Girls being girls

LegacyUser

My daughter came home from school on Tuesday and told me that her teacher wanted my daughter and all the other girls in her class to write a letter of apology to the teacher and to all the boys in the classroom because of the goings on during lunch break.

SO background
There are 21 boys and 7 girls in the class. They are in 5th class. During lunch break the girls are asking the boys to go out with them, This consists of the girls writing notes and a messenger (who happens to be my lass) giving the notes and taking the replys back to the girls.
Anyhow the boys were upset and in my daugthers words "ratted" on them, and teacher then requested the letter to apologise to the boys and to teacher.

Now I felt uncomfortable with this on many levels and told my daughter she would not be writing this letter. I explained to her that this behaviour is inappropriate during school time, but to just forget about it that I would deal with send a letter.

So I wrote a letter out today, Firstly asking teacher to explain further what was going on and then stating that I did not think it would benefit my daughters personal development in having her apologise for something that comes naturally to little girls. I told teacher that I did explain to my daughter that it was inappropriate behaviour and that the contents of this letter was not disclosed to my daughter.

So my poor daughter comes out of the school mortified today. She was called to principles office to be grilled on the goings on. The teacher was showing all the other teachers the letter- I asked her how she knew this and she said was your letter the one with the jagged side.. which it was.

The teacher also went on to say that she hopes that she does not get her class next year.

I mean, this is a bit OTT. I havent heard anything back from the school..

Anyone else have comments?

jelly&icecream

Sounds like you made a mountain out of a molehill over the whole thing tbh. You say yourself that it was inappropriate behaviour for school. Why stop her from writing the short apology letter like everyone else? If you'd let her the whole thing would have blown over and that would be that.

miss no stars

Why exactly did they have to appologise to the teacher?

As for the boys... it's part of growing up. Teacher should butt out and recognise that the hormones are starting to flow and that until about 12 or 13, everything is done on a messenger basis ("Will you meet my friend?"). Is there anything beyond them just sending messages to the boys asking them out? Cos if there isn't, I'd be asking the school why they were intimidating a child in that manner.

Discipline is fine and well but christ, pick your battles and be fair and impartial. It's not like your daughter refused to write it, YOU told her not to and if they have an issue with that they should be talking to you, not bullying a 10/11 year old child.

thesimpsons

girls have been asking out boys and vice versa in the yard since school began - teacher shouldn't have made such a big deal about it. Probably have been better if teacher had turned it into a lesson on growing up, maturity etc (don't know what this subject is called these days - SPHE ??) Also don't feel its right of the principal to grilll a child for an action that a parent took - in this case you wrote the letter and stated why you didn't want your child writing an apology, even though your daughter was willing to do so. The principal should have taken the matter up with you, not your child. I'm not one of those parents who believes my kids can do no wrong and normally I have no problem with a school disciplining a child within reason but I don't believe this is a reasonable discipline in the least. A teacher or a principal humilating and upsetting a child because of something her mother did is not reasonable discipline. I fully support you anon mom.

smelltheglove

I agree and disagree for the following reasons. The teacher in my opinion has made a mountain out of a molehill to quote someone above. It is a normal thing for children to do, I remember this all starting in my class at around 6th class. I think being called to the principals office is unfair and possibly intimidating for the child at a stage when puberty is just starting to hit this is the time when girls dont like to be picked out from the crowd.

The thing I disagree with is telling your daughter not to write the letter, my reason for this is discipline and respect. Your daughter needs to respect her teacher to follow the teachers lead, going above the teachers head like this may cause her to loose respect for the teacher. I would certainly have written the letter or even spoke to the teacher or principle about the matter all the while leading my daughter to believe that the teacher is correct in demanding an apology to the boys for making them feel uncomfortable. Sorry is a hard word for many people and this may be the teachers way of showing the girls that sometimes apologies need to be made, if they were writing letters to the boys then sure isnt an apology via letter the right way to go about it.

Just to finish, I do understand your grievance and why you would approach the teacher about it but I think the punishment should have been respected in order for your daughter to retain her respect for the school and the rules the school holds.

Ickle Magoo

anon mom wrote: »

Now I felt uncomfortable with this on many levels...

Out of interest, why did this make you uncomfortable on many levels?

miss no stars

smelltheglove wrote: »

Just to finish, I do understand your grievance and why you would approach the teacher about it but I think the punishment should have been respected in order for your daughter to retain her respect for the school and the rules the school holds.

