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I Thought Christmas Was About Good Will?

December 4, 2011


I thought Christmas was about family, community, good will, acceptance, tolerance and togetherness.  Turns out I was wrong.

Should a teacher have told her class that Santa doesn’t exist? Of course not. Should she have told them that their presents are planted under the tree by their parents? Absolutely not.

But here’s where the parents of these children had a choice. They could have had a quiet word to the teacher, accepted her heartfelt apology, practised the long-lost art of forgiveness and not taken the matter any further.

Allowing this mishap to get overblown and on the nightly news suggests that Christmas may not be about real values, but rather, about the “real” Santa:

A teacher ruined Christmas for a class full of second-graders when she told them that there is no Santa Claus during a lesson about the North Pole at their Rockland County, N.Y., school.

The educator even told the youngsters, mostly 7 and 8-year-olds, that the presents under their trees were put out by their parents, and not St. Nick.

The stunning behavior caused a blizzard of outrage at the quiet George W. Miller Elementary School in Nanuet, where angry parents would like to see the teacher roasted like a chestnut over an open fire.

“If that happened to my daughter in her second-grade class … I’d be very upset,” according to 48-year-old Sean Flanagan, whose child was in second grade at the school last year. “If her brothers told her [there was no Santa], they would be punished. So I can’t imagine what should happen to the teacher.”

A nanny picking up a child at the school said that anyone who tells kids that Santa does not exist should get coal in their stocking.

“It’s outrageous that a teacher would strip a child of their innocence and try and demystify something,” 59-year-old Margaret Fernandez said.

A grandmother of a kindergartener added, “I think this is awful. If it happened to my granddaughter, I’d tell her [that] her teacher made a mistake, and there is a Santa.”

The unidentified teacher reportedly made her anti-Santa comments Tuesday during a geography lesson, when students told her that they knew where the North Pole was because that is where Santa lives.

School officials would not discuss the Christmas incident or say if the teacher would face any discipline.

District Superintendent Mark McNeill released a brief statement, saying only, “This matter is being addressed internally.”

Above is one of many scathing reports about this teacher. Let’s examine the facts.

Did she “ruin Christmas” for these kids? If so, their whole enjoyment of Christmas was founded on a lie. If the legitimacy of Santa is the only thing a 7-year-old can take out of Christmas, then they are missing a hell of a lot.

Was this “stunning behaviour”? No. It was a mere lapse in judgement.

Does she deserve to be “roasted like a chestnut over an open fire”? Absolutely not! Whoever wrote that line was being quite unfair and should have been made to delete it.

Did she “strip children of their innocence”? Hardly. Innocence isn’t just about believing everything adults want you to believe, it’s about seeing the good in people. It’s about not being judgemental and giving everyone a chance.

Apparently this teacher rang all the parents in the class and apologised. I think this is a fair consequence for her improper behaviour.

But I think this story is about more than a teachers conduct.

Is it possible that the mad scramble to make kids believe in Santa eclipses the very heart and soul of what the holiday is supposed to represent?

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Posted in Dealing with Parents | 3 Comments »

What About Parents that Bully Teachers Online?

October 25, 2011

Unfortunately, teachers and Facebook aren’t always a match made in heaven.  Whilst the vast majority of teachers on Facebook are responsible and mature enough to stay out of trouble, there’s always a news story popping up about tasteless comments a teacher made against students or minority groups.  This month it is Viki Knox, a Special Education teacher who was rightly condemned for her anti-gay comments on Facebook.

The media storm resulting from the Knox case and others like it serve as a timely reminder to teachers on Facebook that they must be extremely careful not to offend (something which shouldn’t be hard to do).

But what about the myriad of incidents of parents and students ganging up on and bullying teachers?

More than one in seven teachers has been the victim of cyberbullying by pupils or parents, and almost half know a colleague who has been targeted, according to a survey published today.

Students have set up “hate” groups on social networking sites calling for specific teachers to be sacked and have even created fake profiles in their names containing defamatory information.

