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"    Seven years as a teacher (and another seven working part-time in education) gives me a lot of empathy for teacher Ron Clark in his recent piece for the New York Times &amp;quot;What Teachers Really Want to Tell Parents.&amp;quot; I have my own horror stories of overbearing, &amp;quot;helicopter&amp;quot; and downright insane parents. (My favorite: The parent who demanded that her daughter be excused from writing the end-of-term essay because she knew her daughter was a terrible writer and didn&amp;#039;t want her grades to keep her from film school. When I refused, she dropped a letter on the table containing several hundred dollars and asked if there wasn&amp;#039;t some way we could work this out. I handed it back and she left the room with no further discussion.)  So while I agree with 90 percent of what Clark wrote, as a parent of several students something about his essay didn&amp;#039;t sit right with me. It was this: &amp;quot;They are ready to fight and defend their child, and it is exhausting. One of my biggest pet peeves is when I tell a mom something her son did and she turns, looks at him and asks, &amp;quot;Is that true?&amp;quot; Well, of course it&amp;#039;s true. I just told you. And please don&amp;#039;t ask whether a classmate can confirm what happened or whether another teacher might have been present. It only demeans teachers and weakens the partnership between teacher and parent.&amp;quot;  I swore I&amp;#039;d never be one of those &amp;quot;not my child!&amp;quot; parents and yet last year found me in a conference with my second-grade son&amp;#039;s teacher and principal uttering that exact phrase. My small-for-his-age, non-confrontational, never-been-in-trouble-a-day-in-his-life son was in trouble for fighting. The teacher, who admitted she hadn&amp;#039;t seen what had happened, insisted he had &amp;quot;kicked a kindergartner.&amp;quot; His brother who had been present said my son was attacked by an older bully and had merely defended himself. My son had a bloody nose and a scratched face and yet he was the only child in trouble, I was the only parent called in. I&amp;#039;ll admit it: My hackles rose and the mama bear in me came out. The teacher wouldn&amp;#039;t allow my other son to say what he saw and the principal took her word as the truth. My son was disciplined.  For the first time, I found myself on the other side of the desk and I was overwhelmed with how impotent and angry I felt. It was especially poignant when my son hugged my knees and in tears exclaimed, &amp;quot;Thank you mommy for believing me when nobody else did!&amp;quot; Was my son the bully or the bullied? I suppose I&amp;#039;ll never know for sure but I do know which story I believe more and if we parents aren&amp;#039;t &amp;quot;ready to fight and defend their child&amp;quot; then who will? They&amp;#039;re just children, after all.  I&amp;#039;ll admit to still being very torn on this issue. Has my love for my children made me blind to their faults? Or does my job as a parent inevitably sometimes put me in opposition to their educators?  Should you ever argue with your child&amp;#039;s teacher?  poll by twiigs.com  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/life/mom-kids/news/a12653/mom-debate-arguing-with-teacher/>