What Teachers Really Want To Tell Parents (child, travel, high school)
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I basically agree with the general sentiment of the article.
Parents can indeed be of great frustration to a teacher and a hindrance to the education of the child right along with it and sadly those tend to overshadow the rest.
Being a child care provider for 20 years I've seen just about all of it. Some of it is amazingly wonderful some of it is horrifyingly awful.
The big difference, though, in what teachers deal with versus what other professionals deal with is that the teachers real client/customer is technically the child however it's the parent who has the power. Everyone else is dealing with adults as their clients/customer. Dealing with kids versus adults is very very different.
Regarding conferences, the problem is that as parents we tend to think only in terms of our own child/family and that is a selfish way of thinking on our part in regards to scheduling. The teacher is trying to balance conferences for 20-30 kids, depending on grade level.
A school that doesn't offer alternate conference times besides during school hours might have a valid reason for doing so. It might be too costly to open the school as mentioned by a previous poster in the evening hours. It might be that history has shown that it's not time efficient to do so if only one or two parents have ever taken advantage of the alternate hours previously. It might be a safety issue where teachers have been accosted by parents or children have gotten hurt and there was no one there to help the teacher.
Whatever the reason, if a parent cannot attend during the day due to work they can specifically request an alternate time and if the teacher cannot/will not accommodate them they can approach the principal for a reason or directive as to what can be done. A parent can also request a phone conference at another time. A parent can even request a conference via email.
The thing that gets me about some of the parents who complain about alternate hours offered for conferences (not necessarily those here posting but from previous experience) is that so many of them are no shows, wasting the time of the teachers. Then they are often the first ones who are in the office during the day demanding the teacher/principal meet with them right that moment! It may be regarding their child's missing sweatshirt or how their child was treated by another student the day before. Or demanding that their child be allowed to retake a test they failed which in turn caused them to fail the course on the report card even though the grading period is already over, they ignored requests to bring the child in for extra tutoring and they even signed the test with the failed grade and returned it to school!
Those parents, again not necessarily those here, who loudly complain about not having the time to take off work for a conference on their child's progress certainly seem to be able take off time for things they want to discuss when they want. (not to mention calling in sick to work because they just need a mental health day or want to go to opening day at the ballpark etc and it's ok to miss work for those things)
Our conferences, district wide, are held at the end of the first six weeks. You must attend a conference of some sort before your child's first report card will be released. Only the parents new to the school are not initially aware, however everyone is reminded at the beginning of the year. The exact days and times are up to individual teachers so it does vary and you won't know until they send out the forms asking you to sign up for a time. They have always been willing to do variations on times and days here, though.
If you have lived in the same neighborhood, or the same income level most of your life, you won't see what a variety of public schools there are. My older son went to school in a seriously GHETTO neighborhood. There were no evening conferences, the PTA was abysmal, the teachers were apathetic, etc, etc. The principal told me straight up that his main focus is getting more kids to attend. There were so many non-English speakers and children of transients that trying to work on their test scores was pointless.
My younger son now goes to what is recognized as one of the best schools in the area. Night conferences? Of course! Well-educated caring teachers, no non-English speakers at all, high test scores, VERY involved parents <- you really can't overestimate the affect this has.
The difference is like being in a different country. After seeing the differences, I have to say the main thing is NOT money, it is the amount of parental involvement. I volunteered for a field trip last year and there were two students for every parent!
Clark previously advised that when a teacher tells you something negative about your child, don’t turn to your child for her “side.” But when your child tells you something negative happened, ask the teacher for his side, for “there are always two sides to every story.” While doing so, show a total lack of respect and trust in your child by noting “children can exaggerate.” What the heck does this mean – adults can’t exaggerate? Parents are supposed to be their children’s advocates because the system doesn’t respect its “products,” either. <snip>
This essay doesn’t exactly drip with respect for parents.
I am not writing this as "Nah, nah, we homeschool and you don't!", but as further food for thought - I think the points raised are for every parent.
After seeing the differences, I have to say the main thing is NOT money, it is the amount of parental involvement. I volunteered for a field trip last year and there were two students for every parent!
I have always heard that it is important to get more parents more involved in their child's education. This essay seems to be complaining that parents are now too involved.
I have always heard that it is important to get more parents more involved in their child's education. This essay seems to be complaining that parents are now too involved.
I didn't interpret it that way. I think many schools have specific ways for parents to be involved, but for some parents, that is not what they want. They want to micromanage their children in the classroom too.
I found this article to be very interesting. I will admit to being guily in a few of these areas myself.
Definitely good food for thought as more and more parents have gripes about teachers it seems. One thing I know for sure is that I used to work with children, not in education, and the reason I left the field was that I could no longer tolerate the parents.
The majority of teachers are teaching because they really love children, and love teaching, I hate to think that we are making it so impossible for them to want to do it. Not a good forecast for eduation down the line if we chase away all the good educators.
After twenty-five-plus years of dealing with the educational system, I guess my response to the article is "don't make broad-brush assumptions about me as a parent, or about my child, and I won't make any about you as a teacher."
They had one teacher that I did NOT like at all. Our son did not like him but our daughter did. They both learned a lot from him though.
Honestly, I don't care if my kids like their teachers. I don't much care if the teachers like the kids (or me, for that matter), either. I do care, very much, if they let that like or dislike color how they handle classroom issues. And basic respect and human courtesy are a must, IMO, whether we all are one big happy family or not.
That's just it. All parents have been students. We know it's possible for teachers to be extremely unprofessional. Just because they're teachers, doesn't mean some don't lie. My experience as a student and a parent has proven that. I'm not saying that I trusted my children's word 100% trust over a teacher's word, but I weighed both sides and looked for evidence. If there was proof that either was lying, I handled it swiftly and without mercy to either side.
Adding to that: my daughter has an eidetic memory, especially when it comes to dialog. She can quote any conversation she's been part of-- and it came in really handy the year we had the Teacher From The Black Lagoon (who in fact did lie like a rug). I prefer to think that teacher's an outlier-- that she's nowhere near anyone's norm-- but even good teachers can make mistakes, and bust the wrong kid for talking, or only catch the second party involved in a two-party transgression.
So, how would you feel if your husband's company started requiring him to work evenings to accommodate a customer, after he worked from 6-4 already .
Having to work evenings and weekends is not uncommon in Mr. Aconite's very very white collar job. And having worked half the weekends and holidays, been on call, and had mandatory overtime (or some combination thereof) throughout my working life, I can assure it is not at all the case that "people in other jobs don't have to---"
The problem is that, like with so many other things, people on both sides get in the habit of stamping their feet and being unwilling to give an inch. So much for teamwork.
Is it easier for a couple dozen teachers and staff to rearrange their schedules for a couple of hours, or for the several hundred families that will have to ask for time off of work? I am one of those people who looks at things from the perspective of which option will inconvenience the least amount of people?
This is an excellent point.
And the reality is that the extra hours is part of the teacher's job just like when parents work extra hours at their jobs it's part of their jobs.
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to being guily in a few of these areas myself.
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