Schools must make clear to pupils that such behaviour will lead to punishment, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) said.

Schools seem to be increasingly soft on parents that bully teachers.  Turning a blind-eye to Facebook campaigns and insulting comments against teachers is not acceptable.  Teachers so often feel isolated and powerless against taunts from parents.

Who do they turn to for support?

When schools claim to have a “zero tolerance for bullying”, they ought to include bullying of teachers by parents.  Any parent caught bullying a teacher online should be subjected to the same penalty as a teacher.  They should be told to take their child and find another school.

If you think that’s harsh, try being a bullied teacher.  I’m glad I’ve never been bullied, because I guarantee you, it’s not easy!

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Posted in Bullying, Cyber Bullying, Dealing with Parents, Parenting, Teacher Welfare | 2 Comments »

Should Teachers Visit Their Students’ Homes?

August 19, 2011

I think in certain circumstances it would be a most valuable experience for teachers to visit the homes of their students.  By doing this they will get a clearer picture about the environment in which that child lives in and unique aspects of their lifestyle.

The new chief of the Chicago public schools, Jean-Claude Brizard, suggested recently that teachers visit the homes of their students. Many people reacted to that badly, as math teacher Jason Kamras’s principal did when Kamras dropped in on his students’ apartments near Sousa Middle School in Southeast Washington.

The Sousa principal feared for his young teacher’s safety in a high-crime area. Kamras, however, found the visits invaluable. He understood his students better. Parents were more supportive. Now a D.C. schools official, Kamras is one of many educators who think unannounced visits can be worth the risk.

In the District, officials are looking at the possibility of home visits for elementary school students. The nonprofit Concentric Educational Solutions has been knocking on the doors of persistent truants for the past year. The group’s executive director and co-founder, David L. Heiber, said the visits would be even more effective if they occurred before students got into trouble. “Home visits by themselves do not correlate into academic achievement,” he said. “However, if done with academic goals and targets as the objectives, they do work.”

I commend Mr. Brizard for his brave and innovative suggestion and I’m disappointed it got so much backlash:

That thought is dismissed in many schools. Administrators such as Kamras’s principal see danger in some neighborhoods, and don’t think their staffs have the time or the energy for such after-school and weekend enterprises. “Teachers are overworked already,” Heiber said he has been told. He said administrators say that “our social workers only see our special needs students” or that “we are short staffed as it is.”

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Posted in Child Welfare, Dealing with Parents | 3 Comments »

A Blueprint for Teachers on the Quest for Excellence

May 25, 2011

I stumbled across an interesting blog piece that provided an excerpt of a paper written by Horace B. Lucido, a retired physics instructor, author and educational consultant, and a founding member of Educators and Parents Against Testing Abuse.

In his paper, Lucido singles out 10 things teachers need to perfect:

So what are some key elements in teachers regaining the professional respect and trust they deserve? State, district and site practices and policies should:

1. Allow our teachers to use best practices in lesson design and pedagogy rather than canned programs that require rigorous adherence to step-by-step procedures without flexibility.

2. Permit teachers to adjust and modify their lessons to fit their students’ knowledge and skills rather than prepare them for high-stakes testing. Forgo all site and district high-stakes testing that is not required by state or national law. Do away with site and district tests used to prepare for more tests.

3. Test score ‘data’ can only become relevant when interpretation for individual students is corroborated by their teachers — individually or groups — who have evaluated said students using multiple sources of information. No judgments, placements or qualifications for individual students should be made solely on the basis of annual high-stakes testing.

4. Abolish all goal-setting based on annual high-stakes testing scores. This includes targeting students, teachers and schools for score improvement. Each should be evaluated using multiple sources of information before making plans for any corrective actions. Teams of educators, parents, psychologists and community members should be employed in developing helpful strategies.

