A co-worker of mine stepped into my office yesterday to tell me about his 5 year old son’s day last Friday.
CW: My son got a red on Friday.
Al: A what?
CW: A red. The kids are graded on their behavior every day. Green is good, yellow means there was some minor infraction, and red means he misbehaved and didn’t follow instructions.
Al: (rolls eyes) what did he do?
CW: Well, his teacher said that he called another student’s mother ‘fat’.
Al: So? Was she?
CW: Yeah, of course. The way the guy tells it…
Al: Hold on. This teacher is a man?
CW: Yeah. So the way the guy tells it this mother was dropping off her kid when my son told her she was fat.
Al: What did your son say happened?
CW: He said he saw the mother and turned to his friend and told him that the woman was fat. Apparently she never heard him say it, but the teacher did. Her kid isn’t even in the same class as my son.
Al: Ah, so your son was punished for stating the obvious. So disrespectful.
CW: Yeah, I think the teacher went a little too far. My son missed out on computer time and he didn’t get to watch the Friday movie with the other kids.
Al: Did you take him out for ice cream or something to make up for it? Did you tell him he didn’t do anything wrong?
CW: No, we (meaning he and his wife) grounded him and took away his favorite toy.
Al: What? Wait a minute. Did you know the full details when you did this.
CW: Yeah, but as I thought about it over the weekend, I got more and more furious. My son didn’t really do anything other than tell his friend he thought the woman was fat.
Al: No offense, but you made it worse by punishing him too.
The deck is stacked against boys in school. There’s no sense as fathers to make it any worse than it already is. The teacher in question went to a notorious, very SWPL, extreme lefty college located in my state, so I’m not surprised he is such a Renfield. Is it any wonder more and more boys are feeling alienated by the education system?
