the comfort of ice cream or why we're looking for a new school

so weird how one thing going wrong can weigh you down completely and drive you to crave ice cream, which is arguably better than driving you to drink. and by you, you may have guessed, i mean me.

we're well into the second week of school around here. at the end of last year, there was a a bit of trouble with her homeroom teacher (i wrote about it here). after the mail of the mixed metaphors from the principal, there was silence and nothing really changed. then came the summer holiday and the silence stretched on. then came the first week of school. on the first day, the same teacher was there in homeroom, tho' they announced that she would be moved to the special education class and a new teacher would be taking over the class. that teacher wasn't there yet for the first week (tho' it's unclear why), but the regular schedule wasn't in place yet either, so that was more or less ok.

but as the week progressed, the stories i heard each evening painted a more and more worrying picture. students being told to start behaving like responsible, mature young people in one breath and not being allowed to stand up and plug in their computer (which they are required to have with them in school since the school does not provide computers) without raising their hand to ask. which is it? do you want them to behave responsibly and act for themselves or do you want them to sit down and shut up? you can't have it both ways.

i also heard tales of a student who used to love math, but nearly cried in frustration during a long-winded explanation by a teacher who apparently didn't notice that all motivation and desire to learn was draining from the students as he droned on and on. and i heard stories of a young teacher who has reached a point where his back is so against the wall that the slightest question from students makes him defensive and he sends them out into the hall. it is, in short, a series of stories of a school in crisis.

on top of it, the school has fostered an environment where if you're the best at something (e.g. english), it's not ok to say that or show that. but instead, you have to hide in the crowd and pretend you don't know. i brought this issue to the attention of a number of teachers last year, but nothing changed.

and lastly, there are new school reforms being implemented, with longer school days and apparently, in the case of our school, less breaks - they have one break in the middle of the day, but otherwise, no breaks mid-morning or afternoon (tho' other schools seem to have managed to put together a schedule that gives kids a breather). odd, i take breaks during my work day, to go to the bathroom or grab a cup of coffee or just have a little breather, so why wouldn't kids be even more in need of breaks to help them refresh and be able to concentrate? you'd think people who work with kids would know this.

there are half-hearted attempts to supposedly make things better and create a better atmosphere, but they are too little, too late. for some reason, the bad leadership is convinced the class is the problem, not the teachers, tho' this same class was the most harmonious one with the best class environment when they left the elementary school at the end of sixth grade. six people have already left the class - moving to other schools and even going to efterskole a year early, but apparently the leadership doesn't see this as a big, flashing red light. and now, we too are looking for a new school for sabin, because this isn't good.  i don't want her to be demotivated and uninterested in learning because of weak teachers and bad school leadership which doesn't have the sense or ability or wherewithal to support their teachers properly in good time. i'll admit i find it very disheartening and tho' moving her is a big step, the situation is really that bad.

i do realize these are luxury problems compared to race crimes committed by police officers in missouri and journalists being beheaded by terrorists, but this does loom large in our little world.

what would homer do?

i came home to an email from the school principal today. i've written previously about the shocking lack of communication skills displayed in these emails and today's was no exception. if i were working on a ph.d. in rhetoric, these mails would be absolutely fascinating. as it is, i'm a parent of a child who is in a class with what is essentially (and unfortunately) a really bad, weak teacher, so the mail is more worrying than fascinating.

for some time now (school started in what, august, so approximately 9 months) this teacher has had trouble controlling the classroom. she hasn't been able to gain the respect of the students at all and they are often noisy and restless during her lessons (which are danish and history). oddly, this class seems to respect their other teachers, but that's curiously not mentioned in the mail from the principal.

today, this poor teacher apparently had enough and gave up and left the classroom in tears after saying to the class that they could just go home and laugh about her with their parents. when i heard that, i was definitely not laughing, as it seems to me to be a very sad and revealing statement from a frustrated teacher who feels desperately unsupported in her work. the kids reported that she went to the principal's office and had a good cry.

in the meantime, the principal came down to the class and sat them down and had a talk with them about, as near as i can tell from her email, soccer and drippy faucets. because vague metaphors really speak to the 7th grade mind.

the email assures us that she has turned off the drippiest of the faucets and that all will be just hunky dory going forward because the students have understood the gravity of...erm...leaky faucets. whether the school understands that they have a problem and need to give extra support to a teacher that's clearly floundering in her work is less clear. and whether they further understand that respect between students and teachers is something that must be earned or commanded through force of personality, is also unclear. actually, i'm being sarcastic; it's pretty clear that they don't understand that at all.

they also don't seem to have made the connection that this class, which is largely composed of the same students as it was last year, over at the elementary school, was not a problem then and isn't a problem for other teachers at the middle school. and that therefore, it stands to reason that maybe the teacher is the problem.