5. Eliminate both scripted and paced lesson mandates. It is not in standardizing our classrooms that students learn to be creative and innovative-attributes that are highly prized in the world of work. Just as the diversity of plants and animals is the strength of the Earth’s ecosystem, our ‘edusystem’ should model that diversity in the manner in which teachers provide unique lessons using a variety of methods. Standardized sameness is not conducive to how students learn nor is it an attribute valued in our culture — otherwise we would all be driving only Fords and wearing only Levi jeans.

6. Eliminate all punitive policies that pronounce harsh judgments on students, teachers, schools and districts based on unchallenged interpretations of student test scores. Teacher evaluations of their students’ knowledge and skills should be the hallmark and cornerstone of valid conclusions about what students know and are able to do. They are the professionals in the classroom.

7. Codify regulations against administrative use of direct and/or implied threats of repercussions to those teachers who follow their State Standards for the Teaching Profession rather than curricular and/or pedagogy directives which utilize a script-like pacing without allowing for teacher modification and adjustments to fit the classroom clientele.

8. State Standards for the Teaching Profession should be the guiding principles for all teacher evaluation protocols used by administrators. Terminate ‘walkthroughs’. Thoughtful classroom visitations that respect the context of the lesson with pre and post discussion is vital to proper evaluation. Otherwise, walkthroughs become nothing more than “big brother” in a formal setting, keeping a critical eye rather than a supportive stance.

9. Teachers should have the freedom without fear of recrimination to express their professional opinions inside and outside of school sites regarding school practices and policies. Fellow teachers, parents and the larger community need to hear from the classroom professionals regarding the educational programs at their schools. This will provide open forums for discussion and the enhancement of the school environment.

 10. Develop an enhanced parent-teacher communication protocol complete with translators for second language learner parents who are not fluent in English. Ongoing and frequent parent-teacher communication will both improve understanding and appreciation of the role each plays in the education of their students and also foster a greater mutual respect.

Which of the ten do you agree or disagree with?  Would you add an eleventh element?

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Posted in Dealing with Parents, Education Policy, Planning | Leave a Comment »

A Continuation of My Previous Post

April 29, 2011

As a continuation of my previous post about the unfair attention given to a teacher who doubled as a writer of adult fiction, I felt it was worthwhile concentrating on the role of parents in education.  There is no doubt that parents are an essential stakeholder in the education process.  Teachers are accountable to parents in the same way they are to other stakeholders.  However, there are times when parents can become too obtrusive. The hysteria that abounded concerning this poor teacher was completely unwarranted and unfair.

Below I have some recommendations for issues parents should feel free to take up with their child’s teacher:

–  Why is my child not progressing?

–  Why is my child not able to understand the set homework?

–  How is my child managing socially?

–  What steps and consequences did you implement when my child was being bullied?

These are questions and issues which parents might be best not focussing on:

1.  What the teacher does in his/her private time

2. How come my child isn’t up to the standard of child ‘x’?

3.  Can you please comment on the teaching skills of a colleague?

4.  Why has my child not received an award or certificate this year?

Whilst parents are encouraged to raise concerns with teachers, it is important to remember that teachers are human, usually fair and often try their best.  To make the education process run smoothly the teacher needs the trust and support of the parents.  In turn, the parents need to be kept up to date with what their child is doing and how they are coping.

To conclude, I wish to thank my readers for their constructive criticism of my previous post.  I was rightly pulled up on some of my opinions and have changed my position accordingly.  I strongly recommend that you visit the blogs of those that so eloquently argued for the poor teacher’s right to privacy and tolerance.  Their blogs reflect the insight and wisdom of their comments.  I am so fortunate to have such clear-minded and compassionate readers.  Thank You!

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Posted in Dealing with Parents | 1 Comment »

Schools Must Share the Blame With Parents

April 18, 2011

Teachers are great at blaming poor parenting for the bad habits of their students. Often it is completely justified. However, sometimes parents are not the only one that deserves the criticism. Sometimes when students present poorly at school, it is just as much the failure of the school to engage and enforce standards as it is the parents.

Take this case for example:

Teachers are warning that pupils are failing to pack their schoolbags with basic classroom equipment and instead are bringing mobile phones, iPods, hand-held computer game devices and even the latest iPads to school.

