Willingham: When teachers speak unwelcome truths about your child
My guest today is cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia and author of “Why Don’t Students Like School?” By Daniel Willingham As the holidays begin students are going home with report cards. This week a friend vented some irritation to me over comments on his fourth-grade son’s report card. The teacher said the boy was bossy on the playground and had become physically aggressive with some other kids when he got frustrated. My friend kept saying that his son was a typical boy, and thought that the teacher was “out of line” in characterizing his son as aggressive. He claimed that she must have ridiculous ideas about what constituted “aggressive” behavior in fourth-grade boys.
