shusher [shuhsher]
-noun
1. one who orders someone to hush
Girl has been given a special assignment in one of her classes. Apparently, one of her teachers is having a lot of trouble with the children in her class. Whenever the teacher tries to get their attention by shushing them, the kids ignore her. They keep talking. It’s very frustrating for the teacher, so, now, it’s my daughter’s job to be the shusher (“because kids will listen to other kids”).
Now, I know what you must be thinking: What kind of terrible parents must Husband and I be that we weren’t even aware that our daughter possessed this very special talent. In our defense, we did try to make up for it last night by asking her to perform her unique shushing style for us. Wow. It was really quite impressive, I must say. I just wish I had recorded it; then I could upload it to my blog, so that you could hear it, too…. Hmm.
careful. my son is having social problems from shushing classmates. this, combined with about ten other things, is why he’s coming back home at winter break.
Euww! Does she have a brown shirt (or a brown nose) to go with the special assignment??
JJ,
The teacher asked her to do it. This is “Little Ball of Angry” (my daughter’s name for her) that I mentioned who doesn’t sound to be enjoying her job – at all. Girl said one day, when the kids refused to stop talking, she saw tears in the woman’s eyes. Even though she’s one of my daughter’s least favorite teachers, I think Girl feels a little bad for her.
Meanie,
I’m really sorry to hear about your son; but glad to hear that he’s coming home. Winter break is right around the corner, too. What grade is he in?
I’m so sorry for how some teachers are. I feel bad for everyone in that room then, except maybe Girl because she can see already, how the bad feelings built in bad barrels and even good people can’t make it okay. And because of everyone, it seems she has the most choice to be there or not.
Talk about an education, maybe she’s getting some value at that . . .
I echo meanie’s comment: be careful. Eventually, in the school social scene, this could very easily come back to bite her. The old teacher’s pet stuff, etc. Might not be pretty.
Lynn, he’s in 4th grade (9 years old).
He says he can’t concentrate on the teacher with all the other kids talking. When he asks the kids to be quiet so he can hear, they tease him. He says they all want him to be in their groups for read-aloud, then tease him for reading well. Instead of expecting him to toughen up, we’re bringing him home. It is a little more complex than that….but at the root of it is I cannot bear to see him cry almost every day, nor do I like seeing his joy of learning evaporate. I won’t go into my state’s pathetically low standards.
Winter break will be convenient, and we’ll use the time just to make sure it is not an “adjustment problem.”
As a little funny aside: last evening at the dinner table he got chastized (by me) for some inappropriate behavior. Little brother (who loves PS because the work is easy and he’s a very social boy) said, “that’s what the kids in the cafeteria do.” I told them under no circumstances were they to act like that, regardless of what other kids do.
My 9yo’s response? “Then how will I ever fit in?”
You won’t honey….and that’s not always a bad thing.
I have to remember to thank my Mom — again.
I was asked to be a crossing guard in elementary school. Mom said no.
I didn’t get it then but surely appreciate it now.
I hope your kind daughter figures a way out of this loathsome assignment soon.
Or, as I have instructed my DD, she can always blame you. Always a good out to have in your back pocket — my Mom won’t let me. (Also works to say husband won’t allow. . . or you have to check with husband . . . or wife, as the case may be. :) )
Nance
And I *was* a crossing guard and team captain and teacher’s pet and all those things. I too appreciate now, it would have been healthier not to be.
Meanie,
Wow, my head is spinning thinking about your son. What a great little guy. I would be pulling him out, too.
Sounds like our kids are similar in that they actually like hearing their teachers talk. And doing well. And showing interest in learning. How really, really sad that they wouldn’t be able to go about their days in peace, without becoming targeted as teacher’s pets. (Actually, my daughter hasn’t had any problems, though the majority of her friends are 8th graders who tower over her 6th grade classmates. They leave for high school next year, however.)
