Most of my school life was pretty much the same way - you had to earn anything. Back in grades 1-4, we had an awards-type thing where when we pulled
all A's on our report card, we would be given a wooden "Golden Apple" as a kind of trophy - I hauled butt (both in terms of effort and creativity),
just so I could get one of those.
Now then, if you were to see me in the childcare system at the same school, you would see the flip side. I had a parent that worked in the childcare
over there (so that way I could still spend time with him). Well, whenever one person decided to cause a problem, everyone had to suffer the
consequences - For example, two kids (one was a bully, and the other enjoyed whining) ended up getting into a huge argument - All 20 of us (even those
of us that had nothing to do with this) were not allowed to get an afternoon snack, all because these two decided to settle their differences (to make
matters worse, neither parent wanted to believe that their
darling, little angels could have started it).
In middle school was when I first noticed the "no child left behind" mentality - I ran afoul of a couple bullies, and made the mistake of going to
the counselor - The first thing he made us do was "shake on it", and have
both of us apologize to the other - me, being the victim, had to
apologize for doing nothing? If anything, both the bully & myself were thinking the exact same thing when we left - our apologies were worthless, and
chances are he would still be a bully by the end of the day.
Highschool was the same way - We've had tests "dumbed down" because someone was struggling to stay afloat in the class (when they should have
failed out), teachers would give out awards to all students (kind of made me wonder why I put in so much effort), and every now & then a person would
magically pull off an "A" in a class after their parent's made an appearance. Practically the only class that didn't do this was concert band (I
won all my awards in there the hard way).
I will say though, I think you handled the situation better than I would've Smyleegrl - Before taking the parent into another room, I would've told
the class (loudly), that I was talking her (the parent) down to the principal's office for breaking rule #10 (No potty language in the classroom)
- be a bit humorous to see the kids' reactions.
-fossilera