A mom has taken to an online forum to share the ‘shameful’ punishment her son’s teacher gave him for missing a day of school.
She was unpacking his bag when she found an unconventional find-a-word puzzle…
The word search puzzle
The boy, who is in third grade, was made to find words related to his absence — such as excuse, graduate, responsibility, and success.Â
She wrote in the post, which now has 39.3k likes and 2.4k comments, “My son missed his first day of school.”
She later clarified that it was the first day he’d missed all year, not the actual first day of the school term or year.
After sharing a photo of the sheet of paper, titled ‘Miss School… Miss Out’, she wrote, “I just don’t know how to feel about this. My son had to ask me what truant meant.”
She then asked, “Is this directed at the parents or simply just a fun worksheet?”
It appears that her son had made a start on the task, circling words like learn, job, school, and education.
“There’s no reason to be shaming students like this”
Commenters slammed the teacher and school for the cruel punishment.
“I find this sort of shaming behavior towards children so odd, it’s not like the eight-year-old is responsible for themselves attending school (even if put on a school bus). It’s the responsibility of the parent/guardian to have their child attend,” one top commenter said.
Another weighed in: “There are so many valid reasons to be late/out of class, and 95 percent of them are frankly too personal to expect people to share.”
“There’s no reason to be shaming any student for being tardy — it only makes them want to show up less, and I’m speaking from plenty of personal experience,” a different user shared.
Then an educator gave their opinion, saying, “I’ve been a teacher for 31 years, this is ridiculous. Even if it is a student who has attendance issues, how is this going to fix it? The teacher is a jerk.”
“This gives passive-aggressive vibes, especially with the ‘slick’ and ‘excuse’ put there,” another claimed.
But one person said the mom was reading too much into it.
“I bet it’s just a coincidence and the class is learning some new words. Not everything is about you,” they wrote, seemingly overlooking the ‘Miss School, Miss Out’ title.