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The Dorchester Star - Cambridge, MD > Archives > News > C-SDHS teacher charged with abuse of two 17-year-old students (http://www.dorchesterstar.com/articles/2011/05/27/news/170332.txt - broken link)
And just in case anyone misses the point of this post, it's to point out that just because a small minority of parents are awful and/or abusive does not mean that ALL or MOST parents are awful and/or abusive.
Same for teachers; just because some teachers are awful and/or abusive, it doesn't mean ALL teachers are.
But what I can say is that all the preparation in the world will not guarantee a child will be successful in school if they have lousy teachers. It won't matter one iota how involved the parent is if the child has a lousy teacher, the child will probably struggle.
Oh, AND the lousy teacher will blame, you guessed it, the PARENTS. How convenient.
One point is that these situations are not really that rare. Further down in the article, the spokesman for DHS says
Quote:
The Department of Human Services recorded 550 cases of child abuse or child neglect in fiscal 2009, and cases increase during summer when kids are out of school, according to Julia Bryan, public information officer for DHS.
Perhaps these situations are rare where you are. They are not uncommon here.
Another point is that the best teachers in the world will not guarantee a child will be successful in life if they have lousy parents. Even if, as unlikely as it would seem to be, every single teacher the child has from kindergarten through 12th grade were lousy, dedicated, involved parents could still make sure that the child becomes successful. If, on the other hand, a child has a more typical mix of poor, mediocre, good, and outstanding teachers for thirteen years, but has the same lousy parents throughout childhood, the odds are overwhelmingly against success in life.
Outliers exist in all situations. There are plenty of outrageously bad teachers, but most students are only subjected to them for nine months at a time before there is a change in the mix of teachers. There are also outrageously bad parents, and children are condemned to them up until the point where family or law enforcement step in to remove the children from their "care" or they grow up. Teachers are subject to codified procedures for training, licensing, hiring, and retention. About half of states are union states, where there is great rumor over the future of teachers' unions. The rest have no significant union activity, and the great sin of tenure does not exist. (I have been on a year-to-year contract since 1985. I don't believe that my job "belongs" to me.) Thus there exists at least the structure to regulate teacher quality.
No such system vets people for parenting. Only in the most extreme cases, such as the one that happened here yesterday, are children removed from their parents' care. Millions of children will spend the summer languishing in squalor without it coming to the attention of law enforcement. Millions more will pass these weeks with little attention to academic matters. Only those fortunate enough to have families that have the means and desire to expand their children's horizons will involve them in the kinds of experiences that summer vacation allows. The days of summer vacation are clearly not under the control of the teacher in whose class a child will be enrolled in August. Yet that teacher will be held responsible for that child's achievement.
I am not blaming the parents out of hand. I am participating in a thread entitled "Blame the Parents" just as you are. Here is main point that I have. It is one which is regularly presented by teachers of children in difficult circumstances and just as regularly shouted down by those who seem to deny the reality of the children who were found in that closet yesterday. It is a specious position to demand that all teachers be held absolutely accountable for the test scores of individual children on a given day when they have almost no control over many factors that outweigh the influence they have for a few hours over a 9-month period.
I don't blame the parents. I blame those whose seek to assign blame under the guise of finding a solution to the problem of low achievement by students. Punishing and rewarding schools and teachers is not the answer. Operant conditioning does not apply under these conditions. If the system we are creating is the desired result, then there is another agenda at work in the American educational system.
When I think back to who more profoundly influenced my life, between my awesome, involved, education advocate parents and that one crappy middle school language arts teacher who mispronounced and misidentified simple vocabulary words that I'd already known for years, the choice is fairly obvious.
A bum teacher sucks, yes. A bum teacher can make your year with him or her at the very least, a waste of time, at worst, set you temporarily behind if you don't have any other method of learning what they're supposed to be teaching. But a bum teacher doesn't have ANYWHERE NEAR thelasting impact a bum parent has. You have a teacher for a year. You have parents all of your (or his or her) life.
When I think back to who more profoundly influenced my life, between my awesome, involved, education advocate parents and that one crappy middle school language arts teacher who mispronounced and misidentified simple vocabulary words that I'd already known for years, the choice is fairly obvious.
