If I had a penny in HS for how many people thought a teacher didn't like them when it was clear the teacher actually didn't give a shit, I'd be FIRED.
As a high school teacher, I have to agree: For the kid,
high school is his world; for the teacher, it's a job, and kids move through the classroom each semester -- with more than a hundred kids in any given semester, teachers don't tend to have strong opinions about most of their students. I suspect it's different in elementary school, where the kids and the teachers are together all day. Kids tend to "take things personally", and they tend to get the idea that the teacher must not like them because they received a bad grade -- this is part of the trophy-for-every-kid concept; though it makes no sense, kids get the idea that they couldn't possibly have done poorly -- so it must be that the teacher doesn't like them!
A couple true stories:
- A mom came in to complain to me that I didn't like her daughter because her daughter was pregnant -- I was
100% unaware that the kid was pregnant, but the mom persisted in her opinion.
- A mom complained to me that I was giving her kid bad grades on his vocabulary tests because I didn't like him. Our vocabulary is all computer-based /provided by the county, so I pulled up his work and showed her that he was spending 1-5 minutes on each vocabulary exercise, and THAT was why he was getting bad grades on his tests -- he wasn't doing his homework.
Other kids "see it too"? Yeah, well, what will the average kid say if your kid asks, "Can you believe Mrs. Jones said that to me in class today? She hates me!"
Honestly, I don't have strong "like or dislike" opinions on the great majority of my students. On the rare occasion I have a student whom I really don't like, I go out of my way to be
fair to him or her. I think this is typical.
1. He thinks his grades in her class are lower than they should be considering the differences between (a) his opinions of his own papers compared to his opinions of other kids' papers and the relative grades - i.e., he writes a "better" paper and gets a "worse" grade than his classmates, and (b) his ability/effort vs. his grade in that class compared with his ability/effort vs. his grades in his other five classes ...
3. In my parent teacher conferences with her, she has essentially expressed disappointment with his performance. He is a smart and talented kid who coasts on those attributes much more than he works hard at things to get even better. This bothers her, and I can see how bother and disappointment can lead to dislike.
Note the first two words: "He thinks"; learning to write is tough enough -- comparing your own teenaged writing against other people's teenaged writing is not easy. English papers aren't often written on opinions (or biases) ... and they're
never graded on opinions. Rather, English papers tend to be literary analysis (Describe Mr. Darcy's character -- the student may like him or dislike him, but
the grade comes from pulling appropriate facts about him from the book /expressing them well). If it IS an opinion paper (drinking age, legalization of pot -- students love to write about those topics), the teacher
will not grade on whether the student's opinion matches his or her own; rather, the teacher will grade on whether the student presented facts to back up his or her opinion.
Students
tend to think writing is subjective; while it isn't as cut-and-dry as math or science, it also
isn't subjective -- did the student answer the question asked, did he defend his thesis statement, and did he use standard grammar/spelling/mechanics? Those things are quantifiable.
You say he's a smart kid who doesn't work hard -- that is probably what's getting him lower grades. You said something about locus-of-control -- do you mean he likes to blame other people for his shortcomings? Typical for a teen, typical for our society, but -- if I understand -- he needs to move past that.
If he really feels like his grades aren't an accurate reflection of the effort of he's putting in, then he should probably meet with her to find out how to better target his efforts towards her expectations. Not asking her why she doesn't like him, but more of a "I feel like I work hard in this class and my grades don't reflect that - what do you suggest I shift my focus towards?" I think all this not liking him business is clouding the real issue.
Yes, this. He needs to ask her what he can do to improve his grades. I suspect she will be able to give him several specific recommendations. At a glance, the things MOST of my high school students need to do better: Time management, reading for deeper meaning /not just basic plot, taking better notes in class, proofreading and editing instead of turning in first drafts.