‘The teacher taught Spanish by checking the sentences with Google Translate’

Image: Unsplash

A troublemaker during the school trip, annoying bullies or a teacher who works without a teaching method. These mothers have less good experiences with the whole ‘school thing’.

Fatma (34), mother of Roísa (5).

“Roísa’s first school trip was a hit. It was her first time at an amusement park, and as a helper mom, I spent all day on Ferris wheels, family rollercoasters, and whirligigs. There was only one distraction: the demanding, loud girl in her class.

At everything she didn’t like, she threw herself screaming on the ground. Nothing new, she didn’t do anything different in class, but now that she was under my supervision, it was quite annoying. Her behavior cast a shadow over the day that the other children enjoyed so much. No matter what I tried — rewards, promises, extra attention — nothing worked.

When my whole group wanted to go on the merry-go-round and she staged another scene, I sat down at eye level and screamed back at her even louder. Stunned, she kept her mouth shut and began to laugh out loud. The rest of the day was a party.”

‘By chance’

Aimée (42), mother of Robin (13) and Bastiaan (10).

“It got rather tiresome – to put it mildly – ​​as the sixth grade bully had been taunting my youngest son since the first grade. Not just with words; Bastiaan ended up with his head on the concrete tiles a number of times because the bully ‘coincidentally’ walked by. His notebooks: Torn up in class because my son got high grades and the bully didn’t come along.

I spoke to the teacher, who was helpless. Called the parents, who had to laugh about it. Even made it to the office of the school director, but he himself struggled with the unwillingness of the parents. Nothing helped.

“The bully was just about to storm off the schoolyard after punching my son”

One day when I was picking up Bastiaan from school – my big, black shepherd on the phone – the bully was just about to storm off the schoolyard after punching my son in front of me. I blocked the gate of the square with my shepherd.

“Does it bite?” stammered the bully. “Only kids he doesn’t like,” I said with my sweetest face. ‘Oh,’ I added, ‘I can’t always control it.’ My trusty boob, incidentally a bitch and unaware of any harm, threw a bark at the bully out of enthusiasm. Bastiaan never bothered him again.”

Read also – ‘My son is a bully’ >

Additional teaching material

Miriam (34), mother of David (8) and Simon (6).

“Of course it is a luxury that my children come along nicely at school. But because David was really bored, after two years of nagging, school finally agreed when I asked if he couldn’t get a little enrichment. He was given Spanish lessons in no time, his son beamed.

‘How nice,’ I said, ‘and do you have special books for that?’ No, he said, the teacher just made up sentences and checked them with the help of Google Translate. After I read through five of those ‘tests’ and caught the teacher making more mistakes than my son, I ordered a teaching method myself and dumped it on her desk – with an answer book, of course.”

Structural ignore

Shana (37), mother of Loek (10) and Vince (8).

“The fact that my children’s primary school was labeled ‘weak’ may have something to do with my report to the Education Inspectorate, after the structural ignoring of bullying behavior by the school, the hiring of teachers who labeled every child with ADHD and substandard test results. My children are now going to groups 5 and 7 elsewhere.”

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