A bum teacher sucks, yes. A bum teacher can make your year with him or her at the very least, a waste of time, at worst, set you temporarily behind if you don't have any other method of learning what they're supposed to be teaching. But a bum teacher doesn't have ANYWHERE NEAR thelasting impact a bum parent has. You have a teacher for a year. You have parents all of your (or his or her) life.
I'd rep you but I have to spread some around.
Parents are the people who are there every year of our lives. Each teacher is there, at best, two years?? And then for only half the year when you look at the number of days kids are in school. Parents trump teachers by a landslide. Good thing too. I'm not sure I'd want to send my kids to school if teachers trumped me. Of course, I have my days I wish I had someone else to blame
Um, I told you I have respect for my student's parents like I do anyone. Where are you getting I don't respect them?
Please note, I said nothing about students. The question was about parents. I respect parents like I would anyone. Why would I treat them differently?
Um, you're the one bellyaching that I don't respect parents when I've told you I respect them like I do anyone else. If you don't think they deserve special consideration for being parents, why are you on the warpath here?
I would expect that most parents would give me more respect than a stranger off the street. I'm their child's teacher. I was chosen to do this job. The adminstrators and the school board thought enough of me to give me this job. That, alone, elevates me above a person off of the street. The assumption SHOULD BE that I am capable of doing my job, unfortunately, it isn't. Most people seem to assume the opposite.
I've asked you specific questions that you never answer and each reply to me contradicts your previous reply to me. There's no getting you to see anyone else's POV but your own, and only your POV is right. Silly me for not seeing how right you are. Too bad you still have to convince thousands more like me.
The problem is two fold.
1) Most of the parents with troublesome kids are using the school as a babysitter anyway. It's a lot cheaper than daycare.
2) Schools get paid by the NEA (federal government) for every pupil they keep in school.
What's missing is an incentive to kick the damn kid out if he disruptive or unruly or downright dangerous. The minute the teacher tries that there is an ACLU lawyer and a PO'ed parent in their face. It's time the teachers unions took a stand instead of taking a check each month...
With all due respect, getting a teaching degree is not all that difficult. Neither are the state exams. Passing a background check and a drug screening is really nothing to brag about either; that should be a given.
Its statements like the above that show how little people know about the profession.
To be a high school teacher in the majority of states means you must have at least an undergrad degree in your field NOT A TEACHING DEGREE.
I have a BS, an MS and am about to start my phd. These are not education degrees but are rather in my field. They are not easy to obtain.
Second, while the praxis is not particularly hard, getting a good score to get a good job is not easy. To get the best jobs you need to have be in the top 10% in the country.
But what I can say is that all the preparation in the world will not guarantee a child will be successful in school if they have lousy teachers. It won't matter one iota how involved the parent is if the child has a lousy teacher, the child will probably struggle.
Oh, AND the lousy teacher will blame, you guessed it, the PARENTS. How convenient.
Wrong again.
My daughter had an absolutely horrid teacher in Calc BC. My daughter taught herself calc (with very little help from me) well enough that she got a 4 on the AP and a 750 on the Math II SAT.
Same thing happened when my sister had a French teacher who thought eating crepes was good prep for the French SAT II.
You keep ignoring the FACT that teachers are not the majority of the education equation. At best they are 33%.
Do you acknowledge that children and parents are equal parts of that equation or is all the blame teachers all the time?
Do I deserves all the credit for my students beasting the SAT IIs? Because I know the majority of that credit goes to the students themselves.
Finally, I do not know why the parents in this thread keep trying to pidgen hole everyone who disagrees with them as holding the same opinion as the OP. I am not interested in blaming anyone but if anyone thinks that parents and children do not have a greater influence on student achievement than teachers do they are off their rocker.
Nice to know a teacher has as much respect for a parent of ONE OF THEIR STUDENT'S as a stranger off the street.
Because, like it or not, you are forced into a relationship with YOUR STUDENT'S parents, regardless of how little or how much communication you have with them. The parents are entrusting their kids to you and entrusting that you are a dedicated and effective teacher who has your student's (THEIR children's) best interests at heart.