Some schools have even begun to introduce new agreements which require parents to ensure their children are equipped with textbooks and pens at the beginning of each day.

“They often don’t come to school with their books, or without their homework and sometimes they are lacking something so basic as a pencil to write with,” said Chris Keates, the general secretary of the NASUWT union.

“They come with all this electronic equipment, it would be nice if they just brought a pen.

“My message to parents is that you can send a very powerful message to your child about the importance of their schooling by making sure that they are ready to work when they get to class each morning.”

The problem will be discussed at the union’s annual conference later this week, which will also hear from schools which have drawn up “learning contracts” with parents to encourage them to take a keener interest in their child’s day-to-day progress.

Frustrated by pupils forgetting the basics but arriving with hundreds of pounds worth of electronics in their blazer pocket or schoolbag, one Sheffield teacher was instrumental in introducing a learning contract at his school.

The English and drama teacher, who declined to be named, said: “I teach children from some of the wealthiest backgrounds in the city but it was getting to be an absolute pain in terms of the day-to-day basics.

“It’s amazing how many devices kids carry around with them these days. Young people aspire to have these Macbooks and other expensive equipment but it seems to me that the priorities are skewed.

“They automatically reach for their MP3 players and so on, but not for the writing equipment.

“I believe they should be able to pick up a pen and construct a sentence, which is correct in terms of grammar and spelling, without resorting to an electronic spellchecking device which will probably give them an incorrect, American version.”

He added: “Our policy sees any forgotten equipment being marked in children’s daily log books for parents to see and I urge all parents in the country to check their child has the basic equipment for the school day.”

The Education Bill published in January proposed new powers for teachers to confiscate prohibited items, including electronic gadgets, and to also enable staff to examine data such as video clips for evidence of bullying or other bad behaviour.

A survey in 2006 found that 91 per cent of children owned a mobile telephone by the age of 12.

This article is a great example of teachers blaming parents for a problem they have a share in. The following points need to be made:

  1. If you have a child at your school for 5-15 years and they still haven’t grasped the concept of bringing pens and text books to class, you are not running a very good school. Where are your rules? Where are your expectations? Don’t blame parents for not overseeing their kids’ schoolbag – surely you can do more to enforce standards of organisation.
  2. What has mobile phones and i-Pods got to do with not bringing books and pens to school? If you have a problem with electronic gadgets, ban them or at least set some guidelines. Kids will always be drawn to modern gadgets. Don’t blame mobile phones for the lack of student organisation. There is no reason why kids can’t be taught the importance of balancing educational and extra-curricular activities.
  3. If you’ve got something to say to parents don’t do it through the media. Teachers and parents must work together. Articles that have teachers preaching to parents often create a divide which helps no one.
  4. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, a likely reason for our students being so disinterested in their studies as to come to class unprepared, is due to the lack of engagement on the part of teacher. One of the most important skills a teacher must have is the ability to stimulate and interest their class. If their class seems bored, it is probably because they have a boring teacher. It’s so easy to blame parents and i-Pods, when the real issue is there are too many teachers who offer little and expect a lot in return.

You might accuse me of being disloyal to my profession. The truth is, I am a parent as well as a teacher, and I empathise and relate to both sides of this debate. Sure there is far too many parents out there that don’t get involved with their child’s educational needs. I hear horror stories all the time. But let’s not forget that teachers choose to enter this profession because they want to make a difference to their students. To do this, they must be prepared to work through all obstacles and challenges.

Apportioning blame is fine – just as long as all parties accept some responsibility.

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Posted in Dealing with Parents | 1 Comment »

Bizarre Ideas in Education

February 24, 2011

I’ve written about this before, but I still can’t believe that this insane idea is gaining momentum.  Yes, it’s true that teachers often get frustrated by what they believe is negligent parenting of their students.  Does that give them the right to formally assess their perceived incompetence?

