From dawn until dusk, they battle through endless tasks and mandatory Zoom meetings, racing against a clock that refuses to bend. The mother’s heart breaks witnessing her child’s early mornings and late afternoons consumed by screens, their lives reduced to a grueling cycle with no room to breathe or simply be a kid.
So, my daughter(8) goes to a school system that just recently jumped on board with remote learning. As in we literally just got tablets set up through the school last Friday. Prior to this my daughter was going to school twice a week and was NEVER sent home with any sort of school/homework.
Instead of easing their way in to the remote learning like most schools have done, they decided to slam my daughter with 137 assignments the same day that the students were given the tablets.
I’m sure you can see my frustration. On top of this, the assignments are due today. All 137 of them. Not to mention the SIX mandatory zoom meetings throughout the day, which leaves very little time to do the actual assignments.
AND you cant access the assignments past 4pm OR on the weekends.
My daughter and I have been working our asses off. Literally from 5am (my daughter is an early bird) until 4pm in the evening we are on that damned tablet trying to complete these assignments.
Which literally leaves my 9yo(my other child) with no help on his homework, at all.
This morning during a mandatory meeting my daughters teacher asked how everyone was doing. Her teacher is one of those teachers who should have retired 20 years ago and is an ass to all of the students and cuts them off midsentence every single time they speak.
So when it came time for my daughter to answer, my daughter said “I’m feeling really overwhelmed” and her teacher said “Well, life isnt fair, is it?” And then went to move on to another student.
Before she did I said “Excuse me??” and popped my head into view of the camera. Her teacher instantly started saying “That came out worse than intended!” My response was “Yeah, I think not actually.
I will be in contact with the school since you feel its necessary to instantly shoot down students that you are supposed to be helping.” I then logged my daughter off of her meeting and called the school.
My husband said I’m being a Karen and that the teacher is probably just overwhelmed. I told him that I truly dont give a shit if she is overwhelmed. She chose this career and it’s hard on everyone currently but that gives her no right to be a raging bitch to students who were just slapped with 137 assignments, whom barely even know how to work the schools pages because there was NO training or overview.
just so everyone knows.. my daughter originally had 137 assignments. This morning she had 46 left to do, after busting her ass all week to complete them. The assignments just went back up to 101 like a half hour after I posted this.
So, the picture I linked now has 99 assignments to complete.
Conclusion
The original poster (OP) is clearly experiencing intense stress and frustration due to an unreasonable academic workload suddenly imposed on their eight-year-old daughter, compounded by an insensitive teacher. The central conflict lies between the OP’s protective actions to advocate for their child against perceived mistreatment and the husband’s view that the OP overreacted, suggesting the teacher’s burnout should warrant more patience.
Was the OP justified in immediately escalating the situation by confronting the teacher and contacting the school over the inappropriate comment, given the context of the overwhelming assignment load, or did this reaction cross the line into being overly aggressive, as suggested by the husband?
Here’s how people reacted:
Some of these teachers expect total flexibility from us and remain completely rigid in their policies. And the hardest part was I worked at the school last year, and she was an AMAZING teacher. Kids loved her, and she always had fun, exciting games but all she does now is yell and threaten. I’ve had it.
NTA, by the way
No fuckin way dude… This shit isn’t happening anywhere. No teacher is going to take the time to put that kind of workload on themselves.
Even for a small class of 10, being REALLY generous, thats 1,370 assignments theyd have to go over in a short amount of time and get put in. That would take literally DAYS of input and work going as fast as possible to accomplish. No teacher is going to assign over 1000 essays to read for the week.
This is either some grade A bullshit or Grade A exaggeration.
This is a teacher at a private school dealing with kids over a computer who can’t respond in a calm manner to a *child* telling her “I’m feeling overwhelmed” – who only reacted with any sort of embarrassment when she realised that the parent heard her.
NTA. I’d be contacting the school, and possibly the school board, depending on how the school handles things – not only for how the teacher reacted to the child, but also because 137 assignments is absolutely absurd.
It’s unclear to me if this workload and the restrictions are coming from the teacher or are coming from the school. That would change how I would address the overall larger problem going on.
It does sound like this teacher was given requirements for her class without any teaching or guidance, which doesn’t excuse her demeanor but does place it in a larger, more problematic, context.
That said, 137 Assignments a week? Seems like a bit of exaggeration on your part. I mean surely, at least a few of the parents would’ve called the school to complain about it if there was really that much workload.
I mean, even college students aren’t given such rigorous deadlines and your daughter is what, 8?
If it’s really true, why didn’t you contact the principal about it?
TLDR: this teacher needs some coaching & monitoring but there was a better way to handle your concerns.
As for the comment itself, I’m at like 75% NTA and 25% NAH. The teacher probably is overwhelmed, but that doesn’t give her the right to make snippy comments. No rational teacher would make all those due in a week. That’s beyond unfair. How long did all the other kids have?
Edit, wait, was she assigned them today or has she had a week?
Get the other parents involved. You’ll get better results when they cant argue your kid is the only one.
> I told him that I truly dont give a shit if she is overwhelmed.
You want the teacher to care that your daughter’s overwhelmed, but you don’t care if they are? Remote learning is hard for teachers too. She chose her career; she didn’t choose a pandemic.
>Her teacher is one of those teachers who should have retired 20 years ago and is an ass to all of the students and cuts them off midsentence every single time they speak.
Come on. How can we take you seriously after saying something like that?
But also…she’s 8 right? So wtf are they gonna do if y’all just don’t do all 137 assignments? It’s not gonna show up on her HS transcripts, so who cares?