant making sure the people around you felt important to you. I assume the same thing counts for being a lady I guess too!

Adamantium
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01 Jul 2014, 9:36 am

pddtwinmom wrote:

What you said was actually ageist and sexist, in my opinion, but not ill-intended.

Quote:

If the teachers had responded to you, they would have been supporting an assessment that is inappropriate to make ij a professional setting.

Alternatively, they could have acted like intelligent, sensible, rational, compassionate human beings and just said something neutral like "Oh, I see." and moved on.

The silence reveals the depth of the culture's problems around these issues much more than it reflects on the content of her speech.

Quote:

The teacher in question probably doesn't want to think that the only reason that your son wants to he in her class is based on her physical characteristics.

Quote:

What if his next teacher isn't pretty, would you say something and ask for someone prettier?

pddtwinmom
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01 Jul 2014, 10:28 am

EDITED: Adamantium, please read everything within the quote box. I don't know how to work that feature yet, so many of my responses are embedded there after yours. I'll try to figure out how to reformat in a bit.

Adamantium wrote:

pddtwinmom wrote:

What you said was actually ageist and sexist, in my opinion, but not ill-intended.

I disagree. She reported something about her very young son's socially naive preferences. It makes no sense for adults to judge other adults because of the childishness of their children or to impute prejudice to the parent because of the tastes of the child!

Okay, we disagree. I don't believe the OP is prejudiced, btw. But making off-handed comments about preferences around gender, appearance, sexual orientation, race, age etc will be perceived that way if there is no meaningful reason for the statement. That's true even if you're describing someone else's preferences.

Quote:

If the teachers had responded to you, they would have been supporting an assessment that is inappropriate to make ij a professional setting.

Alternatively, they could have acted like intelligent, sensible, rational, compassionate human beings and just said something neutral like "Oh, I see." and moved on.

"Oh, I see." is just as dismissive. Uncomfortable silence, or a neutral "Oh, I see." - what difference does it make? It still is an indication of a social gaffe.

The silence reveals the depth of the culture's problems around these issues much more than it reflects on the content of her speech.

How so? It was an inappropriate statement. They let the moment pass and moved on. Should they have stopped to have a long discussion about it?

Quote:

The teacher in question probably doesn't want to think that the only reason that your son wants to he in her class is based on her physical characteristics.

And the fact that the boy likes attractive young women more than men doesn't mean that he only likes them for those characteristics. If the teachers are really thinking this way, they need to refocus on the kids and their development.

True. But, the first question the OP asked was if she was young and pretty. This indicates that this was her first thought as to why he would like her. She didn't ask about her patience or friendliness. The OP is the one who communicated that young and pretty trumped everything else in her son's mind. Sure, they may not be the only reasons why he might like her, but the OP did imply that they were the dominant reasons. That speculation in and of itself is what makes the -isms apply.

Quote:

What if his next teacher isn't pretty, would you say something and ask for someone prettier?

There is nothing even remotely like this implied in the original words. Going off on extreme hypotheticals really doesn't add to understanding this situation. She just gave them some insight into her son's psychology and they were too intellectually clumsy to handle the information in a rational way.

Hypotheticals are very important in a situation like this - and this one wasn't extreme. The purpose of my posing them is to try to show the perspectives of the professionals in the room. They were likely trying to figure out why she shared that piece of information. To what end? How does it help them support her son? If it gives them insight into his psychology, then what actions do they take as a result? Keep him with a young and pretty teacher?

This was--contextually--a faux pas, but part of the context is adults who are not doing their jobs very well.

I disagree that they weren't doing their jobs very well. What did you want them to do? A simple comment was made that was inappropriate. On a scale from 1-10, the level was probably a 4. Not a big deal. There was an awkward moment, and everyone moved on. The professionals are still treating the mother kindly. No harm done. Just because something was done incorrectly doesn't mean the person who did it is a bad person, or that it's the other person's fault for being too sensitive. Every single person makes silly mistakes. I'm not sure why there's so much pressure on this thread to blame the school team.

OP - I don't think you should think about this for one more minute. We've all done it, no big deal. I don't think the school team thinks any less of you. It's just something that happens sometimes.

Tawaki
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01 Jul 2014, 10:49 am

mikassyna wrote:

Tawaki wrote:

The whole scenario was from THE SCHOOL'S POINT OF VIEW NOT ME.

At the beginning I wrote in (not me), the everything afterwards was how my school or most teachers in general would view your particular scenario.

I use the word *lady/ladies* and get my head handed to me when I forget.

My husband got screamed at, while we were in a mall, using the phrase, "look at all the young tarts standing there." He didn't realized "tart" is a sexually provocative word. The teens were about 15, in very short shorts with their butt cheeks hanging out. The couple behind us, yelled, "Dude, what the hell is wrong with you? Are you some sort of sick creeper? ".

I wanted to die, and my husband was confused. I had the unwanted pleasure of explaining what was wrong.

So no, I was not kicking you, just pointing out how the very PC universe of school views what you said. I don't think you said anything horrible. I'm sorry I wasn't very clear with how I wrote the response.

kraftiekortie
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01 Jul 2014, 5:15 pm

She didn't do anything at all; I'd rate it a 0 out of 10.

Her little kid expressed a preference; that should have been seen as aa laughing "kids say the darndest things" moment

All this PC nonsense!

pddtwinmom
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01 Jul 2014, 5:42 pm

The kid didn't express a preference. The parent expressed what she thought was his preference. Kids do say the darndest things. This time the parent did, and the standard is different for adults.

And by the way, the school didn't say anything. Her husband did - he was there, saw the whole interaction, and is therefore in the best position to give an assessment of the dynamics in the room.

The OP has already acknowledged that the school team did a good job with the IEP. Why is the attitude so antagonistic towards them? They didn't do anything except stay silent. So what?

kraftiekortie
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01 Jul 2014, 6:42 pm

I don't feel antagonistic at all. I just felt like the situation was PC'd to death. People have to stop being so sensitive to every nuance.

It's true: nothing came of the supposed "ageism" and "sexism." The conversation quickly reverted to some other topic.

I hope the objective was met: an optimal IEP for the OP's kid.

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