i don't want to kick someone when they're down, but a teacher who has struggled with what is arguably an easygoing group of young people for nine months without success clearly has a problem. when she begins airing the dirty laundry of personal problems at home in class, including that her son is hearing voices, and that she's struggling with health issues after a lung transplant, it is quite possibly the equivalent of waving a big red flag. young teenagers have enough troubles of their own dealing with puberty and all of the changes wrought by that, without having the unexplained symptoms of their teacher's child brought into the mix. what are they supposed to do with such information? how are they supposed to react? will it make them worry? will they wonder what it means? why on earth would you as the teacher tell that to your 13-year-old students? how can she not see how wildly inappropriate that is? why is the filter switched off (just to bring in a metaphor, ala the principal)? and why is the school not effectively supporting a teacher that's so clearly in need of some serious support?

but i'm not sure what i can do about it. i could write a mail to the principal, expressing my concerns and she'd fob off a few more dissertation-worthy metaphors on me and nothing would change. i could send her a link to this blog post, but she would probably just think i'm a big meanie (really, i'm trying to work out what i think about it, and this is how i do that).

i spent some time this evening, looking at the website of a nearby private school, as that's my way of feeling that i might be able to change things. but what i really want is for this school to clean up its act. i want them to start communicating in an honest and open way and face the problem head-on. and i want them to either provide a whole lot more support to this floundering teacher or i want them to remove her and promise me that she's not going to be my child's homeroom (and danish and history) teacher next year. in other words, i want them to grab hold of the reins. we pay an awful lot of taxes and frankly, they owe us that.

i don't know what homer simpson would do in such a case. i'm not sure he'd much notice. but if he did, i think he'd be fiercely loyal to his children and go in and demand the best for them, even if he did it a bit clumsily. so maybe i should do what homer would do. my own little lisa's future might very well depend upon it.

*like how i made that photo fit the post right there in the very last second? 

mediocrity with a dose of rudeness thrown in or just another friday in denmark

i know i've said it before, but it can be challenging dealing with the rudeness of danes in public spaces. they may be the world's happiest people, but you sure can't see it on them and they are, to all appearances, not even remotely interested in making sure those around them are happy too. especially on a friday afternoon. they all go into what i like to think of as their solipsism bubble and they close out any and all evidence that other humans, especially those they don't know, exist. i ran into several instances of it just today. but i shouldn't be surprised, because it is friday.

first encounter - i was pulling into a parking spot at the mall (i was there to pick up sabin's repaired new iPhone 4S, which was in for repairs) and there was someone pulling into the spot directly in front of me, so we were coming towards each other. and she just kept coming, to pull through into MY spot so that she was facing outwards. she was so aggressive about it, that although i was halfway in and had a perfect right to the spot, i actually backed up and let her do it. she didn't even wave or smile at me. and she wouldn't look me in the eye when i tried to give her a sarcastic thumbs up. she refused steadfastly to acknowledge my existence. it was all about her. happily, i was in a good place, so i shrugged it off and didn't let it ruin my day. i'm not always able to do that. it helped that she resembled a cow clad in a ratty-looking sheepskin vest.

second encounter - in a parking lot (the friday solipsism bubble is especially prevalent in parking lots) beside the bank. i had parked my car and was walking towards the bank when i had to suddenly stop because a car came roaring in from the road and, inches from my toes and nose, whipped into a parking spot that was to my left. as if i wasn't there. which, in the eyes of the woman driving, i wasn't, since we hadn't met one another before. because when you're in the danish solipsism bubble, people you didn't go to kindergarten with very conveniently don't exist.

this is the jerk from the third encounter, license plate and all.
i wish i'd had the foresight to photograph the jerk from the first one.

third encounter - in front of the child's school, there is parking, as you might imagine. you normally pull in nose first, front bumper of the car up to the curb. but there was a parent in a station wagon, at the "rush hour" for afternoon pickup, parallel parked there, across three spots and effectively blocking 5 in total, because it wasn't possible to park in front or behind. she was chatting away on the telephone, blissfully oblivious to the other parents who also needed to park. as if she were the only one in the world. solipsism. egotistical self-absorption.

but even before these parking lot encounters, i was feeling grumpy towards danish culture. in the form of two emails from the leadership of our local school.

in the first, the principal at the school took 374 words (i know this because i copy/pasted the email into pages so i could see a word count) to vaguely inform about something vague, at a long distance, through a fog. and i still have no idea what she was talking about, as it was filled with jargon, smoke and mirrors. reading the email was like stumbling into a theatre halfway through the movie and trying to figure out the plot. and i couldn't. and it was not because my danish is bad. it was because it utterly lacked communication skills. makes me wonder what they're teaching my child about writing and clear communication.

in the second, the superintendent (the who did such a good job (insert sarcasm font* here) of handling the whole bullying topic in recent weeks), sent us a mail with a new alcohol policy. i can appreciate that the school wants an alcohol policy, but the mail opened with the words, "Med udgangspunkt i at vi som skole altid skal tage udgangspunkt i den svageste part..." which translates as, "with a basis in the fact that we as a school must always have a basis in the weakest link..." because yes, that's what you want to hear from your school, that they cater to the lowest common denominator and see it as their mission. and even better when it's inelegantly written. again, are they passing these writing "skills" on to our children? *weep*

i am feeling a little tired of mediocrity handed my way with a dose of rudeness. some days it's easier to handle than others. today wasn't one of those days.


* which one is the sarcasm font, by the way?