Bad Teacher, Good Teacher, Great Teacher

Nobody has ever measured the harm done on children who have a bad, really bad, teacher. The younger the child, the more the harm, and parents are usually unaware of the enormous stress placed upon their son or daughter. A bad teacher is much like a bad priest or its equivalent, a preacher or minister, except that the first sees and interacts with this child five days a week. Just imagine being subject to scorn and ridicule for a whole school year; the other students, who miss nothing, quickly notice that their classmate is being harassed by their teacher. Whose side do they take? Of course, the guy or the lady who gives them grades, the adult in the room who can cause havoc at home with one phone call.

The Challenge of Becoming an Adult

Every new high school student must focus, from the very start, on the transition to the "real" world. Parents play a vital role in this quest for self-sufficiency as a young adult. As a teacher of academically challenged teens, I have the great responsibility, established and supervised by the State, of making sure my students are placed in the right career path. I need the constant cooperation of the mother, a times the father is able to participate, in order to give these young people a chance to survive the challenges of getting a job, founding a family, and setting goals for constant self-improvement.

Very Special Kids

About 10% of students suffer from what we call in education Learning Disability (LD), a puzzling but detectable brain malfunction that makes it very difficult for kids to process academic information. It is often confused with low I.Q. unfortunately as most students enjoy a normal level of intelligence. Another more "popular" disability is dyslexia, which is strictly related to reading as students do not perceive letters and words "normally". Parents of such children should pay close attention to these diagnoses obtained through a series of verbal and non-verbal tests. They should ask to see the detailed results and if they note something amiss, they must request a re-test by a different agency. That is their right, at least in public education schools.