Re: Questioning Classmates

[Guest guest]

Is handing in his homework a public thing? How do his classmates know?

Perhaps the teacher needs to have an " in " box and have the kids put their

homework in it as they come in to the room in the morning. I can't see why any

child

should have to be humiliated about their homework. I really hate the amount

of public shaming that goes on in most schools (putting kids' scores up on the

board, charts showing who has passed what math test, etc.). I can't see how

any of that helps anyone.

I wouldn't want to get confrontational about it, but in all honesty, I'd

say that your son's accomodations should be arranged to be completely

confidential, and having the rest of the class notice violates his rights. His

teacher

certainly should know that.

[Guest guest]

Bill,

I'm so sorry your son is having such a tough year. We had one like that

last year. This year, with a different teacher, our daughter is having few

problems. I hope you will have better luck next year!

BUT, in the meantime, you have to deal with this teacher. I was

considering whether your son could pass something in that looks similar... but

kids are

too smart for that. I think you should just have the principal ask the

teacher to stop having kids pass their papers in. I've forgotten what grade your

son

is in, but there has to be a better way.

Do you have a school psychologist? (I'm sorry to have forgotten details -

I know you've explained this before) We have found that having our school

psychologist step in can be helpful. We are lucky to have a decent school

psych.,

which is unusual. Having our doctor(s) call or write to the teacher was also

very powerful. They tend to bow before authority. I called a meeting last year

with the principal, school psychologist and the teacher and reviewed the

problems with them. I started by writing an angry e-mail to our school

psychologist explaining that the teacher was penalizing my daughter for her

problems and

asked HER to contact the principal and teacher. It worked. I know you've been

through this before, but you may have to explain loudly and clearly again that

your son has an ANXIETY DISORDER and publicly embarassing him is NOT HELPFUL.

Would that help at all?? I don't think I'd bother talking to the teacher

anymore. She isn't going to get it.

Hang in there. It will get better. My daughter had daily panic attacks

last year, complete with hours of vomiting, because of the school stress. This

year she hates weekends because school is so much more fun. She isn't doing

that well academically, but at least she is happy!

Best wishes,

in NV

[Guest guest]

His teacher

> certainly should know that.

>

,

Thanks for the input.

Not te be trite, but there are quite a number of issues we feel his

teacher certainly should know. Its quite a long and sordid story

thus far dealing with the teacher. I'll not go into it here.

Suffice to say, she seems quite incapable of thinking " outside the

box " when it comes to our son's issues.

Desks are grouped in small clusters...at the very least, I believe

they're asked to " pass their homework forward " or something like that

and the classmates in his immediate group at a minimum would notice

his lack of turning anything in. This is further complicated by the

fact of having the same teacher for every subject. It won't be until

next school year (assuming he survives THIS one), he'll have a

different teacher/different classmates for each subject.

That's what I think I know, anyway.

Bill

[Guest guest]

In most of my kids' classes, homework is exchanged and graded/marked

by classmates as they go over it. So that would be obvious if

someone wasn't doing their's. At least in middle school and now high

school, it's exchanged.

I once asked the math teacher about checking his own math

homework since he was about the only one who could read his writing.

I'd asked him how classmates read it and he said they ask him what he

wrote. I told the teacher that he's honest, and he really is.

Anyway, it was a " no go. "

Some years ago a parent took it to a higher court about grades being

so " public. " And I was really hoping the court would agree. It's

gotta affect self-esteem for sensitive kids; and/or affect what

others might think about them, etc. Anyway, court ruled for the

schools that nothing was wrong with it.

has said that when the papers are graded in some classes,

they're allowed to walk up and tell the teacher what the grade is if

they don't want to call it out.

> Is handing in his homework a public thing? How do his

classmates know?

> Perhaps the teacher needs to have an " in " box and have the kids put

their

> homework in it as they come in to the room in the morning. I can't

see why any child

> should have to be humiliated about their homework. I really hate

the amount

[Guest guest]

Hi,

I think had a good idea about having a box for kids to put

homework in. It wouldn't be a big deal for the teacher to change the

arrangement for all the kids. (Unless, as I said in previous post,

kids are exchanging and checking papers in class, then the classmates

would still know)

Also I would strongly emphasize that the current arrangement is

causing problems and making him " stand out " from the rest of the

class.

Others here might recall I had something similar happen with my son

last year in 8th grade. is allowed all the time he

needs to finish tests. Well, his twin, , was in his classes.

had told me that a couple of the teachers would hold up class

waiting for to finish his tests. After hearing this more

than once from , and saying how you could tell one teacher

seemed a little disgruntled by it from her expressions while waiting

on ; AND how classmates were commenting to each other or just

aloud or just looking towards with their own

expressions/rolling eyes ( & at least once a comment wondering why he

was in their class) - I got fed up and called the Office of Civil

Rights. I felt that the arrangement set up for being

harassed. And that he couldn't do his best job at testing knowing

the class was waiting on him; you'd think that would add a little

stress/anxiety, which is bad for OCD! And in a roundabout way, his

grades could be affected. But my main point was the setup for

harassment.

A miracle that the guy that answered at OCR had OCD himself (a

checker); and I told him the situation and also said that I couldn't

say that was aware of how the classmates felt or what they

said; he said that didn't matter. And seemed to feel as I did that

it was " setting him up " in a bad way and that I had a valid

complaint. And that I could go ahead and fill out an online form and

they would get on it soon as they weren't that busy! I held off and

told him I wanted to see if the school would cooperate first.

Well, I didn't mention my OCR call to the school but set up a meeting

and told them the arrangement for his extended testing time needed

changed and class should not be held up; so other options were

decided upon on how to handle it.

Anyway, I feel that your situation is similar to mine in that it's

setting up your son as " different " and pointing him out in a way that

is making classmates " question " why he is different, etc. Now if in

this situation no one was questioning it or bothering your son about

it, I'd say there was no problem. But since classmates are

commenting, I think the school needs to change the arrangement and

follow through in a way for ALL kids with similar accommodations in

the school.

OK - that's just my long 2-cents!

> So here we have what seems like a no-win situation.

>

> To relieve stress and meltdowns at home, we made temporary

> accommodations with the school that DS would not have any homework

> until the next grading period, and incremental re-introduction from

> there. It seemed like a workable plan and actually helped, at

> first. Now, DS's anxiety and stress each evening are growing in

> anticipation of going to school because his classmates are

[Guest guest]

As of this morning's visit with the therapist, it seems our best

option is for home-bound, school district administered education.

The homework hand-in process constitutes passing papers forward from

back to front, DS is mid-row. He claims a few people have asked him

about why he never has homework to turn in. We discussed having him

put his name on homework papers even if we didn't complete them, just

so he'd have something to turn in. Still a possiblity.

Therapist wrote an " Rx " for him to be out of school until after the

new year, just to try and get us through the holidays as stress-free

as possible.

We stopped the Anafranil as it seemed to make him

morose/depressed/despondent. We think we can avoid big blow-ups and

we still have the Xanax we're using.

Others have posted here already about the success they've witnessed

with their child and home-bound education. I think DS has a clearer

picture of what would be involved now and may be more accepting of it.

Hopefully, this buys us enough time to get meds and therapy working

in his favor. The therapist can't even start any sort of therapy yet

because his baseline anxiety is so incredibly high. So we sit and

wait for the meds to work and try to keep everything as low-stress as

practical without being completely subservient to an 11 y.o.

Bill