When it comes to institutions of learning, there are countless players in the education of children. Of course there are the students and teachers themselves, and there are the school's administrators. A sometimes forgotten demographic,however, is that of parents. Without the parents, the children would not be in the classroom. This is true in the sense that if not for dear old Mom and Dad, that little student sitting at the cluster of desks in the left corner of the room would not even exist. But past that, it is because of the parents that the student is sitting in this particular classroom. The parents choose what school to send their children to, thereby becoming intricately involved in their entire educational career.
But what is the role of the parent past choosing the school that their children will be attending? Different parents take very different approaches to how they involve themselves in their children's classes. Some are the over involved parent, the ones who take it upon themselves to act as another, if not the primary, educator. This is the type of parent that teachers cannot stand! There is a reason that every teacher gets hired, a reason why they are the one up in front, running the class. Yes, this is often the predominant type of parent, but not the only kind out there.
Despite being a rare specimen, the helpful parent surely does exist. No need to be overly involved, no need to be telling teachers and administrators how to run their classrooms. Only an obliging volunteer when needed. These individuals are willing to take the necessary steps to enhance their children's experience while in school. It is these parents that all teachers wish to have in their classrooms. The parent willing to drive for field trips, willing to help out during the class bake-sale, willing to take home the class guinea pig for winter vacation.
This latter type of parent is the one that needs to become the dominant parental presence in the classroom. While the overbearing, overly involved parent is better than the parent taking no interest whatsoever, this demographic is, in some ways, just as detrimental. For the child of the overly involved parent, there is nothing more dreaded than the image of that parent walking through the classroom door. And when something so unfortunate happens for children at a young age, it is such events that these students associate with their education for the rest of their lives. When this happens, when, for the rest of their lives, students correlate their ever present parents with school, the desire to learn is greatly diminished.
As those involved in the field of education, it is our responsibility to not only advocate for the helpful classroom parent, but to assist in training this breed of parent. Not only does having parents willing to help make things easier for the teacher, but also makes the entire learning experience infinitely more enjoyable for the students. To all you parents our there, take an interest in your children's education, but do not assume that it is up to you to provide them with their formal education.
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In this post you are assuming that every teacher, classroom, and school district is operating to the best of its ability. If this were the case, there would rarely be the need for parental intervention. Sadly though, this is not always the case. While I am a full supporter of labor unions, the teacher's union makes it virtually impossible for a teacher to be fired from a public school. If a teacher's performance is sub-par and he or she is failing to provide students with the education they deserve, it is sometimes necessary that the parent becomes involved. At my high school administrators would occasionally sit-in for a few minutes of class time, but those few minutes are not nearly enough to properly assess teacher performance. And even if they are, a lot of administrators don't want to rock the boat by taking action to address a teacher's weaknesses.
ReplyDeleteYou make a valid point, and I agree that there are many parents who are over-bearing and become unnecessarily involved in their child's education. However, our public education system is fraught with structural errors and parental intervention may sometimes prove to the greater benefit of all students.
I agree with circumventures that there are a lot of assumptions being made in this post, primarily that the school system and teachers always know best how to educate the student, and that if a parent is overly involved it means that something is wrong with the parent rather than the school/teacher.
ReplyDeleteIt is hard to come up with one theory for parental involvement that will accurately address every situation, because school systems are as varied as people and they all have strengths and weaknesses that will dictate how a parent should react (I've been enrolled in about 9 separate school systems in 5 different countries, so I know this first-hand). In Zimbabwe, for example, where I went to high school, parents enroll their kids in a school and expect that school to have absolute responsibility for the education and formation of that child, not only intellectually, but physically through sports, religiously through weekly chapels, and even discipline-wise where if a student is caught misbehaving outside of school, the parents blame the school rather than accepting responsibility themselves. Such an approach I think is not very helpful because a student is not shaped only by their time at school but also at home and with their friends, drawing influence from all of those places. As such, I think a more balanced approach in regard to parents is that they should take responsibility as moderators to be sure their child is receiving the education they need, speaking with teachers when necessary and remaining quiet when there is simply nothing that can be done to change the system, but then correcting things alone at home with the child.
I understand how obnoxious parents may be a nightmare for some teachers, but surely the parent has more right to shaping their child's education than any paid teacher does. Sure, let the teacher do their job, but isn't a parent's job also to raise their children? Also, I think that it is at least partly because of our different backgrounds and upbringings that we have different learning abilities and thinking processes in the classroom, and to stifle a parent's influence on their child is to stifle the natural relationship that is supposed to exist between parent and child - namely that the one who has gone before helps and instructs the one who will follow, and who else knows best where the child has been and where they are going than the parent?
One thing I would like to add is that a parent OR a parent-LIKE figure is very important in a child's upbringing and education. It does not necessarily have to be the parents themselves that make the important decisions as to where children go to school, what classes they take, how and what they teach them at home, etc. Aunts, uncles, and grandparents can also fulfill the role, although they arguably will not do as well of a job as the real parent might have. Furthermore, it might not even be a relative that could serve as a child's parent figure. A teacher or family friend that helps and guides a child/teenager/young adult through the education process could closely mirror the job that a real parent might do.
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