Posts Tagged ‘Parenting’

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Helping Our Children Make Sense of Natural Disasters

March 16, 2011

Below is an article from Michael Grose’s Insight on how we can help our children cope with Natural disasters. After last week’s catastrophe in Japan, the earthquake in Christchurch and the floods in Australia, I thought it was timely to make educators aware of it.

Help your children make sense of natural disasters

By Michael Grose

The Queensland floods and the Victorian bushfires continue to wreak incredible havoc on so many people’s lives and will no doubt leave an indelible imprint on our collective psyches. These two natural disasters will be brought into our living rooms via the media over the coming days and weeks.

As adults we all want our children to live carefree lives and keep them from the pain and even horror of tragedies such as natural disasters. In reality we can’t do this.

So what is a parent, teacher, or other caring adult to do when the natural disasters fills the airwaves and the consciousness of society? Here are some ideas:

  1. Reassure children that they are safe. The consistency of the images can be frightening for young children who don’t understand the notion of distance and have difficulty distinguishing between reality and fiction. Let them know that while this event is indeed happening it will not affect them directly.
  2. Be available and ‘askable’. Let kids know that it is okay to talk about the unpleasant events. Listen to what they think and feel. By listening, you can find out if they have misunderstandings, and you can learn more about the support that they need. You do not need to explain more than they are ready to hear, but be willing to answer their questions.
  3. Help children process what they see and hear, particularly through television. Children are good observers but can be poor interpreters of events that are out of their level of understanding. Sit with them. Ask them questions to ascertain their understanding.
  4. Support children’s concerns for others. They may have genuine concerns for the suffering that will occur and they may need an outlet for those concerns. It is heart-warming to see this empathy in children for the concerns of others.
  5. Let them explore feelings beyond fear. Many children may feel sad or even angry with these events so let them express the full range of emotions. They may feel sadder for the loss of wildlife, than for loss of human life, which is impersonal for them.
  6. Help children and young people find a legitimate course of action if they wish. Action is a great antidote to stress and anxiety so finding simple ways to help, including donating some pocket money can assist kids to cope and teaches them to contribute.
  7. Avoid keeping the television on all the time. The visual nature of the media means that images are repeated over and over, which can be both distressing to some and desensitizing to others.
  8. Be aware of your own actions. Children will take their cues from you and if they see you focusing on it in an unhealthy way then they will focus on it too. Let them know that it is happening but it should not dominate their lives.
  9. Take action yourself. Children who know their parents, teachers, or other significant caregivers are working to make a difference feel hope. They feel safer and more positive about the future. So do something. It will make you feel more hopeful, too. And hope is one of the most valuable gifts we can give children and ourselves.

Children’s worlds can be affected in ways that we can’t even conceive of so adults need to be both sensitive to children’s needs and mindful of what they say and how they act in front of children.

In difficult times, it is worth remembering what adults and children need most are each other.

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Posted in Dealing With Tragedy | Leave a Comment »

There’s Only One Thing Worse Than Leaving Your Kids

March 15, 2011

There’s only one thing worse than leaving your kids, and that’ s writing a book that encourages others to do the same.  Rahna Reiko Rizzuto may be a good writer, but her words, as eloquent as they may be, are bound to do far more harm than good.

Rahna Reiko Rizzuto left her home in New York and traveled to Hiroshima, Japan, in search of her war-torn heritage in June 2001. Rizzuto had received a fellowship to spend six months interviewing the few survivors of the atomic bomb.

Four months into her fellowship, Rizzuto received a visit from her husband and children, and she had a revelation: She didn’t want to be a mother.

In an essay for Salon, Rizzuto writes:

Without a strong marriage to support me, after four months alone and in a new country I had grown to love but was only just beginning to understand how to navigate, I had no idea what to do with these bouncing balls of energy. Even feeding them, finding them a bathroom, was a challenge.

Rizzuto realized that motherhood was an all-encompassing responsibility and she didn’t want to be swallowed up by it.

When Rizzuto returned to New York, she ended her marriage with her high school sweetheart and handed him the reins to the children. She gave him primary custody.

Her choice is out-of-the-ordinary; less than 4 percent of children live with their father only and in most cases its because a mother has passed away.

Rizzuto lost many friends who viewed her decision as selfish.

Her children were 3 and 5 years-old at the time.  Of course she was selfish!  But that isn’t what makes me so upset.  It’s the fact she feels this decision is so positive, that she wants to reach out to other mothers who are struggling with the same feeling of entrapment.

People are entitled to make bad decisions, and in my opinion Rizzuto has made a shocking decision.  But what disturbs me more is that she wants to encourage others to do the same.  When a man or woman decides to make a family they must choose to make their family their number one priority.  Is it selfish to leave your kids for no other reason than you are not enjoying the role of parent.

