Mrs. 6th Grade Teacher,
Kiki will be failing your class this term. This is primarily her fault. She is the one who did not do the work. I considered doing what I did last term and making her do nothing but homework until it is all done and turned in. However, your policy of only giving 60% on late work means that even if she works her heart out to make up all the work, she will still fail. I do not feel like it is fair to my child or to the rest of our family to make us all miserable when there is no hope of reward.
Part of the reason Kiki gave up this term was because last term she worked all day, every day, for a week to make up work and still failed classes. She decided that since working hard didn’t make a difference, she would just focus on having fun instead.
Kiki and I had several long conversations this weekend. I believe she now understands why it is important to strive for good grades even if you don’t measure your self worth by them. She has expressed a new commitment to doing her best in school.
I will be enforcing an hour a day of homework for Kiki. I will make sure that she actually does work for that entire hour. She will focus on upcoming assignments first. When those are done, she will work on things that are late. She has to do this hour of homework before she is allowed some of the privilege activities that she enjoys. Hopefully this will help her learn that work must come before play.
Just wanted to let you know what my plans are for helping Kiki learn the lessons she needs.
Maybe this is why you aren’t sure you’ll send it, but was it your intention to imply that there are ways that the teacher could be helping Kiki out as well? The statements of “here is what I will be doing” and “here is what Kiki will be doing” seem to lead into the question “so, what will you be doing?” I might be reading too much into it, though.
Maybe this is why you aren’t sure you’ll send it, but was it your intention to imply that there are ways that the teacher could be helping Kiki out as well? The statements of “here is what I will be doing” and “here is what Kiki will be doing” seem to lead into the question “so, what will you be doing?” I might be reading too much into it, though.
I think you should send it. It’s a good letter–very well thought-out and written, clearly communicating your feelings about everything.
If it will make you feel better, send it. If not, then at least you have it to remind you of the decisions you made.
I think you should send it. It’s a good letter–very well thought-out and written, clearly communicating your feelings about everything.
If it will make you feel better, send it. If not, then at least you have it to remind you of the decisions you made.
If it were me, I wouldn’t send it. I don’t think this teacher is interested in changing her ways. If she’s not going to change, then the only reason you’d need to send the letter is to justify yourself to her, and you don’t need to do that. Kiki is your daughter. You’re entitled to do what you feel is best for her, no matter what the teacher thinks.
If it were me, I wouldn’t send it. I don’t think this teacher is interested in changing her ways. If she’s not going to change, then the only reason you’d need to send the letter is to justify yourself to her, and you don’t need to do that. Kiki is your daughter. You’re entitled to do what you feel is best for her, no matter what the teacher thinks.
It depends what your aim is in sending the letter. Currently there seem to be two messages. One is the main message that your letter seems to be about – that you’ll be enforcing an hour a day of homework, concentrating on upcoming assignments, and that you’ll try to catch up on the things that are late. Essentially, informing the teacher about things with a view to helping her.
The second is a sledgehammer context of ‘Kiki is going to fail, please don’t fail her, we accept it’s her fault, we’ll try really hard to be better, but it’s all your fault for marking late work down.’ This, I suspect, will make the teacher defensive and disinclined to pay attention to the message that you want to send.
If I were sending the letter (and I’m the first to admit I don’t know any of the context), I’d strongly edit the first three paragraphs to try to eliminate the sledgehammer context, possibly as far as “Kiki has not been working as hard as she should have recently. I have spoken to her and she has expressed a new commitment to doing her best in school”.
But I would certainly send the second half.
It depends what your aim is in sending the letter. Currently there seem to be two messages. One is the main message that your letter seems to be about – that you’ll be enforcing an hour a day of homework, concentrating on upcoming assignments, and that you’ll try to catch up on the things that are late. Essentially, informing the teacher about things with a view to helping her.
The second is a sledgehammer context of ‘Kiki is going to fail, please don’t fail her, we accept it’s her fault, we’ll try really hard to be better, but it’s all your fault for marking late work down.’ This, I suspect, will make the teacher defensive and disinclined to pay attention to the message that you want to send.
If I were sending the letter (and I’m the first to admit I don’t know any of the context), I’d strongly edit the first three paragraphs to try to eliminate the sledgehammer context, possibly as far as “Kiki has not been working as hard as she should have recently. I have spoken to her and she has expressed a new commitment to doing her best in school”.
But I would certainly send the second half.
This was me. Stupid lj.
This was me. Stupid lj.
I dunno, I thought the sledgehammer context was largely nullified by “This is primarily her fault,” which establishes outright (to my reading, at least), the tone of the letter isn’t “please don’t fail her” but rather “This is what caused the problems, and here’s how we’re going to fix it for next year.”
Wow. Seeing this letter reminds me of my time in sixth grade. I was in pretty much the same situation Kiki is in now, except for the fact that my teacher had a more lenient grading policy, so I was able to pull up the failing class by doing all of the work at the last minute. I still remember the snow day which I missed because of all the work I was frantically packing in.
Was Kiki forgetting about the assignments and thus not doing them, or was she deciding that they weren’t worth doing?
I dunno, I thought the sledgehammer context was largely nullified by “This is primarily her fault,” which establishes outright (to my reading, at least), the tone of the letter isn’t “please don’t fail her” but rather “This is what caused the problems, and here’s how we’re going to fix it for next year.”
Wow. Seeing this letter reminds me of my time in sixth grade. I was in pretty much the same situation Kiki is in now, except for the fact that my teacher had a more lenient grading policy, so I was able to pull up the failing class by doing all of the work at the last minute. I still remember the snow day which I missed because of all the work I was frantically packing in.
Was Kiki forgetting about the assignments and thus not doing them, or was she deciding that they weren’t worth doing?
Kiki was in denial, trying to pretend that the homework didn’t exist and didn’t matter.
Kiki was in denial, trying to pretend that the homework didn’t exist and didn’t matter.
I’ve seen that. glad you’re getting it fixed, though. A friend’s son (approx the same age) is currently suspected of being either ADD or a lazy little tyke. Not sure what the best outcome will be for him – if he *is* ADD then there’re ways for that to be addressed. If he’s a LLT then he’s going to get continuing grief from his mother and elder sister, and frankly, I don’t think that will help. That sounds like I’m suggesting things about Kiki, and that’s not my intention, honest. Just pointing out a similar situation WRT homework.
I think only giving a max of 60% on late work, if it’s exactly as stated, is unduly harsh. Late work needs to be penalised, but as stated, work a day late gets you a rubbish grade, so does work a week late or a month late. At the least it needs a sliding scale, say you lose 10% per day of the mark you would’ve got per schoolday after the deadline, for example. So if the work merits 90%, and it’s a day late, you get 90-9=81%. If it’s 2 days late, you lose 18%, and so on. That means that if you turn in good work up to about 3 days late you can still pass (dunno what th pass mark is) but if you hand in perfect work a week late, you’ll still lose 50%.
This applies, of course, if there’s no valid and good reason for the work being late. Mostly, there isn’t; but there needs to be scope for a genuine reason not ruining your grades – something like being seriously ill for a week but still managing to get the work in only a day late, shouldn’t get penalised at all, IMHO.