And yes, I think YOUR student's PARENTS deserve more respect than a STRANGER off the street.
And a parent needs to PROVE to you first that they deserve more respect? But the parent should INSTANTLY respect you because you have a teaching degree? How do you know the parent isn't a nuclear physicist? Or a brain surgeon? And why should that even matter? Does your level of respect climb with each successive degree a person has? Do you think it's impossible to be a high school drop out and still be successful? Do think a SAHM deserves less respect than a working mom?
Maybe you should ask your student's parents to send in a short bio of themselves listing their education, this way you'll know right off the bat which ones deserve respect and which ones don't.
Who said anything about special consideration? Who said anything about being held in esteem for being a parent?
You have a HUGE chip on your shoulder for some reason.
Try having respect for your student's parents until they give you a reason NOT to. Yes, as a teacher and a professional, you should be coming from the side that YOUR student's parents deserve respect for entrusting their children's education to you until they give you a reason NOT to. Just as your student's parents should respect you because you are helping to educate THEIR child. I would imagine that most parents give you more respect than a STRANGER off the street; at least until you give them a reason NOT to.
Wow, that's big of you.
You seem incapable of seeing the difference between professional respect and respect accorded for ones parenting skills.
They are separate and distinct. Teaching is a PROFESSION we are not the parents of your children and yet you keep thinking that we have as much responsibility for your children as you do. It really is bizarre.
Just go to school till 8th grade, like the Amish, eh?
This isn't the place to debate the "college material" issue, but suffice it to say I don't buy it.
The bold is where I part company with you. It's not MANY, it's a few. And before you say, "what do you know about this, Katiana, you're only a dumb parent and you only know your own kids and your own (well, maybe a few other people's also) parenting", let me say I have worked in pediatrics and maternal/child health for the majority of my 40 year career in nursing. I have never seen all these examples of "bad" parenting that you guys on this forum bring up daily, not even when I was a visiting nurse in the ghettos. Virtually ALL parents care for their kids. Virtually ALL parents want what's best for their kids.
Working with kids naturally involves parents, too. It's an occupational hazard to get annoyed with parents. My kids have also worked with kids/parents in childcare, daycare, etc. It's easy to feel that parents get in the way of one's work. One has to remind oneself that the parents do want what's best for their kids.
Apples and oranges.
I do not doubt the majority of parents WANT what is best for their children but I would argue that MANY of them are not providing it.
Many parents are taking their students out of school for vacations during the school year. Ex. I had more than a third of my students out for at least one vacation during school.
Many parents are putting sports obligations before school ones. Ex. the majority of my students are two season athletes and the majority of those students grades and learning increase in the off season.
Many parents are not sending their students to school prepared for the day (enforcing bedtime, making sure they eat breakfast, have their homework done, etc). Ex. the majority of my students are getting less than 8 hours a day of sleep.
I do not think anyone in here is arguing that there are MANY parents out there neglecting and willfully damaging their children but given your health background you should know first hand that many parents harm their children despite "wanting" the best for them. Not providing a safe environment, not getting them vaccinated, not getting them timely medical care, etc, or are all of these parents "wanting" whats best for their children also DOING whats best for them?
I've asked you specific questions that you never answer and each reply to me contradicts your previous reply to me. There's no getting you to see anyone else's POV but your own, and only your POV is right. Silly me for not seeing how right you are. Too bad you still have to convince thousands more like me.
I have answered your questions. You just don't like the answers.
I'll state again, I respect EVERYONE, as I should. Those who have earned higher positions of respect, I respect more. Their opinions matter more because, well, they've EARNED their positions. Given a choice between advice from a parent, with no other qualifications, and a 20 year veteran teacher, I'm taking the teacher's advice. Parenting is not an earned position. There is no degree required, no training, no certifcation exams to even pass. Parents fit into the catch all of people in society. And yes, they are treated with respect, as everyone should be.
It is you who have failed to answer my question as to why parents deserve extra respect. You tried to answer it saying you don't think they do yet you're upset with me because I lump parents in with everyone else when it comes to automatic respect.
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I'd rep you but I have to spread some around. 
