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Grade One and Field Trips
Towards the end of the grade one year, I was allowed to accompany the class on a field trip as a volunteer. I say allowed because in this case, it's the correct word. My son's teacher knew two things about my son: He was extremely 'challenging', and I understood him well. My understanding of my son, however, was a product of my home environment. Her classroom was obviously not our home; it was her space. She needed to be in charge of it, and she needed to handle my son in a way that allowed him to be integrated into the class's activities as much as he possibly could.
I know that some people think I'm a bit of a control freak. I accept this, because it's lamentably accurate in many cases. But not, oddly enough, in this one. I understood that my son's behaviour in a class of 24 children was of necessity going to be different than his behaviour in a home with two, one of whom wasn't even walking at the time. I also understood that his grade one teacher was also a bit of a control freak.
(We had a discussion once about this very thing; she was apologetic. She felt that raising her voice -- that shouting at the kids in her class -- was evidence of a loss of control. It was very important to her that she not lose control in, or of, the classroom. What's funny about this is after she said this to me she stopped, realized what she'd just said, and added, "I know that sounds terrible." It didn't sound terrible to me. I told her "It's a large group social situation. Someone is going to be in control -- and I would frankly far rather it be you than one of your students." (I've seen a four year old control a classroom, and it is not pretty.))
So I knew at the outset that the classroom was her home; I was the guest. The rules were hers. I had volunteered for some of the early field trips; she didn't tell me she didn't want me there. I simply wasn't chosen as one of the attending parents. However, toward the Summer of grade one, I was. We went to High Park --on the TTC, which is always a bit stressful when you're trying to make sure you don't leave any of the kids behind on the platform when the train departs with you in it.
It was an interesting day. When we got to the park, my son was, charitably, hyper. There was no need for lines, etc., once we were certain all of the kids were there, so they were given leave to 'stretch their legs', which generally involved a lot of running around.
My son ran into one of the girl's in his class, sent her flying into a large tree, and kept going. I was appalled. So I immediately shouted, in that appalled mother tone of voice, to get his attention. Had he done it on purpose? No. He hadn't even noticed. But to me, that didn't matter. The girl had hit the tree, scraped some skin off her knee, and was very quietly upset (she was a quiet, very nice child).
His teacher lifted a hand in that universal "stop right now" gesture as I drew breath and headed toward my son. Then she went over to the girl to make sure she was all right, and to say "He just needs to run, right now. He didn't even see you. Are you all right?"
It would have been very easy for the girl to take the incident personally, to assign malice because there was pain (hers). The reminder that this was very much in keeping with his inability to notice the world around him instantly calmed her down.
Can I just say that this is not a choice I would have made if I had been a parent in the park on my own time? I didn't think it was fair to the girl; and even if my son hadn't done it deliberately, he had still caused (minor) injury. I would have made him absolutely aware of what he had done and in no uncertain terms. Nothing that happened that day in the park with his class changed this.
But -- and there's always a but -- it was not my class. It was hers. What she was afraid of was pretty much exactly my reaction, because she knew if I got angry at him, it would re-enforce the sense that it was okay to be angry at him, and his integration and acceptance in the classroom would be destabilized. She knew that the girl, understanding the situation, would let it go. As my son was entirely oblivious, he had already let it go, not realizing there was anything to let go. I was the one who had to struggle with it, to accept that the rules here were not my rules, even if the child was my child. I had thought that her fear was that I would show the usual parental favouritism or that I would coddle him in ways that were not the norm for the class -- it wasn't. It was that I would attempt to discipline him for behaviour that I wouldn't have accepted in our house, in a way that would undermine what she had built.
And I didn't.
I still have some issues with this. I really do think the girl deserved an apology. Yes, it was an accident; yes, it wasn't deliberate. But still -- he did hurt her. I think he should have acknowledged it, apologized for it; he would have done both, because he really did not like to cause other people pain. But even so, it was not my class. I was the guest here. And the decisions she had made for her class as a whole in relation to my son had worked out so well for him.
After this field trip, though, I went on a number of others. My son didn't speak or cling to me while I was there (some of the other kids did), but he was comfortable having me in the class; he understood at base that nothing bad would happen to him if I was there. He also understood that if something happened and he didn't particularly like it, if I accepted it, it wasn't innately harmful.
ETA: I think one of the things that made dealing with the teachers, the classmates and the other parents simpler was the constant evaluation of what I would feel like if I were the parents of other children affected by my son, because if I were those parents, I wouldn't know him, and possibly wouldn't care.