I heard her interviewed on The View this afternoon.  One of the panelists made the point that if Rizzuto was a man, this story wouldn’t have received so much publicity.  To that assertion I make the following points:

  1. Does that make it right.  No father should ever put the children they helped bring into this world second.  No father should ever tell their kids they don’t love being a father so they’ve decided to live down the street.  That is unacceptable and downright selfish!
  2. Rizzuto wants publicity.  She seems to be having the time of her life appearing on all kids of media and flogging her book.
  3. What if a man wrote a book encouraging other men to leave their children in favour of a more free lifestyle?  How do you think that will go down?


The following quotes from an article about her really upset me:

Today, Rizzuto is an author and faculty member at Goddard College in Vermont, and she’s creating her own sort of motherhood that challenges our culture’s definition of what a mother should be. She lives down the street from her ex-husband and her children. The boys are teenagers and come to her house for dinner but they always return to Dad’s house to sleep.

I don’t think it is “motherhood” she is creating.  Let’s not let a selfish decision gets confused with a new style of parenting.  And why can’t she have them over for the night?  Is it going to remind her for a fleeting moment that she is their mother?

She says that leaving her children improved rather than hurt her relationship with them. “I had to leave my children to find them,” she writes on Salon.

How can she assess that?  They were 5 and 3 when she left them!  Surely they were too young for a before and after comparison!  And this isn’t about how good her relationship is with them, it’s about the quality of care they get from their mother.  The fact that her kids have a good relationship is more of an indication of her children’s strength of character than it is a validation of her decision to leave them.
And that line,  “I had to leave my children to find them”, is just appalling.  This isn’t about you.  This is about your two kids under five that didn’t ask to be born and then left with their father because their mother didn’t want to look after them.
People make decisions.  Some of them are right and some wrong.  What I don’t approve of is turning a decision which affects children in a negative manner into a new movement claiming to be about choice and freedom.
I’d love to read her kids’ book one day.  Perhaps they wouldn’t endorse the “new style of parenting” as much as their mother does.

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Posted in Parenting | 8 Comments »

Teachers Who Beat Kids Should Be Put Away!

March 14, 2011

Please join me on my mission to eradicate legalised corporal punishment from our classrooms.  In Australia a teacher is not allowed to hit, beat or physically handle a student.  It is against the law, and so it should be.  The fact that some other countries don’t practice the same policy mistifies me.  A teacher should never be given the permission to physically discipline their students.  Such an allowance gives bad teachers the right to lash out at any student that gives them a hard time.  That is hardly what you would call “quality education.”

Stories like this one sicken me:

Picture this. It’s 10am in a classroom at a primary school and a teacher is handing out science test marks to the pupils. Among the children sits a 13-year-old boy who is an excellent student and an athlete, generally a boy who could be classified “a good child”.

But he has failed this particular test. The teacher tells him to stay behind after class.

His heart lurches and he gets a knot in his stomach because he knows what that means. He’s going to get a beating. Before spanking him, the teacher tells the pupil, “My daddy beat me and I beat my children, so I’m going to beat you.”

The boy walks away with not only a bruised bottom, but a bruised ego and tears in his eyes.

This scene is not from a school in some small village in “backward Africa”. Nope, this happened in a school in Alabama.

According to the US Department of Education, more than 200,000 school kids encounter corporal punishment every year across the US. And those are just the ones the department knows about. Some cases go unreported. Testimony at congressional hearings has revealed that up to 20,000 kids a year request medical treatment, mostly for bruising and broken blood vessels after being physically punished in school.

That is an awful statistic.  How can this be allowed anywhere, let alone in the United States?  How can teacher’s get away with bruising their students?  For every medical practitioner that is called on to treat a victim of corporal punishment, a policeman should be called on to put the offending teacher away!

But based on the current state of play, that scenario is a long way off for some states:

Corporal punishment in schools by teachers with a paddle (a wooden board), belt or strap is legal in 20 states. While 28 states have outlawed it outright, the US Supreme Court has ruled it legal.

The majority of the states that still allow teachers to spank kids are in the mid-west and in the south of the country. States such as Missouri, Kentucky, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and, to my surprise, Florida, are said to use corporal punishment more frequently than others.

The mother of the Alabama boy is suing the superintendent of schools and the teacher for her son’s spanking. She’s angry because, by law, you can’t hit a dog and you can’t hit a prisoner, but you are allowed to spank children.

There are guidelines for how teachers can spank kids, which is more than I can say for when I started school in the ’80s, but there are bound to be some teachers who will do whatever they like.

Of course there are teachers that exploit this situation.  Whilst I would like to believe that all teachers care about their students there are enough out there that grow resentful and irrational over the years.  These teachers can not be trusted to make decisions in the best interests of their students.