The idea of giving teachers the responsibility to write report cards about their students’ parents is ridiculous.  Yet, the idea is not going away:

Legislation from a Florida lawmaker has parents pondering how they’d be graded on their involvement in their child’s education: satisfactory, unsatisfactory or needs improvement?

Public school teachers in Florida would be required to grade the parents of students in kindergarten through the third grade, under a bill introduced by Rep. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland.

The bill has gotten the married mother of five national attention because there’s been so much emphasis on tying teacher salaries and advancement to student performance.

“We have student accountability, we have teacher accountability, and we have administration accountability,” CNN.com quotes Stargel as saying, “This was the missing link, which was, look at the parent and making sure the parents are held accountable.”

The grading system is based on three criteria that Stargel wrote in the legislation:

• A child should be at school on time, prepared to learn after a good night’s sleep, and have eaten a meal.
• A child should have the homework done and prepared for examinations.
• There should be regular communication between the parent and teacher.

Unbelievable!  Is it not the child’s responsibility to take ownership over their own homework? Did I just read that a child should have eaten a meal?  If a teacher is aware that their student isn’t being fed, the teacher has a responsibility to notify child protection authorities, not mess around with assessment forms!

Sure there are bad parents out there, but what is a report card going to achieve anyway?  How is a report going to change the error of their ways?

“Thanks teacher.  I needed that. I had no idea I was a bad parent.  I feel so much better now!”

I suppose, teachers needn’t worry.  A policy as silly as this will never be seriously contemplated.  Well, at least I hope not ….

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Posted in Dealing with Parents | 5 Comments »

Modern Educational Thinking: Comedy or Tragedy?

January 31, 2011

Most of us acknowledge that school systems worldwide are deeply flawed and require fresh, new and innovative ideas to get them kickstarted again.  What we don’t need, however, are bizarre, extreme and non-sensical ideas that do more harm than good.

Last week I wrote about the Nebraskan senator trying to pass a bill that would allow teachers and administrators to carry concealed weapons for protection.

This week it’s Florida’s turn to create headlines for putting forward horrendous educational policy:

As lawmakers continue to debate education reform, Florida Rep. Kelli Stargel has a new idea: give teachers a break and grade parents instead.

Stargel has submitted a bill that would let teachers grade parent performance along with student outcomes, reports CNN.

Stargel said that parents should be just as involved in the education process as the students themselves.

“We have student accountability, we have teacher accountability, and we have administration accountability. This was the missing link, which was, look at the parent and making sure the parents are held accountable.”

The bill would give the option of grading parents as “satisfactory,” “unsatisfactory” or “needs improvement.”

Grading parents?  Are you kidding?  Is this some candid camera trick?

Because Stargel so evidently has failed to do her homework, I feel obliged to fill her in on some important points:

1.  Teachers should never judge parents.  It is the teacher’s job to co-operate with parents and assist them, not to assess them.  Unless a parent is abusing the child or engaged in any other form of criminal activity, it is not the business of a teacher to make judgements on parental skills.

2.  Yes, there are parents that do not involve themselves with their child’s education.  Teacher’s should see this as an opportunity rather than an excuse.  The child that doesn’t have actively engaged parents relies even more heavily on their teacher.  This scenario should be seen as a fabulous opportunity to inspire, influence and reinvigorate the child.  Stargel’s idea takes what some teacher’s see as a great opportunity to make a real difference and asks us to see it only as a negative.

3.  By calling on teachers to grade parents, you are turning two crucial stakeholders in a child’s education against each other.  Education is best administered when all major stakeholders are on the same page, or at least can work together harmoniously.  To muddy the waters with negative ideas and forced judgments, Stargel has overlooked the most important ingredients to successful teaching.

In one week we have seen two law makers come up with insane ideas that deal with important issues in a simplistic and scattershot way.  What is it with politicians?  How can such seemingly intelligent people come up such lousy ideas?