I know that some people think I'm a bit of a control freak. I accept this, because it's lamentably accurate in many cases. But not, oddly enough, in this one. I understood that my son's behaviour in a class of 24 children was of necessity going to be different than his behaviour in a home with two, one of whom wasn't even walking at the time. I also understood that his grade one teacher was also a bit of a control freak.
(We had a discussion once about this very thing; she was apologetic. She felt that raising her voice -- that shouting at the kids in her class -- was evidence of a loss of control. It was very important to her that she not lose control in, or of, the classroom. What's funny about this is after she said this to me she stopped, realized what she'd just said, and added, "I know that sounds terrible." It didn't sound terrible to me. I told her "It's a large group social situation. Someone is going to be in control -- and I would frankly far rather it be you than one of your students." (I've seen a four year old control a classroom, and it is not pretty.))
So I knew at the outset that the classroom was her home; I was the guest. The rules were hers. I had volunteered for some of the early field trips; she didn't tell me she didn't want me there. I simply wasn't chosen as one of the attending parents. However, toward the Summer of grade one, I was. We went to High Park --on the TTC, which is always a bit stressful when you're trying to make sure you don't leave any of the kids behind on the platform when the train departs with you in it.
It was an interesting day. When we got to the park, my son was, charitably, hyper. There was no need for lines, etc., once we were certain all of the kids were there, so they were given leave to 'stretch their legs', which generally involved a lot of running around.
My son ran into one of the girl's in his class, sent her flying into a large tree, and kept going. I was appalled. So I immediately shouted, in that appalled mother tone of voice, to get his attention. Had he done it on purpose? No. He hadn't even noticed. But to me, that didn't matter. The girl had hit the tree, scraped some skin off her knee, and was very quietly upset (she was a quiet, very nice child).
His teacher lifted a hand in that universal "stop right now" gesture as I drew breath and headed toward my son. Then she went over to the girl to make sure she was all right, and to say "He just needs to run, right now. He didn't even see you. Are you all right?"
It would have been very easy for the girl to take the incident personally, to assign malice because there was pain (hers). The reminder that this was very much in keeping with his inability to notice the world around him instantly calmed her down.
Can I just say that this is not a choice I would have made if I had been a parent in the park on my own time? I didn't think it was fair to the girl; and even if my son hadn't done it deliberately, he had still caused (minor) injury. I would have made him absolutely aware of what he had done and in no uncertain terms. Nothing that happened that day in the park with his class changed this.
But -- and there's always a but -- it was not my class. It was hers. What she was afraid of was pretty much exactly my reaction, because she knew if I got angry at him, it would re-enforce the sense that it was okay to be angry at him, and his integration and acceptance in the classroom would be destabilized. She knew that the girl, understanding the situation, would let it go. As my son was entirely oblivious, he had already let it go, not realizing there was anything to let go. I was the one who had to struggle with it, to accept that the rules here were not my rules, even if the child was my child. I had thought that her fear was that I would show the usual parental favouritism or that I would coddle him in ways that were not the norm for the class -- it wasn't. It was that I would attempt to discipline him for behaviour that I wouldn't have accepted in our house, in a way that would undermine what she had built.
And I didn't.
I still have some issues with this. I really do think the girl deserved an apology. Yes, it was an accident; yes, it wasn't deliberate. But still -- he did hurt her. I think he should have acknowledged it, apologized for it; he would have done both, because he really did not like to cause other people pain. But even so, it was not my class. I was the guest here. And the decisions she had made for her class as a whole in relation to my son had worked out so well for him.
After this field trip, though, I went on a number of others. My son didn't speak or cling to me while I was there (some of the other kids did), but he was comfortable having me in the class; he understood at base that nothing bad would happen to him if I was there. He also understood that if something happened and he didn't particularly like it, if I accepted it, it wasn't innately harmful.
ETA: I think one of the things that made dealing with the teachers, the classmates and the other parents simpler was the constant evaluation of what I would feel like if I were the parents of other children affected by my son, because if I were those parents, I wouldn't know him, and possibly wouldn't care.
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(Anonymous) 2011-06-13 01:23 pm (UTC)(link)I think the hardest part of being a classroom teacher must be to balance all the needs of the different children. Especially when the needs conflict. When punishing a child for misbehaving also means validating the spite of a tattletale who got him in trouble, for example. It's very hard to tell from outside if a teacher is doing at good job at this, because we don't know all the children, we only know our own. But when I see the teacher giving short shrift to my little drama queen, it makes me hopeful that she's probably got everybody else's number, too.