Parents are crazy...so some kids are too

Last night was the open house for school. You can tell by my title how it all went! Some parents and students are so great, their kids are fun and the parents are personable and it was good to meet them... then there are the "others". On the island of LOST the others are odd people who have lived in a confined community too long and don't know how to interact appropriately with those new to the island. The "others" tend to be controlling, manipulative, and just flat out mean! Well, on the island of MPE where I work, these "others" are those parents who hold the same characteristics. One parent actually came into the room and started looking through MY organized stacks of stuff to find their kids work... as was the child and I said several times it was in the hall but they didn't believe me!! I had other parents coming in to meet me and I was having clean up their mess.

Then I had some parents say "how come my child hasn't had any art work sent home yet" instead of my instinct response of because your child will roll his up and hit other students with it all day, or maybe because he doesn't have the self discipline he needs to shut his mouth and follow directions so he doesn't HAVE anything to show for his time in art class besides discipline slips... would you like those? I could frame theme for you if yo like. Instead I politely said that I would be passing work back at the end of the spring art show. I am just going to have to start giving much more simple art projects than what we had been doing before. They are projects that take a couple weeks... I am gonna just break down and do the one weekers!

Some kids never put their names on their work even though i have said to do so about a hundred times a day...so they end up with some random art work with their name slapped on it and i hope it's right!

I usually really love my job... but open house came right after a conversation I had with one of my students...Luis... sweet, honest, tell it like it is with a Spanish accent Luis....
he tells me in a lot of words with trailing off and getting lost in other subjects that basically the teacher before me was a better teacher, he knows more about art, he taught better things about art, he told them more about artists, and that he was the best artists he knows and that maybe I would be better served to go take one of HIS art classes...
PS. Luis is 7

I'm gonna pray for Luis's teacher

All in a days work...