Parent-School Complaint Letters

By Richard (Age 13.5, Chinese International School)

Editor's note: The following letters were written in response to an incident where a teacher told a 6th-grade student to "go shoot yourself." 


Dear Mr. Headmaster,

I am shocked at the behavior of one of your school staff, who apparently said to my son a few irresponsible, uncalled for and most extremely rude words. "Go shoot yourself." I mean, really? We as the parents are paying the school fee to go to your school, just to have our child abused and put down? My wife and I are shocked, and as for my darling son, I believe he is in a state of trauma. His self-esteem (or whatever is left of it after one of your teachers cursed at my child in such a vulgar manner) has not skyrocketed, as it should have done going to such a privileged school, but crash-landed in such a way that in its current state its dim light could be compared to that of a dwarf sun. To have (may I repeat) one of your teachers, who has been teaching at this school for 32 years so maliciously injure my child - well, it will not stand. I am suggesting - demanding - that you fire such an undisciplined "member of staff" or at least suspend such an evil mind from pay for at least one month. He is the snake and my child is the innocent mind of Adam, exploring the garden until it came in contact with such a dark and crippling soul. If such reprisals are not made, we shall bring the hurt down on you. This would, admittedly, make news.

                   Mr. and Mrs. Annoying

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Annoying,

I see your reason for frustration! However, let us not come to any dire situations or conclusions yet. It is to my understanding that one of our staff has offended you and possibly distressed your child. However, I personally beg of you to see it from the school's point of view. The teacher was under a lot of pressure and the whole class in general was being loud and hard to handle. Everyone has their fragile twig known as patience, and although some are made of finer woods than others, eventually they both snap and situations like such will arise. And when such situations arise, it is the duty of the staff and the parents to duly and patiently support the school. This school is well-known and I as the headmaster intend to keep its reputation skyrocketing. Including the media and press on this issue is really unnecessary and I urge you to reconsider your actions. I am sure that a compromise can be made. For example, how about moving your child into a different class? It is understandable that the child might feel certain pressure when working with someone who has so recently undermined them and like I said, a compromise can be made. The possible solutions that I have suggested cannot possibly scrape on the surface of the great universe of solutions, remedies, and compromises. Think about yourself. Everyone loses their temper sometime, and it's up to everyone to control it. Please reconsider your actions.

Mr. Headmaster 

Teacher vs. Student

By Cheung (Age 15, Chinese International School)

Teacher Frustration Guidelines:

Are you a teacher? Have you ever felt extremely frustrated and annoyed? All because of a student that misbehaved and started disrupting the class, have you wanted to shout all the profanities in the world at him, but didn't want to get in trouble? Well fear no more. With these guidelines you can vent out your frustration.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

The first thing you should do is to count to five and give students time to be quiet. For each second, over the five seconds you count, you should add one minute to the end of class. This would make the kids more disciplined and would become quiet quickly, because kids do not enjoy detention. If this doesn't work, then you can send an email to their parents every time they misbehave. If the parents don't care, which is not usually the case, you may report to the principal, and he will give the student a warning. If the student misbehaves two more times, the principal would publicly announce the misdeeds of this student and suspend him for three days. If further behavior continues, you can expel the student. This frustration guideline may not completely vent out your frustration, but it will make it so you don't have to deal with the student or students anymore.

The teacher, having said "go shoot yourself" to a 6th grader in this case, should get suspended for around three days. There isn't anything more the teacher should be punished for. The teacher may have been a bit harsh by verbally abusing the student, but this is all normal. This is because being a teacher is extremely frustrating. It is extremely frustrating to the point that even some teachers at my school need to be taken to the hospital because of stress. Since in this case it is a public school, it is already unfair for the teacher. It would make things even more unfair for the teacher if the school punishes them too harshly.

There are two scenarios for the dangers of letting this situation go. As the teacher is in America where it is perfectly normal to carry a gun, then it is quite easy for the child to shoot himself. Though I would like to stress that the child would only do that if he were an idiot, it is still dangerous. Letting this go may also result in other teachers doing the same because they think it is appropriate. The moment the teacher says it to a particularly sensitive child, then the child might take the teacher's word seriously. This is highly unlikely, though.

The other scenario is if the teacher were in Asia where it is perfectly normal to throw a few insults at an extremely misbehaving student. For example, like most of the people in our critical reasoning class, we have all gone through some sort of Amy Chua-styled training. We are either used to this kind of verbal insult, or would be able to tolerate it with no problem at all. In some cases, Asian students would brush verbal attacks off as an everyday routine, and even laugh at it. More importantly, it is illegal for civilians to carry guns or any kind of artillery, therefore the possibility of danger is close to nothing.