Are you kidding me?

Monday greeted me with two parent emails.

The first was anonymous. You cannot be serious. What kind of ridiculous parent e-mails a teacher anonymously. What a moron. They were e-mailing to "inquire" aka complain about my vocabulary quizzing methods. My gut was to beat them like a rented mule verbally until they bled from every pore. Now, obviously, that is not what I did. I found an administrator. He recommended being positive and enforcing the idea that I do not punish students for moronic parents. So I did. However I had a long talk with all my classes about asking questions, why I was doing things the way I was and I may have mentioned that receiving anonymous e-mails tended to make me felt like I was being stalked. Hopefully that should clear up the issue.

The other e-mail was from a parent who is a teacher in my county. They were reaming me because I was forcing to make their child read obscene filth and further denying them their right to read the bible continuously in my class. This parent quoted three (count 'em) three passages of the students rights code at me. They also threatened to meet with meeting with the principal if I was not reasonable on this issue. So I being the reasonable god fearing individual that I am said... "Whatever you want. You tell me... That's fine!" Oh then the tune changes. I was wonderful. Further, I was the teacher and therefore he trusted me to pick what was best and necessary for his son.

The part that kills me was that by Tuesday afternoon a different student came and asked me if it was true that they could read The Left Behind Series in place of To Kill a Mockingbird. I think I threw up a little bit in my mouth. It is such a sad balance.

Parents are so crucial, and there are a lot of good ones out there. I've met them. It just seems like none of them are ever the parents of my students... That's not true. There have been some good ones of those too, it's just...

Really nice guy, new teacher at our school. I showed him my conundrums for the day. He laughed. He said it was nice to know that there there were always going to be pains in the butt, even after his first year. His laughter helped me keep the whole ridiculous mess in perspective.

But, still, are you kidding me?