I'm so angry and disappointed right now that I just had to vent in another post. I was just talking to my mom on the phone and she was telling me about some of my sister's teachers this year. She has the same french teacher I had, our same physics teacher and my same P.E. teacher, all of whom I enjoyed and got A's with. My sister is very smart--she's always been a straight A student and enjoys school. And, as I am now a teacher, I'm always curious to compare my old teachers with what I now know to be proper teaching practices. So, when I found out that my sister has my group of high school friend's favourite, beloved teacher, Mr. Dupperon, I was really excited to hear what she thought about him. His wife was my favourite teacher, and Mike's favourite class was Mr. Duperron's. They taught Chemistry and Physics and we always loved having them as teachers.
This is all to explain how appalled I was to hear that when she went in early for extra help one day and asked him to explain a question to him, his reply to her (not jokingly, although it doesn't make for a good joke anyway) was
"What, are you stupid?"
If I could scream via my blog I would. As a teacher, the idea that another teacher would say something like that to their student who is a good kid, and was asking for help, just disgusts me. In fact, it makes me lose faith completely with teachers in general. So many teachers are completely cynical and outdated in their teaching practice and knowledge. Why are they still teaching? To call a student stupid is just plain wrong. I think it also especially bothers me because I had a little visit with this particular teacher in the summertime when I was home, and Mike and I went and visited him and his wife over spring break. We loved them as teachers and he knows that he is teaching my sister, and yet he treated her like crap.
If I was in Port Alberni, I would march over there and talk to him, but alas I am not, and so my blog comes in very handy. Maybe he will read it one day and feel bad. I hope so. Many of you who read my blog are fellow teachers....what do you think?
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2 comments:
As one of your fellow teachers, I agree. Very tasteless and demeaning. Although we all make mistakes from time to time, we need to monitor ourselves and correct ourselves when we say or do things we shouldn't. That being said, I too find calling a student "stupid" to be particularly bothersome. That is degrating and hurting students with our words should not be something you do even accidentally. That should be one of those things that is so opposite from who we are as teachers, that it should never happen.
Unfortunately in my own experience with colleages, this happens too often. I always have a soft spot for the suppossed "trouble" students, particularly those "bad" boys that I've heard so many teachers label and dismiss. Unfortunately for some of those students, this happens all too often and they don't always have such strong and supportive families as your sister has.
Encourage you sister to know she has been wronged when she has and to know that it is no reflection upon her. She can use this experience to learn from and be more sensitive and compasionate in whatever she does in life.
Unfortunately, this continues in schools :( I hope our generation of teachers will do better.
Sabrina,
Tell Jessie not to take it personally.
This is classic Duperron - this is how he is and always has been. It sounds horrible in the re-tellings, but he's not a bad guy, I've seen him say this to many people, it's not personal and I suspect that the re-telling puts it out of context. He's a real joker and has kind of a bad-guy rapport which works with some students, not a student like you, but others. He's been in this business a long time and he's usually pretty good at judging what rapport works best with whom. If he mis-judged with Jessie, I'm sorry to hear that.
Ask Mike, I guarantee he won't be suprised, I'm sure Dupe's said it to him at some point too.
If he actually thought that Jessie were stupid, he would never say it.
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