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Posted in Dealing with Parents | 8 Comments »

An Obsession With Success Leads Tiger Mother to Failure

January 26, 2011

As a teacher, it is my policy not to judge parents on their parenting styles.  I do this for three reasons:

  1. It is rude to judge another person when you haven’t walked in their shoes.
  2. Negative judgements against parents would inevitably cause me to lose focus on my responsibilities to the child; and
  3. Parenting is extremely difficult. I know this because I am a parent.  It is so hard to find the right balance for your child.  Judging others would distract me from improvements I need to make to my own parenting skills.

But every so often you find you have no choice but to make an exception to your rule.  My exception is  Amy Chua, the so-called “Tiger Mother”.

When a person writes a book about parenting they open themselves up to public criticism.  After reading her essay in the Wall Street Journal (I will not be rushing out to buy the entire book) and finding myself cringing all the way through it, I feel that it is the right time to dismiss my “no judgements policy” and respond to her disappointing advice.

The Tiger Mother’s methods are particularly extreme. Swapping one set of extreme methods (The Western methods) for another is unworkable.  Why does everything have to be so extreme these days?  The Education System operates like this.  One day the trend will be all about Teacher Centred Learning, and when that strategy falls flat, the answer then becomes Child Centred Learning.   And back and forward we go between the two very extreme strategies.   The same applies here.  Yes, Western style parenting features some methods which leaves a lot to be desired, but the answer is not its polar opposite.

Why not find “balance?”  That’s right, neither far left or right.  Why not try to focus on what works in different styles of parenting and mould them together?  Surely that’s preferable to going in the extreme opposite direction.  In truth, extremism comes about from insecurity.  The  Tiger Mother’s methods of parenting is both extreme and riddled with insecurity.

By not letting your child go on play dates and taking part in school plays, you are preventing the child from being involved in healthy social activities.  The fact that the stereotypical Asian parents see mingling as a waste of time is very sad indeed.

Pushing a child to not only achieve, but achieve beyond the rest of the class is such a terrible goal for your child.  It forces the child to see their friends as threats and rivals instead of human beings.  It emphasises selfishness and makes it difficult for the child to relate or empathise with others.  Her policy of not letting her kids be anything less that number 1 in their class is quite distressing.

“Chinese parents believe their kids owe them everything.”  This line stunned me.  Why would kids owe their parents everything?  Because their parents sacrificed for them?  Well, what are parents for?  Would it be alright for Amy’s child to approach her and say, ”Mum, how about we make a deal?  I’ll let you enjoy life a bit, and in return, you can let me live a less restrictive existence”?

Amy’s husband is spot on when he said, “Children don’t choose their parents.”  Her response to this more than reasonable point was, “This strikes me as a terrible deal for the Western parent.”  Whilst I think that parents are owed respect and honour, in return, I believe parents owe their children love and support.  I’m not looking for a better deal than that.

Whilst I don’t agree with the Tiger Mother’s approach, I understand that there are people out there looking for strategies that will improve their parenting.  However, when she happily recounted the time she called her daughter “garbage”, I couldn’t help but worry about the effect this book was going to have on others.

Amy’s father once referred to her as “garbage”, and although upset by it, she understood where he was coming from and the point he was trying to make.  That is why she had no qualms with repeating the dose on her poor daughter.   So comfortable was she about referring to her daughter by this term, she goes on to recount how she upset people at a dinner party by frankly discussing how she called her daughter by this name.

Amy, a professor at Yale Law School, should know better.  “Garbage” refers to something that is both useless and worthless.  Calling your child useless and worthless is just not acceptable!  How can a parent be proud of calling their child by such a terrible name?  I don’t care if that type of putdown turns the kid into a Nobel Prize winning scientist, it is not acceptable.

What the Tiger Mother’s  of this world have all wrong is their definition of success.  Success isn’t outdoing people, becoming famous, obtaining wealth or becoming a prodigy.  A successful person in my opinion is somebody who lives with integrity, cares and empathises with others and uses their gifts and qualities to help improve the lives of other people.  Anyone can be successful. Receiving  an A or a C for a maths quiz is not a determining factor.

