What teachers want parents to understand
Ron Clark, an award winning teacher from Atlanta, has a few things to say to parents about how they can help, rather than hinder, their kids’ teachers.
He starts off with an anecdote about a great principal who resigned because of burnout, not from dealing with unreasonable students, but from dealing with unreasonable parents. This problem, Clark says, is pervasive among teachers and administrators and something needs to be done to stop the talent drain before the pool of passionate educators runs dry.
Here are some of the basic things he wants parents would understand:
Teachers are professional educators, not babysitters: If they offer advice, take it into consideration rather than getting defensive.
Trust the teacher’s word.
Stop making excuses for your kids.
It’s not the end of the world if your kid gets in trouble, or even fails: Kids need to learn about consequences. Meeting with a teacher to fight a bad grade undermines this lesson.
Good grades don’t necessarily mean good teachers: It’s often the best teachers who expect the most from your kid.
Instead of mindlessly bad-mouthing the teacher in front of other parents or, most of all, your kids, take the time to find out what’s going on.
Having taught high school, for a millisecond, I can relate to most of Clark’s advice. Most, that is, but certainly not all of it. The article does come off, in places, as if the teacher is always right.
But I do believe there is an us-against-them attitude when it comes to parent-teacher relations. Hearing that some parents bring lawyers to school meetings with them to discuss things, such as a child’s alleged cheating, is downright alarming.
In one of my education classes, I learned that parents tend to carry their own childhood baggage to their children’s schools with them, and this can create an obstacle in the parent