Today at lunch with a former teammate the four ladies to the left of me were going on and on about what great mom’s they were patting each other on the back and gossiping about the PTA (O) and how lucky their child’s teacher was to have them as a helper in the classroom. I did kind of choke on my food a bit. See, when I was a teacher I was not in favor of the parent volunteer. Come observe my classroom all you want, feel free, that’s not what bothered me. What bothered me is that most of them are there for the wrong reasons. Ask most teachers and they will tell you that the biggest gossips at school are the homeroom mom’s and PTA members. The ones who pop in during lunch or who ease drop while they ran the copy machine. I was mean and often had a plan to get rid of our extra gossipy moms, a litmus test of sorts. Our copy room was where our mailboxes were, many homeroom moms of the younger kids were always copying papers for their teachers…as well as listening in to what … [Read more...]