My inflexibility over a trivial issue makes me a bad parent

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I got a story to tell as well. My fourth grade teacher was trying to claim the deepest ocean in the world was the Atlantic which was not. It is the Pacific because of the Mariner's Trench. Guess what? He announced to the class that we weren't allowed to correct him at all. WTF??

Please refer to my entire list of adjectives above in response to your story, LOL

It amazing how teachers can teach inaccurate information. I had a history teacher who kept giving out inaccurate information and I was always correcting her. I found out as an adult she hated it so her husband had her turn it into a game and she would always go through her lessons before class and go through the facts first before teaching to see how least I will correct her. That was the story my mom told in a restaurant because she had ran into my old teacher and she told her that story. I just happened to have looked through the whole history textbook and was fascinated by the facts but whenever she would contradict it, I would always question it and she saw it as a correction.

First, I would not call myself a member of the rule-following, authority-respecting contingent. I follow rules that make sense to follow and respect authority that has earned respect. I just see that there are many reasons why a rule may make sense to follow, even if the rule itself is "stupid."

I do think I must be failing to communicate my point.

However,

In this statement, you have a true argument about why an exception should be made for your son, IMHO. This is related to how his disability impairs his ability to show what he knows, not about your personal opinion about the teacher's teaching methods.

If he fails to write what he knows because writing is difficult (in the long way), then they are not evaluating him based on what he knows, but rather--inadvertently--on his disability. That is a very different scenario then you saying "I do not agree with the way the teacher is teaching, therefore, my son should not have to comply with the standards set forth because I, personally, find them stupid."

That is what I meant when I said that if a child's inability to do something is related to their disability, then an accommodation should be made.

I was a bit upset, yesterday and hat problems expressing myself in an empathic way. I DO understand that you are f****d up, when falsely accused of something. But I think when venting about such stuff, they simply dont see the big picture. They think that they are caring for themselves, when fighting for the ultimate truth, but in reality if you are fighting blindly, without a benefit/misadvantage ratio for the ultimate truth, the only thing you comfort is the ultimte truth, but not yourself. And the ultimate truth is a theoretical thing, so it cant feel better or worse, while you as an human can.

Actually I am working on an building site, that goes horribly. Our company chiefs did failures when describing the contract, so tons of work we do is now done by us below price. So in the statistic of costs, the building sites is horrible, and every 2 weeks I am blamed (its my job to care for creating bills of our building sites on times, so they are balanced), why I dont care for that building site, and why I am so late with my work, that there is such a great malus on it. I am not late, but due to our company chief failures, the building site simply is an catastrope, and it will end with an gigantic minus, so I simply CANT get it balanced. ^^

So the ultimate truth is: Our company chief didnt do his work, did not read the contract precisely, and has subscribed prises that are a complete catastrophe. And now he does not want to accept that, but tries to get me the blame for the s**t. ^^

And now I simply can do a benefit/misadvantage value: I can simply quit. That may benefit the ultimate truth, but would not benefit me, because the blaming I get every two weeks, when the new statistics are out, is far less trouble then getting a new job, specially, when I am in fourth month pregnance, so noone will newly hire me, and I will be in baby holidays anyway soon, so the chief simply shall talk to my imaginary hand until then. So I dont choose option 1.

Option 2 is: I can vent all day about my chief blaming me for his s**t while I do my work, and go home in the evening and then vent on while doing my housework and having my freetime.

Option 3: I do exactly the same, but without venting.

So from the two options that I have left, which one is the more logic one. The one in which I insist to be treated badly and vent all day, stressing me myself with that and ruining my freetime, or the one when I have exactly the same daily routine, but without venting additionaly, and stressing myself with it.

The thing is: Either I decide to DO something, or I dont. Out of the advantage/misadvantage thinking I have decided this time, that I wlll not do something about it. When it comes to other stuff, when my odds are better, I am deciding otherwise. But if I anyway have decided NOT do do something about it, then by logic there is no sense in venting about that topic, if the only result that I get by doing so, is ruining my own time by venting. My chief is not bothered, if I vent in my office or not. He will spend his time, just the way he planned without having any negative influence by me venting. Its me that is the only one negatively affected by me deciding to vent on my own.

So the desicion about not venting about that s**t, is not one that I do to comfort my chief, I dont give a f**k about him. ^^ Its one that I did to benefit ME. Maybe if the ultimate truth was a human being, she might now be sad and disappointed, because of me not bothering myself about her. But she is not an human being, so she cant be bothered. I CAN. And as you, the threadstarter described yourself, your son actually is too, because of his desicion to vent about that issue. So helping him to calm down, and not take that stuff so serious is not about comforting his math teachers, but actually to comfort your kid.

Its not about giving up in every situation, but its simply about deciding in every situation that might accure to him in future, if something is worth the issue or not. And that if its not, then its as well not worth the issues of ruining your own free time by venting about it for days, without any result, then to have ruined your free time by venting.

Sorry, if I was yesterday so harsh. What I wanted to say is, that out of my oppinion the only negative effect of giving in to your teacher (Simply using that way of expressing word in class.) simply is of so less impact for me, that it simply does not match up with getting into troubles with the teacher about that or deciding to vent about that for days, and so ruining yourself your free time.