The Tiger mentality is an extreme one, that combats poor aspects of Western parenting with another equally dismal style of parenting.  What you are left with is a maths whizz that may never enjoy maths, a musical prodigy that never got to enjoy music or properly express themselves through music, a person who thinks parenting is about entitlement rather than love and who is brought up to believe that a friend is anybody that doesn’t dare perform at their level.

It’s time that we preached balance and perspective rather than extremism, we dispensed with “dog eat dog” in favour of “dog support  dog”, and motivate our children without the use of put downs.

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Posted in Dealing with Parents | 5 Comments »

Teacher Myth #2

January 14, 2011

Teacher Myth 2:

Teachers have the right to keep parents at a distance.  Since the parents aren’t experts, it’s best they leave it up to professionals.

Teachers, over the course of their careers, will frequently confront angry and difficult parents.  It comes with the territory.  Then there are those parents that are overly anxious and extremely insecure (the ones that provide you with a 100 page dossier on their child before taking them on an overnight camp).  As much as it is tempting to want to shut the door on some parents in particular, and demand that they stay out of the affairs of the classroom, this is not wise.

Teachers have the responsibility to work with all types of parents and to ensure that the parents are well-informed and updated.

Think of it this way.  You have a person who invested most of his savings in shares through a stockbroker.  The person is nervous, and worried that perhaps one day his shares will crash drastically, causing him to lose his nest egg.  So he calls his stockbroker regularly, seeking updates, assurances and reassurances, sometimes more than once weekly.  The stockbroker isn’t a fan of the constant phone calls but sees this as part of his job.  After all, his client is making a big investment.

Now compare that to a parent.  They have entrusted to the teacher the greatest investment any person can make – their own flesh and blood.  Of course, being bugged and badgered by a parent is not much fun, but it is part of the job.  It makes any financial investment drift into irrelevance.

I am certainly not advocating hostile or abusive parents and I believe there are times when teachers must assert themselves against disrespectful and insensitive parents.  But teachers must also be mindful of the rights of parents.  After all, the data is pretty clear – the experiences a child has at school are a great indicator of how they will grow up.  Negative experiences at school can offset all the good work parents do at home.  You can have a tremendously loving home, but if it isn’t complimented by a supportive and nurturing school, the child could grow up with self-esteem issues.

The following are some methods I incorporate in my own teaching to keep parents informed:

1.  I write a newsletter every week which is low on gloss and high on content.  I write about what we covered in class in Maths and English and some of the activities that proved particularly popular or useful.

2.  Together with my newsletter (which I print in hard copy to ensure that the parents read it) I attach a personal student report for each child.  The mini-report features different boxes to either tick or cross off depending on whether or not the child has performed in that area.  The indicators include: behaviour, respecting others, homework, understanding concepts etc.  As well as that, it has room for a comment so I can elaborate and explain why I marked the child the way I did.

This mini-report distributed with the newsletter every Friday allows me to deal with social disagreements, homework not handed in and behavioural issues straight away.  The students know it’s coming and the parents know that they wont have to hear about an incident months later.  My students get very disappointed when (and it happens very seldom) I don’t have the time to include the student report, because they know that their reports usually feature compliments and words of encouragement which they are very proud to share with their parents.

3.  I include parents over the course of the year in selected classroom activities so they feel part of the goings on in their child’s class.

Does this take a lot of my time?  It sure does.  But it’s worth it because the parents trust that I know what I’m doing and they are properly informed about the progress of their child and the skills and concepts being taught in class.  It works brilliantly at cubing the amount of complaints and enquiries I get.  By saturating (and perhaps even boring) parents with information, they stopped feeling the need to ask questions.  Because some teachers don’t disclose such information, it leaves it to the parents to guess.  Guesswork can often lead to negative conclusions.

Again, no teacher should tolerate abuse from parents.  However, teaching involves interaction with a diverse range of students and parents who have their own unique personalities and character traits.  And the key is to function in a way that’s going to benefit all stakeholders.

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Posted in Dealing with Parents, Teacher Myths | 6 Comments »

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