Child and school

A colleague was confiding in me that her daughter came in last in class even though she had over 70 marks for Maths and 80 plus for English.

The poor girl broke down.

I feel really bad for both the girl and the mother. It's not the girl's fault that she's at the bottom of the class. Her results are good. She doesn't deserve to be ranked so low.

I'm not sure what the teacher is thinking, but from what my colleague has told me over all this time, it appears to me that the teacher is quite harsh and very demanding. Instead of being nurturing to the girl, the teacher is constantly complaining to my colleague and often cannot tolerate the girl's antics. If it were me, I believe I would have been equally hostile towards the teacher instead of allowing her to step all over me like she's the more superior teacher.

It's really hard not to wonder if teachers from branded schools are spoilt. They have relatively low threshold of tolerance for active children. I cannot imagine how they would cope if they were posted to a neighbourhood school like mine. My colleague's girl is being referred to an Educational Psychologist under the teacher's recommendation, which I think is utterly crazy! The poor girl had resisted the idea but she had to go because the teacher strongly recommended her to.

I wish I can help the poor girl. I fully understand why my colleague would not transfer the child out of that school despite being treated, with biasness - in my opinion - by the form teacher. It's quite inconceivable though if your child is not in a top school or if you don't have a child. The level of discipline, the demographics, even the worksheets and books are different. And all these play an important part in shaping a child's way of looking at schooling.