Thank you for joining us in our Classical Parenting 101 Series!  The heart of our CCS administration team is to support and encourage our parents and we have loved reading these articles for ourselves!  We hope you will find a nugget of encouragement and wisdom.  You can read our previous weeks here and here.

Do You Like My Son Or Not?

Father: Raiden has been struggling with his grades, as you know, and there are probably some things his mother and I could do on that front, but I think there’s a bigger problem with your class.

Gibbs: What is that problem?

Father: Well, Raiden is convinced that you don’t like him.

Gibbs: I see. And why does he think that?

Father: It’s the way you treat him. He feels like you’re always hassling him and singling him out. He’s told me about some conversations you’ve had with him where you said some very critical things about him as a student. After listening to him, I think he might be right. I think maybe you just don’t like Raiden, which is going to make it very hard for him to do well in your class. I would like to hear it from you, though. Do you like my son or not?

Gibbs: I’ve been a teacher for seventeen years now and it has only been in the last four or five years that parents have started asking me that question. Why do you think that is?

Father: What? “Do you like my child?”

Gibbs: Yes, why do you think parents have come to ask that question so often of teachers?

Father: How should I know?

Gibbs: Personally, I think it has something to do with social media. I started teaching before social media, so I’ve seen the classroom before and after Facebook, Instagram, and all the rest. Social media has made people obsessed with being “liked” and getting “likes,” and they have brought that obsession into the classroom.

Father: Perhaps, but you haven’t answered my question. Do you like my son or not?

Gibbs: Try to see things from my perspective. What incentive does a teacher ever have for answering that question?

Father: Do you need an incentive to answer an honest question?

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