Having a son beginning 7th grade this last year, I was greatly concerned
about the junior high school, as I had heard so many horrid stories about
it. The first two quarters have gone by now and I am much relieved! The
system they have for 7th graders seems great! The kids are divided into two
groups, a Red team and a Gold team. Each team has the same set of teachers
all year long. Each week the teachers come together and discuss the kids
comparing them in each class. There is coordination on homework and exams
so that they don't have alot coming at once and the teachers can combine
some of the work to over lap in their classes. My son is a pretty good kid
and when we found out he had been in detention we immediately went in to
have a conference with his teachers. They were great. They had talked to
each other about him and were ready to give us all the information we
wanted about his classroom work and behavior. Their most disturbing comment
was that parents don't seem to want to meet with them and they don't see
parents enough. Well, they will see me and hear from both parents. I do
think alot of parents are asking the schools to do too much of the
discipline and are not often supporting the teacher in their work with
their kids. My parents told us that if a teacher disciplined us in school
we would get double at home. It worked well, because we knew that we could
not "pull the wool over our parents eyes". Both my mother and father were
mischievous youngsters and knew that we would be mischievous also, so there
was no excuse for bad behavior and disrespect. I hope my son gets the same
message. I hope other parents get the message. Parents have to support the
teachers and schools with reinforcement at home. Our kids education is just
too important.
I spoke to my son yesterday concerning discipline and he let me know in no
uncertain terms that the teachers were hard on them. "They don't let us get
away with anything" he complained. "Great! Was my comment!"
Maybe things are better than they used to be. I sure hope so.
Mayme