Part of growing up is as well that getting in control of your feeling. A three year old getting in an stress situation, cant handle himself now, so he still misses the ability to control his feelings and to decide otherwise. But the older you get, the more you are able to handle your feelings and control them. And just as we start learning to handle our aggresitivity when we grow older (we simply dont smash around everything we get in hand and yell and scream as we did as younger ones) the same you need and can and need to learn with other negative emotions, sooner or later. Not to comfort others, but to comfort ourselves.

You still have not understand our oppinion, or decide on purpose not to understand it. "The issue is not worth it." =/ "The teacher is always right." ^^ Its about "Choose your fights."

I realized something last night. This is no different than what they do earlier in math.

206 =2 hundreds, 0 tens, 6 ones.

No, no one says that. Ever. Someone would think you were crazy, or perhaps not even comprehend what you are saying. Because we don't say it that way. And I don't think parents mistake the teaching methodology with teaching kids the wrong way to say numbers, either. However, when you have no concept of 100's, 10's and 1's places, you must learn it, otherwise the adding will be nonsensical because you would never understand the concept of carrying. Also, you would not understand that the zero actually has a value, because "in the real world" kids think zero is a kind of absence.

So, we are back to Willard's post.

I guess it depends on what you want your kids to get out of primary school. Other than basic reading, writing and math you'd probably hope your kids just managed to get through primary school without starting to hate or fear it. It's mostly a social zoo where they get to interact with non related peers and an authority figure in the form of teachers. This is what they'll have to encounter in much harsher form as adults in a work environment. My job as a parent is to get my son through school with a few waves as possible while encouraging him to think for himself and achieve the best grades he can so he can level up to the next social jungles of secondary school, university and work. His teachers will hopefully help him get where he needs to be so there is no point antagonising them or creating friction in that relationship over little things.

Not really, because they presented this in homework that was about computation.

The fact is that you can't get the correct answer without already completely understanding relative place value. If you provide the correct answer, demonstrating an understanding of place value, what benefit is to be had in writing the answer in this form?

Worse yet, the teacher went on to explain the requirement not as "this is the way we'll do it this semester. You are right that this isn't the way people normally say or write numbers, but for the sake of this part of your learning, it's good to do it this way..." No.

Instead the man has to resort to claiming this is the one correct way to up these numbers in word form. It's like talking to a young earth creationist. All the world provides evidence to the contrary, but my son is supposed to pretend to believe this other thing on the evidence of, "because I said so."

This is what gets under my skin much more than the question of might there be an issue of this form being more difficult to write for my son. it's just so unnecessary to make this BS claim. It would be fine to say, "we are just doing it for this one unit while we are on this topic, you will then revert to the standard form-- I will give you credit for your correct answers, but for the next one please do it this way." But , no.

This was the behavior of an asinine martinet with megalomaniacal delusions of grandeur.

Yes, i suppose it is not really necessary to call it "stupid!"

It is harder to write this way and that was why my son wrote it the way your son did, on our worksheets. I basically told him it is fine but to make sure he recognizes the other way for when I give him a version of the standardized test, in case the other way is on it. (In my case, I don't mind him learning that way as an alternate to how regular people say it b/c we are working on flexibility right now, anyway. )

Honestly, they could have done that for your son, too b/c we all know the standardized test is the important thing.

This is excellent advice. I wish I could always follow it.

I am sorry to hear about the situation you describe at your job. Somehow they have given you responsibility for the errors of another, never a comfortable situation. Good luck with that!

The advantage your son can have is that he can understand BOTH sets of answers. He can have in his arsenal the Answer Option #1 and Answer Option #2, and have to determine which is the best answer for that particular circumstance. Most people only see one answer, and are thus limited. I think it is wonderful that your son has a father like you to explain to him the complexity of the world, and to provide him with the tools to navigate it. He will not blindly go through life accepting the status quo, and perhaps one day will be a pioneer who will change the way people see things--but now is not the time nor place, at least not this very minute. But you can grease his wheels, and remind him how special he is for having this unique gift of knowledge that others may never possess, and that he is destined for great things if he can use the information wisely.

It's difficult for me as well sometimes. The thing sometimes it's not worth the fight. There are bigger fish to fry meaning there are more important things to handle than this.

I agree with you, adamantium, the teachers are stooopid. I have seen many eggsamples of this type of stooopidity amongst the high sqoool teachers of the students I tutor. They require the stooopidest forms that no one uses in science and are useless for learning concepts, while leaving out the things that are useful for deep understanding of the concepts.

Thank you for these beautiful words, Mikassyna.

And thanks btbnyr! It makes me sad to see teachers take the beauty out of the subjects they are supposed to cultivate, and crush young spirits in the process. It's sad that you have seen it too, but good to have the sense of solidarity from a shared perception.

I lost it at "young earth creationist"!

Goshhhh the amount of teachers I had who were like this... AND school counselors. I'm convinced it's their way of coping with their humongous student debt and general disdain they're shown by most students.

Personally, Adamantium, your child's teacher would drive me cuckoo and I would refuse to comply. Have you considered speaking with the principal about this asinine "rule"? Or contacting the parents of other students? It might come down to writing a letter detailing your concerns.