While I agree with the vast majority of what you've said, is 10/11 not the right time to start telling kids to think for themselves and to be aware when someone in authority is NOT right? Just because they have power doesn't mean they're right and blind submission isn't a great lesson to teach any child entering their teenage years. Just cos the crowd does it doesn't mean they should :eek:
Respect for teachers, rules and school is fine. I'm all for it and 99% of the time I have no problem with rules or people in authority. However, sometimes people in authority screw up (they're human too) and it's important to be able to tell when those times are otherwise you'd be a doormat. However, respect should be mutual and people in power should be aware that their implementation of rules MUST be fair and not heavy handed, as it was in this case. Besides, when was giving notes to boys against school rules? :eek:

Jesus when I think of the notes we had going around at that age!

I think the OP is dead right as they're teaching their child the difference between right and wrong. It was wrong to send the notes but it was equally wrong for the teacher to want written appologies for something so petty and frankly, something so age appropriate.

smelltheglove

miss no stars wrote: »

While I agree with the vast majority of what you've said, is 10/11 not the right time to start telling kids to think for themselves and to be aware when someone in authority is NOT right? Just because they have power doesn't mean they're right and blind submission isn't a great lesson to teach any child entering their teenage years. Just cos the crowd does it doesn't mean they should :eek:
Respect for teachers, rules and school is fine. I'm all for it and 99% of the time I have no problem with rules or people in authority. However, sometimes people in authority screw up (they're human too) and it's important to be able to tell when those times are otherwise you'd be a doormat. However, respect should be mutual and people in power should be aware that their implementation of rules MUST be fair and not heavy handed, as it was in this case. Besides, when was giving notes to boys against school rules? :eek:

I knew this would come up:o

At this age yes the child should be able to realise that there are extreme cases where you could question if the disciplinary action is right, I would not consider this to be one of those extreme cases, maybe the aftermath would be questionable, i.e. blatantly showing off the note to other teachers, being called to the principals office etc but not the actual request of writing a letter. I suppose its a slightly grey area but I would rather my child know that they should accept the punishment the teacher deems appropriate unless it is something that makes them feel uncomfortable on a personal or physical level, whereas this being a group punishment with nothing personal or physical about it I wouldnt be inclined to advise my child to disobey it.

LegacyUser

Jelly = I dont see the point in making her apologise for something that is not wrong.


I am not a parent who thinks that my child can do no wrong, I am quite strict and when she is out of line she is reprimanded.

I did not discuss what I wrote in the letter to my daughter, I just told her that she didnt have to write a letter to the teacher. That I would write a letter for her and I even put it in a sealed envelope so that she could not sneak a peek.
If I felt that my daughter was in the wrong, if she had of been bullying or harrassing kids with notes, She would have written that letter of apology... but to apologise for being the messenger of a "will you go out with ...?" letter, is bull.


Ickle; On many levels

No 1 , I dont think what she was doing was wrong.
No 2, She is exploring her sexuality (as in being a female). to be told that its wrong is a bit backwards
No 3, Teacher should have sent a note home to me if there was a major problem
No 4, It is not right to publicly humiliate the girls in front of the boys.. as the letters of apology were to be addressed to the boys as well as the teacher, seeing as there is a majority of boys in the class, this unfair.


I dont usually butt into my daughters affairs, But on certain things I think she needs to feel that she has her mammy behind her..

miss no stars

Yeah you're right, it's not that extreme a case (until they started intimidating the child).

I guess it's just all the stuff in the news about kids in the past being abused that it makes me so angry that for so so long there was an attitude of priests and teachers having been untouchable pillars of society, incapeable of doing wrong (even when they were wrong) and parents not standing up for their kids when they've done nothing to deserve the punishment they get.

So then when you see in this day and age that a group of adults would intimidate a child because their parent is standing up for them :mad: just makes my blood boil. Take it up with the parent. In other words, pick on someone your own size.

byhookorbycrook

My ten cents. 5th class is early for this kind of craic,this might surface towards the end of 6th normally. There's over a whole year left in primary and the school may want to stamp this out right now.
In your own words, they are "little girls." If the boys are feeling threatened or intimated by this then yes, the school is right to put a stop to it. Not sure if I'd have looked for a written apology though. (Although perhaps the class teachers wanted parents aware of what is going on,by having the hild put it in writing?)

Someone here said "choose your battles." I think if I had an issue with how the incident was handled, that I would have made an appt with the teacher and discuss it "adult to adult."
Might be the thing to do now and to try and get both sides working together ,rather than pulling against each other.

Nevyn

What was the content of the note?
Is note passing forbidden by the school?
Was the content of the note said to be bulling or sexual harasshement or inapropriate?
What do you mean by exploring her sexuality, she's in 5th class?

