Playing favorites

I'm a little frustrated with one of my classroom teachers. She seems to play favorites and it drives me nuts.

I admit when I had my own classroom and my own students and classes, I did have favorite students. And I have them now, even. It's the nature of the teaching beast. But what makes the mettle of the teacher is the ability to have favorites but still treat them all the same. One thing kids wrote on my evaluations over and over again is that I was fair. None of them could ever argue that I wasn't- and that was high praise to me because I tried to always be fair. It would kill me to have to discipline one of my favorites, but I would still do it. It's just "the way I roll."

Now that's just me. Obviously not all teachers think like I do. For example, there is a kid in one of my classes that-today- kept putting his head down on his desk and kept falling asleep. Over and over again. The teacher kept telling him to put his head up. This kid is a total brat- he's an obnoxious mouthy smartass. He's rude and often crude. He complains and whines about everything, every day and has a sarcastic comment all the time. AND SHE NEVER WRITES HIM UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then today with the sleeping thing. Because, as she told me later, she just feels sorry for him and likes him in spite of his evil behavior since she's known him since he was in kindergarten. BUT, there's another kid in class who put his head down on his arm while he was taking notes, and she yelled at him to get his head up and docked him his participation points.

I just hate that. I've seen the grade book for the evil kid and she doesn't deduct his participation points but she does for other kids.

There is nothing I can do about it; and trust me, this isn't a battle I want to fight with her. And I know I don't have to fight her, I could just talk to her but it would be awkward, uncomfortable, and probably I would be told to "mind my own dang business." And I'm certainly not gonna go over her head- "Hel-lo!" we know how bad that would be!

I've talked to other aides- in generalities to see if they witness this in other classes with other teachers (because I don't want to point a finger at one teacher) and unfortunately it seems like they do have these problems. I can't decide if it's noticed because we're the outsiders looking in or if it's a culture set by this particular school system or even an third option... who knows?

I'm most certainly not perfect as a teacher, but I do try to be fair and the injustice of it all just makes me angry, tired, and guilty. Great- like I needed one more thing to worry about!

Mags