The whole “how will I ever fit in?” thing is just awful. A child shouldn’t be forced to choose sides in the bizarro turf war, Kids vs. Teachers. It reminds me of West Side Story, but without………….. uh… I forget where I was going with this. I am so exhausted – and so, so tired of having to wake up at the crack of dawn every morning for this school thing… I think I’d be smart to stop writing now :{
Meanie, give your son an extra cookie or something. Say it’s from me.
Good night.
My fifth grade teacher used to call me up to rub her neck while the other children were working on something at their desks (I was always finished and ahead.) I thought it made me special and I wanted to please adults, especially teachers.
I remember mentioning it at home one night with other things showing how smart I was from school, and the teacher didn’t ask me after that. Also she began scolding and snarling, and once I felt she set me up to be sabotaged when she rewarded me with making her bulletin board and then criticized me for not being careful enough cutting out the edges and said I wouldn’t be allowed to do that anymore. I didn’t understand and thought it was me, that somehow I must’ve slipped or even failed.
I assume my folks angrily stopped the former and never found out about the latter, and thought it would be better to let me go on thinking teachers are always right but if they’re not, it’s between the grownups . . .
[...] She’s the shusher [...]
JJ: “I didn’t understand and thought it was me, that somehow I must’ve slipped or even failed.”
:(
I know — the same childhood-damage battle scars I didn’t get from Church Authority like some of y’all, I got from School. And yet I loved it all the more, tried to live up to it, even went into it as my life’s work and belief system.
When I say I am inseparably both pro-choice and pro-life, I mean I’m pro-choosing one’s own life. . .
Lynn if you’ll put up with a little further stroll along this tangent, see Dale’s Meming of Life, comment # 28 to this post about outgrowing your childhood faith. This is exactly what it’s been like for me, except with schooling and education as the culture instead of Christian churching.
That’s an encouraging comment by the reader at Dale’s. It’s a helpful analogy for me because I don’t think I was ever very excited about schooling as you were; but I was a religious faithbot for a while (though not as extreme as Dale’s reader).
I liked his “truism of faith”: It takes continual effort to keep it. It’s certainly true of religion.
The cost of expressing doubts:
Nobody likes having their “blissful beliefs” challenged. It’s true of most groups, including homeschoolers, at times.
Yes. And it’s true of school too. “Teacher pet” is seductive like a cult can be, especially at a certain age and especially for good girls caught at a susceptible time. All I suggest is that you help make all this part of Girl’s education so she is just as protected against it as any other sort of seduction. :)
JJ: “Teacher pet” is seductive like a cult ”
Interesting. I’ll give it some thought. I was never a teacher’s pet; I was one of those invisi-kids. In a past post, I even likened myself to Amos/Mr. Cellophane in the Chicago musical:
Film to watch — the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie! [shudder]
I’ve never seen this movie before, but it sounds interesting.
I’ve already been criticizing homeschooling a lot lately, so I’ll refrain from sharing my initial reaction to the story’s plot summary :)
…Maybe I’m just a malcontent… or a naysayer… or Goldilocks, never able to find “just right.”
That’s a high calling in life, shushing. Now in our school, you’d need a clapper. To quiet the masses, teachers clap like this “clap, clap, clapclapclap.” When the kids hear it, the clap in reply…. and shut up. I tried it with my daughter’s slumber party the other week when they were rising to an uncontrollable pitch. Amazing, these tweens stopped in their tracks, clapped back, and stopped to hear what I had to say.
[...] posting the video clip from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie the other day, I was stunned that Lynn has never seen it thus doesn’t have it in her frame of reference as we talk about School Ideas — what an [...]
Did you recognize Professor McGonagall 40 years younger? ;-)
“For people who like that sort of thing, that is exactly the sort of thing they like.”
I’m going to find a way to work this into every conversation that involves someone telling me something I have no desire to hear!
Holiday Longing:
Hmm, I’m not sure how I feel about that. It sounds partly fun — and yet creepy at the same time. :)
I know! Once you get outside the box, a LOT of stuff we do with kids starts to seem a little creepy. COD was blogging what he found “creepy” the other day . . .
COD’s post: “Creepy robot kids are creepy”