Girls should not be flexing claws and targeting boys in thier class, they should respect all the class mates equally and anything which happens in the school which stops another child from learning or takes from the learning enviroment the school has to tackle.

I had an issue with one of the girls in my son's class calling him a pervert as she in his in line of sight while sitting at is desk between him and the window and he's prone to staring at the window and day dreaming, her comments were unsettling the entire class.
She was told that was not a term to use in school and the seating plan for the class was changed.

Your should be teaching your daughter not to be anyones cats paw, and that school like work is not the place for that sort of thing.

LegacyUser

I have never heard that note passing was forbidden.
As far as I know the notes state "will you be

---

's boyfriend?

Exploring her sexuality as in her femininity... Being rejected by boys is part of this.

As stated it was during lunch, not during class. I have told her that her behaviour is inappropriate.

She was the only girl to be called to the office and the teacher was quizing her, even though I stated clearly in my letter that my daughter was unaware of its contents.

Nevyn

As you daughter was the one to hand the note over to hte boys only she could say who else was invovled and who's idea it was and who wrote the notes so it's not surprising she was questioned.

It could be that the school has not had to deal with the likes of this before or for this class/age group. Children are developing earlier and are more sexualised due to the impact of the media, which throws up new challenged for parents and teachers.

deisemum

Regarding the original incident I think the teacher used a sledgehammer to crack a walnut approach, whatever about reprimaning the girls well that's one thing but maybe the written apology is a bit extreme but in the end if it were me I'd have made my child write the note and use it as an opportunity to teach her that life is not always fair and that sometimes you just have to get on with it. I cannot see any reason why any of the girls should have apologised to the teacher though.

If I sent a note into the teacher and then found out that the teacher went around the place bitching about the note and then had my child bullied over it I'd be straight into the principal about it. That is so wrong. I think that teacher is bang out of order and from what you've posted she's coming across as very unprofessional and a bully. Also if after speaking with the principal and the issues concerning the teacher are not dealt with then I'd be putting a complaint in writing to the BOM plus I'd also keep a daily account of how the child is treated in school.

jelly&icecream

Some of the boys obviously felt uncomfortable enough to tell the teacher. I'd imagine if one of the boys asked you daughter to do something she was uncomfortable with you would expect them to be reprimanded in some way. They are only around 10 or 11 after all. Maybe your daughter is already to get into all this stuff but I'd imagine it puts alot of pressure on the kids who arent?
Obviously the teacher wants to stamp out this "kissing behind the bikeshed" or whatever it is. I think that once the teacher has been told about this they have to be seen to take some action on it. The teacher probably could have dealt with it better but this is what they chose to do and I think it would have been easier for all involved if you daughter had of wrote the one line letter.

Amazotheamazing

OP, you don't seem too bothered about the boys feelings in all this? Kids will be kids, but if your kid is (effectively) bullying another kid, regardless of gender, then she should apologise.

You seem to see it as harmless, clearly the boys in this instance didn't.

Miss Lockhart

I think this situation has been handled badly on all sides.

I think teaching children to question authority and "stand up for themselves" should be done very carefully - especially at this young age.

Personally, I think the most mature and responsible approach would have been to help your daughter write a letter explaining that while she was only playing and clearly meant no offence, she was sorry if her behaviour had caused any upset for the boys. I don't think it is "wrong" to apologise for upsetting someone whilst aknowledging that you don't think you did anything wrong - especially once you have discussed the issue and realised the behaviour is not, as you said yourself, appropriate for school.

doctor evil

Anon Mom wrote: »

Exploring her sexuality as in her femininity... Being rejected by boys is part of this.

Femininity and sexuality are two different things.

we'llallhavetea_old

i'm interested to know how the boys approached the teacher about this. if they were genuinely upset, then i guess the teacher was right to ask the girls to write an apology.

op i think you over reacted before you knew all the facts.

personally, i would have asked my daughter to write the apology. an apology for possibly upsetting other pupils.

then i would have spoken to the teacher over the phone or face to face, and asked her what actually happened, just to find out if she was/wasn't overeacting.

silverharp

good points above. Boys are unlikely to go to a teacher over girls passing notes to them. There must be more to this? All I can say is fair play to the boys for speaking up when there must have been some level of embarrassment involved

LegacyUser

Listen I know I only have one side of the story here. The first thing I wrote in the letter was that I wanted the teacher to explain what happened and why my daughter had to write the letter.

