My daughter told me about an incident she observed at a cross country meet today. This did not affect her directly but she was bothered by it enough to share with me(I didn’t attend meet today)
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At a previous meet an athlete asked the coach for a teacher recommendation because the athlete and coach have always had a good relationship. the coach agreed.
Last night, the student forget to put the tent on the bus and so the coach had to do it. This morning the coach yelled at the student about it in front of the team (50 plus students ) and ended with say, " I still haven’t written your recommendation and I think I’m going to do it right after this meet" clearly stated in an sassy tone.
Since the request for recommendation had already been submitted, my daughter said believed it was wrong to chastise this boy in front of his peers and secondly for the coach to use his power to negatively impact the student’s future.
I always encourage my girls to be the best person they can be, have good character and to stand up for believe in, whether popular opinion or not.
With this being a Parents forum, my question is, how would you advise your son/daughter -
1 ignore since it didn’t happen to you
2 report the incident to school
3 contact the other student’s parents about the matter
On the end, if your son/daughter was the student implicated in this situation, what would you do?
Thankfully My DD isn’t awaiting a recommendation from this person. I don’t know if the other student is applying for Ivy or state schools, but still based on principle it shouldn’t matter.
Does this student have this coach as a teacher? If not, I expect this rec may be an extra rec and I would not worry too much about it. But, If it were my kid, I would insist my kid point blank ask the coach if they could write a positive rec, if not then kid will look to have someone else write one. My suggestion is to have your D talk to the kid looking to get the rec. You could also bring it up with his parents.
Hmm it strikes me that the teacher/coach could be joking or being facetious , since for the student to have asked I. The first place, they must have some decent rapport and I don’t think forgetting the tent could be that devastating to their relationship.
I can imagine a scenario in which the coach thought he was expressing his frustration in a humorous way, not threatening the kid. But I wasn’t there.
If your D is worried about the boy, she should ask if he’s concerned and if so, suggest he should talk to the teacher about it (and apologize for his screw up). Yes, sometimes teachers abuse their power. Sometimes they snap at a kid in a way that doesn’t feel in line with the transgression. And sometimes kids like drama or involve themselves in situations in which they don’t have all the info. My guess is that the rec will be no different than it was before the tent incident.
I appreciate you and your D being willing to be upstanders rather than bystanders – that’s a good thing. But her energy should go into supporting the boy IF he needs it, not into reporting a teacher for something that may already have been resolved. And if she wants to talk to an adult about it, why not the coach? She could say how uncomfortable it made her feel to witness that and how in her own recs, she’d hope that years of good deeds wouldn’t be drowned by one error.
I appreciate your insightful reply. I’m not one to meddle in other affairs which I why I posted in case it was unwarranted. The coach can be a hot head so perhaps acted impulsively but he’s not known for humor. For example, our area was affected by Hurricane and he still sent out emails for students to continue running despite school closure.
My DD in midst of college application process, SAT and getting recommendations herself, so she could just had a heightened awareness to the implications if the coach did follow through. I’ll have her speak to the student first to see how he felt about the situation.
Your daughter should get her hands on the school’s harassment policy. I just did the harassment course for the school in which I’m currently employed. This would be considered harassment, and that requires reporting.