Want to make me furious? Here’s a simple how-to guide:

• Call me on the phone about my child.
• Call her by the wrong name. Repeatedly. Do not apologize when I correct you (on the third mispronounciation).
• Ask me WHY today’s “incident” occurred, even though I wasn’t there, and you were.
• Ask me how to handle said incident, even though you have been teaching for…? What? Forty years??
• Speak of my child as though she is making your job so difficult, and you are weary of trying to bend her to your will.
• Complain about how much work it is to adapt the curriculum to meet her needs because she’s so much further advanced than the other students. (I really love this one. Because, I’ll be the first to tell you my kid’s exceptional. But I don’t believe for one second that she’s the only child this teacher has ever encountered who’s this smart. Puhleaze. Hello? Your job is to TEACH. Try it.)
• Ask me questions about her “condition” and “history” in such a way that makes it clear that you are hoping I’ll tell you none of this is your fault, but something inherently wrong with my child that no teacher could possibly manage.
• Point out–several times–that my child announced that I don’t have a job and we don’t have much money. Don’t show any sensitivity whatsoever to my embarrassment therein or the fact that “I AM SCREAMING FOR ATTENTION” is the only more attention-grabbing thing she could’ve chosen to say.
• Fumble to find something nice to say about my child. Come up with a feeble, “She reads all the time.” Less than a minute later, tell me that she reads too much.
• After we get off the phone and I call the ex and get my kid’s side of the story, let me find out that in the midst of this battle of the wills my child cried and the other children taunted her and called her a crybaby and you did NOTHING to stop them.

Yeah, I know you’re close to retirement. I know you probably picked first grade because it’s generally easy. My child deserves an education as much as every other child in that room, and she deserves for you to KNOW HER NAME and treat her LIKE SHE MATTERS. She doesn’t like you much and I don’t blame her one bit. Get off your lazy rear, put away your cookie cutters, and do your job! Maybe if she stops getting the vibe that you find her exasperating, she’ll behave for you.

By the way? Check her folder for the letter I just wrote you. I look forward to our meeting with the principal. I suggest you bring a lot of duct tape with you, so that you can later reattach your head. Or is that your ass? It’s just so hard to tell.