I am still none the wiser as the teacher did not reply by letter, by phone call or by requesting to meet me. As stated they approached my daughter even though I told them that she was unaware of the contents of the letter.

I dont know what was in the notes.
I dont know how it affected the boys.


Therefore I cannot comment on them.

I did not tell my daughter to question authority. I told her that note passing in school is inappropriate... I instructed her not to write a letter.

I am the one questioning their authority... Read my posts.

I have a meeting scheduled for Tuesday, As I think the air needs to be cleared. I

Nevyn

I've had to send notes in to school over issues and at this stage I have given up.
I just have to go down there and talk to the head misstress and then the teacher.
And I have never gotten a reply, for some reason they refuse to reply to letters
and trying to use email, pff forget about it.

Ickle Magoo

Anon Mom wrote: »

Jelly = I dont see the point in making her apologise for something that is not wrong.

I am not a parent who thinks that my child can do no wrong, I am quite strict and when she is out of line she is reprimanded.

I did not discuss what I wrote in the letter to my daughter, I just told her that she didnt have to write a letter to the teacher. That I would write a letter for her and I even put it in a sealed envelope so that she could not sneak a peek.
If I felt that my daughter was in the wrong, if she had of been bullying or harrassing kids with notes, She would have written that letter of apology... but to apologise for being the messenger of a "will you go out with ...?" letter, is bull.

Surely she has to take some kind of responsibility? She didn't have to be party to the whole shenanigans, she didn't have to deliver the letters, she could have questioned content and I'm sure getting a letter from a girl & being told which boy to give it to, it's not too hard to work out what's going on. I'm not sure why you think she's the innocent party here just because she was "the messenger".

Anon Mom wrote: »

Ickle; On many levels

No 1 , I dont think what she was doing was wrong.
No 2, She is exploring her sexuality (as in being a female). to be told that its wrong is a bit backwards
No 3, Teacher should have sent a note home to me if there was a major problem
No 4, It is not right to publicly humiliate the girls in front of the boys.. as the letters of apology were to be addressed to the boys as well as the teacher, seeing as there is a majority of boys in the class, this unfair.

I dont usually butt into my daughters affairs, But on certain things I think she needs to feel that she has her mammy behind her..

I think it's a very odd punishment to set but I don't think it's entirely without merit and I think you have turned it into a much bigger deal than it ever had to be.

I don't think she's being told exploring her sexuality is wrong, she's being told sending notes in school regarding relationships is inappropriate.

Sometimes schools don't just send notes home because they want to make sure that it is actually dealt with and the importance of the message gets across. As you have shown here, sometimes parents put very little importance on an issue that the school rate as serious.

I think it might be a bit embarrassing to have their letter sending scheme made public but I'm not sure I'd class it as public humiliation, certainly no more so than being handed a "will you be my boyfriend" letter in front of your mates - and perhaps that's the point the school are trying to make?

Having mammy behind you is great, in this instance I think I would have just helped her write the letter and had her learn her lesson like everyone else and taken up any other issues I had with the people concerned myself, rather than have my child face the consequences for refusing a school punishment I'd refused to let them do.

dolliemix

You sent a note in with your child fair enough. But you had already told your child that she will not be writing a letter as the teacher had requested - undermining the teacher!

It is unclear what happened in the classroom.....but it sounds to me that notes being passed in such a way could isolate some children. The teacher could have just been trying to stop this behaviour. It could be school policy. It's all well and good to say your child was 'exploring her sexuality' but the teacher is trying to encourage an environment where all children feel they're involved in the 'learning experience'. Anyway, giving a note to a boy saying 'will you go out with x"? is huge pressure on the little boy. I can't believe that you can't see it from this point of view. Your daughter handed him the note so she is not innocent in all of this. The problem here is that you believe your daughter did nothing wrong without hearing the full story. You should have talked to the teacher in person instead of sending an inpersonable note saying that your child will not be doing as the teacher asked.

I would agree with the teacher, passing notes like this can be a very subtle form of bullying. How would you feel if your daughter was coming home upset because she was the only child not getting a note? Or that a boy in the class put on the spot infront of her classmates. I would think the teacher was completely in the right at that stage to get involved and act accordingly. Teachers are trained professionals, who see the whole picture. They can pre-emt situations and try and make school life as easy as possible for ALL children (not just your child). I think you should have respected that in the first place.



However, it sounds like the staff, acted completely inappropriately and unprofessionally as a result of your letter. They're obviously really annoyed at your lack of support and understanding. While, I believe you reacted wrongly initially, and you were hugely unsupportive of the school, your daughter should not have been put in that position.

You've every right to be upset about that!