Frankly, I don’t remember my parents ever calling one of my teachers over a poor grade or because I complained about unfairness.  Now parents routinely call to accost teachers in primary and middle school.

That might not be so bad, except for principals and teachers who are already overworked and undercompensated.  But the trend has continued into college, where professors are now receiving calls from parents to question their children’s grades.

Don’t gasp in disbelief yet.  Employers now report that parents are calling to complain about their children’s job reviews!  Truthfully, I can’t imagine walking into work the day after my mother called my boss to argue about my performance.  But if there’s any question which way things are headed, this sums it up to a tee.

I’m planning to use Friday posts to revisit old articles.  This one, Mirroring Parents, was extremely popular, and was translated into several different languages.

For decades now, educators have been unable to understand that self-esteem is not instilled through grade-inflation and deluging children in exuberant praise for mediocre performance.  Well, the results are in:  our children, on the whole, suffer from delusional over-confidence, the consequences of which will no doubt make themselves known as time marches on.

Read about the study here.

Lipstick in School

(I’d like to attribute this to the person who wrote it.  If anyone knows it’s origin, please leave a comment.)

According to a news report, a certain private school in Washington was recently faced with a unique problem.  A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom. That was fine, but after they put on their lip stick, they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints.

Every night the maintenance man would remove them, and the next day the girls would put them back.

Finally the principal decided that something had to be done.  She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man.  She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night (you can just imagine the yawns from the little princesses).

To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the m irrors, she asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required.

He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the mirror with it.  Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror.

There are teachers … and then there are educators

Hat tip:  Dave Weinbaum