[Overpaid Slacker]

badcar -- I agree, if the parents are reasonable about it and laid-back in their presentation.

However, if as I suspect it would, it continues from "I don't want you to give MY kid candy," to "and you can't/shouldn't give candy to any of the other kids b/c then my kid will feel singled out, or like we're not allowing her to have candy b/c she's fat, etc." I'd flip my *****.

And, cynic that I am about human nature, I'd expect RickM to be in the minority in a laid back, non-aggressive, non-judgmental approach.

Sidebar - my g/f is student teaching now, and her supervising teacher accepted a bet with one of the kids in the class about the BoSox/Yanks series (a real loudmouth, this kid, so naturally a Sox fan). I cringed when I learned about this b/c I could just hear some sanctimonious parent (who never attended a PTA meeting or a school play) getting all bent about "gambling" in the classroom and what does that "teach kids" blah blah blah.

Now I made bets w/ my teachers way back in the day about this sort of thing, but today is a different world, esp. in NY Metro schools, and I've got no problem with it at all, other than that it just gives the hair-trigger self-rigtheous pinhead parent an easy way to take a cheap shot.

Oh, and the bet w/ this punk kid was for McDonald's breakfasts for a week or something like that -- can you imagine if the kid was obese (he may be, I don't know)? Holy Hell would break loose.

There are too many victim groups out there looking for a reason to bytch; it's too dangerous a minefield now to be a teacher if you want to have any fun or razz with your class the way my teachers did.

JP