Teacher's 'uninspiring' note slammed for 'crushing' girl's dreams of reaching the Olympics
The teacher's viral note in the girl's homework book was slammed online for "crushing" her dreams to become a top-level gymnast and compete in the Olympic Games
A teacher commenting on a pupil's ambitions for the future has been slammed for adding a homework note "crushing" the girl's dreams.
In a viral post shared to Reddit's r/mildlyinfuriating group, which can be seen here, a parent uploaded a photo of a teacher's homework comment. The girl's homework was to comment on "my hopes and dreams" which the pupil said: "To go to the Olympics for gymnastics. To be a perfect gymnast."
But the teacher reportedly wrote in bright red ink: "Will never happen. Sorry." Poster Careful-Total-3216 said in the post: "My 11-year-old daughter's teacher wrote this comment on her homework.
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"I'm absolutely flabbergasted and angry. This after my daughter just competed in gymnastics nationals a month ago."
Since being shared to the r/mildlyinfuriating group on November 15 the post has amassed more than 118,000 upvotes and some 11,000 comments. According to the Northern Illinois University, self-esteem is incredibly important to a child's development.
In a post on the subject, teacher Sherie Newman said: "Every child’s self-esteem grows with each experience of successful interactions through positive words. It is important to build a child’s belief that they can handle their life and handle it well."
The university also listed five steps that parents and teachers could take to build a child's self-esteem, which include:
- Listen to and acknowledge your child’s thoughts and feelings.
- Create situations that help your child experience success, not failure. Set clear and appropriate expectations, offer reasonable amounts of help, provide adequate incentives and remove obstacles.
- Give your child a feeling of reasonable control over their life.
- Reinforce that your child is lovable and capable.
- Show your child that you have a positive view of yourself.
The overwhelming majority of people who commented on the post blasted the teacher's apparent harshness.
Reddit user Immediate-Care1078 said: "You can get a teacher reprimanded for that ****. Bring this to the principal. I'm being so serious. Crushing hopes and dreams is for life to do, not the elementary teacher. This teacher needs a reality check."
Double_Bass6957 added: "Teachers aren't supposed to crush dreams, they're supposed to encourage them." Tat_got posted: "I could never imagine saying this to a student of any age. I had a 4th grade student once tell me their dream was to live on Jupiter. Even something like that wasn't enough to make me tell them it wouldn't happen. We instead talked about what kind of study he'd need in order to make that happen since no one has lived there yet."
But there were others who were sceptical about whether the note was genuine. Several of those who questioned whether the note was real believed it was too extreme a comment for a teacher to make."
WannabeSloth88 said: "Am I only one highly suspicious of this? Like, it is so mental for a teacher to write this, I just have to consider more likely options first."
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