The fact that the teacher didn’t seem concerned about it when you called upsets me more! She should have noticed DURING the twin groupings and helped him join as a “triplet” then!

If the school is going to do this, the school is responsible for pairing everybody up.

These types of activities are meant to establish unity among students and boost their self esteem, but, when a child is so blatantly left out it lowers their self esteem and makes them feel as if they are not part of the group. It also, affects his/her emotional well being in a negative way that can be difficult to repair. Let’s face it, once something like this happens children are less likely to pick your child for future group activities and your child will be less likely to want to participate. This is a slippery slope and climbing back up can be difficult at best. In this case the teacher, knowing how many kids are in her class, should have planned to have groups of 2 & 3. Let’s say she didn’t realize this until your call to her…then she should have fixed the situation right away. Her salary is paid by the taxes that you pay. Therefore, she works for you. And if you tell her that what she is doing in class is not creating an emotionally healthy learning environment for your child then it is her JOB to fix the problem. If the situation is not fixed right away you should file a complaint with the principal and school district. I know that sounds extreme but clearly this teacher isn’t concerned with your child’s emotional well being and that is not the type of person that should be a teacher.

I think anything that excludes one or a few children in a class is a bad idea. If the parent didn’t want their child to participate in an activity, that is one thing. But for the teacher to completely be unaware of the fact that one of the students was unmatched, and would be unmatched because of an odd number of students just goes to show her head is somewhere else. I would almost be tempted to keep my child home from school that day…although I am adamant about not skipping school for silly reasons, in this case my childs self esteem would be more important and I would take them for a day at a museum or something else educational, but fun.

As an educator I know it is important to plan things to make sure everyone is included. If this teacher was going to have this activity done then it was her responsibility to make sure everyone was included. It is December and she knew from the start that her class had an odd number of students. Then for her to ask you to call another parent and ask to include your child was wrong. All of the details should have been taken care of BEFORE a situation happened. I think the situation should be brought to the attention of the administration. This will not create a healthy, unified classroom setting.

My now homeschooled daughter had the same problem, she was always left out of these types of things at public school, that is part of the reason we decided to homeschool. She was a little bit behind her class so it was like she wasn’t important. She is much happier and her self-esteem is much better.

Of course this situation would affect a child.

As humans we have this desire to fit in, in fact we spend most of our lives trying to “fit in” with society. We want to, in fact need to, be accepted. We are groomed from infants to tailor our behavior and our thinking to what is considered normal. If you grow up feeling unaccepted it can lead to serious problems as an adult.

In this case of the Twin day, although I’ve never heard of it, I truly fail to see the point in it. When I was reading the other comments someone mentioned that this exercise can be used for building unity amongst students. That sounds like a reasonable explanation, but even still there has to be another way to do this, such as class room t-shirts, or a project for the class or something that includes everyone.
For whatever reason the teacher didn’t properly plan to make sure everyone had a buddy, but adding him as a “triplet” would have made him feel left out just the same. When the teacher was made aware that your son didn’t have a partner, she could have and really should have rearranged the groups. She could have made groups of 3, or more or even divided the class into 2 halves, boys and girls. There were many options available to her and since she didn’t seem all that worried, then I would have gone to the Assistant Principal in the school about it and/or kept the child home so that there wouldn’t be hurt feelings.

Seriously, I’m assuming it’s like all the ones my kids’ schools have ever had. If it is just the classroom then I apologize and may agree with the comments, but schools do these things all the time as fun, dorky little activities for instance during spirit week. It’s not a big deal, and meant for fun, and having a twin in another classroom, or even grade, or none at all (kids forget a lot of times even, or don’t care), or being a set of “triplets”, “quads”, etc. is all fine and dandy. I think most situations (especially when kids are younger) arise as problems by how parents handle things. My kids used to go to a school with uniforms, spirit week meant out of uniform and forgetting twin day because of that was the only time any of my kids cared at all. It’s no big deal and most likely should have been handled like that. Your son is perhaps too young to realize it and felt that he HAD to have a twin like it was an assignment…
Again, if the situation was just in the classroom, and especially if there wasn’t any notice before, then that’s different. Really though, as parents part of our job is to show our kids how to react when life doesn’t go just how we want also…because that is a very important lesson everyone needs. :-)

I think that is so sad. Some teachers are so insensitive. The teacher should of took charge of the situation in class! She should of said that we are going to have one set of triplets!

Why didn’t the teacher offer to be the child’s twin. In my children’s school that would have happened. Even the parent could have dressed as the child’s twin.