The Power of Negative Blogging

A disturbing trend of parent suing teachers is getting worse. Its bad enough we don’t pay our teachers nearly enough but now parents are driving the good ones, who look past the salary, away from teaching. Parents refuse to accept that their precious little snowflake may not be as brilliant as they think they are. A little negative thinking like accepting your child has problems with certain subjects in school or maybe it’s not the teachers fault that the other 20 some odd kids are passing and little Trevor or Austin or Hannah is not may lie in the fact that we all have subjects we’re good in and other we’re not. Look at this article from Canada’s National Post:

A British Columbia father has sued his son’s Grade 2 Montessori teacher claiming that she “purposely and maliciously worked to damage the self-esteem” of his son over such things as failing to encourage the child’s spelling, not sending home a daily homework list and, in one case, displaying an unfinished poem in the school hallway.

The lawsuit, which a judge recently ruled would be heard by the B.C. Supreme Court, is one example of a growing trend of parents who, unhappy with their children’s education, take their complaints to court. But it is also a sign of the extended reach of parental meddling. Increasingly, teachers are being challenged in court, in cases that accuse them of everything from emotional distress to victimization for offences that range from handing out low marks to punishing too harshly.

This latest case involves Kenneth H. Finkelstein, a management consultant in Victoria who is suing his son’s private school teacher for “intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

In a statement of claim first filed in court last fall, Mr. Finkelstein said that his son “suffered and will continue to suffer loss and damages” — including anguish, suffering, humiliation, embarrassment, anxiety, worry and loss of dignity –because Susan Rialp, the boy’s teacher at Selkirk Montessori School, did not make him do his homework or coax his reading and comprehension, and in one case, put his unfinished poem in a hallway for all to see. Ms. Rialp “falsely created and attempted to reinforce artificial differences between his son and his peers and falsely asserted the son exhibits behavioural difficulties,” according to the writ.

I believe the parents are supposed to make children do their homework while teachers are supposed to make them do their schoolwork. And putting up unfinished work…well…the teacher would have been harassed if she hadn’t put the poem up. I doubt this teacher was creating and reinforcing artificial differences. Aren’t all differences artificial if you don’t like said difference?

Walter Olson, a litigation expert and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, said that schools have been sued for discrimination for such offences as barring children from sports teams, but increasingly, he is seeing teachers being sued for classroom management style, even at schools like Montessori, where there are no textbooks or grades and pupils work at their own pace on self-directed projects.

Although few cases are successful, Mr. Olson says the new breed of litigation-happy parents are stigmatizing the teaching industry, and spoiling kids in the process.

“You send a terrible signal to people who are teaching that we no longer trust your judgment,” he said in an interview.

In May, 2002, an Arizona high school student sued her English teacher one day before senior graduation because the teacher had failed her. A parents’ letter stated unless “whatever action is necessary to correct this situation” was taken, they would file a lawsuit. In Canada, the parents of a former student filed a $200,000 lawsuit against the Ottawa Montessori School last April for negligent, abusive and “emotionally scarring” guardianship for failing to protect a student from bullying.

Similar issues will arise in a Montreal courtroom next Tuesday, when a teacher at Westmount’s prestigious Roslyn School will face the first of two lawsuits by aggrieved parents.

Hagop Artinian and Kathryn Rosenstein are seeking $155,000 in damages for their son Mathew in a suit that claims the nine-year-old spent his year at Roslyn feeling “fearful and constantly victimized” by Mary Kanavaros, his teacher. It alleges that Ian suffered long-term effects, including a facial tic that still appears when he discusses Grade 4.

Now not all cases of “teacher abuse” are unjustified:

In the second suit, Jennifer Jones is claiming $170,000 in damages, alleging the same teacher systematically discouraged, disparaged and screamed at her son three years ago.

Ms. Jones claims the teacher humiliated her son in front of the class by holding up his work, crumpling it and throwing it in the garbage. The latest lawsuit also accuses the teacher of ignoring the bullying of the boy by another pupil and falsely blaming his son for the abuse, but the main thrust of the lawsuit appears to focus on the significant impact on the boy’s self esteem.

Mr. Finkelstein accused Ms. Rialp of “falsely and outrageously attempting to ascribe behavioural problems” to his son just before the boy was transferred out of her class.

I think this author has it right:

David Anderegg, author of Worried All the Time: Overparenting in an Age of Anxiety, believes the flurry of recent lawsuits often speaks to parental misconceptions about self-esteem, which is getting a second look as academics appraise a generation of self-absorbed competitors.

“I think it speaks to parents’ tremendous misplaced anxiety that they need to protect their children from adversity of any kind,” says Prof. Anderegg, who teaches psychology at Bennington College in Vermont.

“There is research that demonstrates that, just like our grandparents taught us, adversity is actually good for children. A little bit of adversity which is overcome is a good thing, rather than having a childhood where you never experience any adversity of any kind.”

Children need to know that rewards come from doing something correct…not for just doing something. Life is not a series of participation medals. Just being involved isn’t good enough. It’s the most basic step. You can’t be great at everything and its okay if you’re not. But you can’t expect success and improvement just from attendance. There needs to be work involved and it’s not always the teacher’s fault.

At this rate we won’t have anything but bad teachers left.