And to those that think that fear of such a punishment brings out the best in students, I say this.  Fear doesn’t bring out the best in anyone!  If a teacher can’t control their class, they can approach an expert for advice or quit.  If they feel they have to burst their students’ blood vessels to gain law and order, they ought to feel completely and utterly ashamed of themselves.

It’s 2011!  Time to wear our belts, consign paddles to PE lessons and throw away the straps in the bin!

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Posted in Classroom Management, Corporal Punishment | 9 Comments »

The Cure for Suicide Isn’t Another Educational Program

March 11, 2011

I think that schools should implement suicide prevention programs and should certainly train teachers in how to deal with students at risk of self harm and suicide.  However, often these programs are nothing more than scapegoats for schools with poor cultures to pretend they are dealing with the problem responsibly when they aren’t.

The program in itself sounds like a good one.

Dr Martin Harris, who is on the board of Suicide Prevention Australia, says a suicide prevention program should be considered as part of the new national curriculum.

“I think it ought not to be the prevail of a particular teacher, but it ought to be a program which is embraced in a robust way by a school when they think they’re ready to do it,” he said.

Mr Harris says mental health experts could prepare teachers on how to broach the subject in schools.

“I think for us to be saying, ‘well, it’s not my problem’, increases the risk of it being isolated and for it to be stigmatised,” he said.

“I think it’s high time the community took off the blinkers and looked more carefully about what they can and can’t do.”

But Dr Michael Carr-Gregg, a child and adolescent psychologist, has dismissed calls for a suicide prevention program in schools.

“We’ve adopted a policy for as long as I can remember, that basically says let’s talk about suicide in terms of what leads up to it, which of course is by and large mental health problems; so suicide is the outcome of what happens when you don’t treat it,” he said.

“My view has been that we’ve been doing that very successfully for the last 15 years or so – the suicide rate’s come down. I see no reason at all why we should change our policy and I would urge schools to stick to their original idea and ignore the advice from Suicide Prevention Australia.”

My worry is that every time there is a glaring problem facing school aged children, somebody develops a school program to counteract it.  The advantage of a problem is that it creates awareness in students and encourages students to talk candidly and openly about important topics.  The disadvantage is that often all it ever amounts to is a lot of talk and very little real substance.

Suicide is indeed an issue facing our students.  Many of the reasons for suicide and suicide attempts relate to problems faced at school such as social pressures, bullying and academic pressures.  Schools claim to be safe, caring environments, but we know that many aren’t.  It can be argued that many schools come across cold, distant and out of touch with the issues facing their students.  Such schools should not be allowed to hide behind programs.  They should be pressured into changing their culture by spending as much time investing in connecting with their students as they do covering themselves legally.

In my view school’s must do a lot more than take on programs.  They must do everything in their powers to support and nurture their students.  They must fight for their students’ self esteem, help them find a sense of self and give them every chance to leave school with a positive attitude and real purpose.

If you think what I’m saying is just “airy fairy”, then you’d probably be in the majority.  Meanwhile programs come and go and problems still remain.

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Posted in Suicide Prevention, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

The Downside of Facebook

March 9, 2011

The benefits of Facebook are obvious and invaluable.  However, it is clear that like every other innovation, the bad comes with the good.  Facebook connects you to places and people all over the world, it allows you to promote yourself, your business and interact with more people than you otherwise would.  But it also has the potential of getting you in trouble:

Recently there was the case of Natalie Munroe who became a hero in some quarters for blunt comments she made of her students on her Facebook page.

Now we have a very disappointing case that once again acts as a cautionary tale of Facebook misuse:

A 13-year old Georgia girl is facing expulsion and relocation to an “alternative school” after she called one of her teachers a pedophile on Facebook. The girl, Alejandra Sosa, and two of her classmates who commented on the post must now go before a disciplinary tribunal for what Chapel Hill Middle School calls a “level one” offense: the worst category of transgression in the student handbook. Sosa posted the message because she was angry with her teacher, but said it was intended as a joke. She claims that she now regrets posting it, and understands that what she did was wrong.

The parents of the three students, though upset with their kids’ behavior, think the school and its principal, Jolene Morris, have gone too far. Sosa claims that Morris took her to the school’s library after catching wind of the post. She claims the principal then demanded she log into her Facebook account; she then took the keyboard and mouse from the student to read through her Wall posts, before telling Sosa to delete the messages. The father of William Lambert, one of the other students implicated in the incident, says that Morris also violated his son’s privacy by demanding that Sosa log into her Facebook account; Lambert had called the teacher a rapist in a comment on Sosa’s original post.

The parents all believe that sending the children to a school for students with behavioral problems will ultimately derail their education. Sosa is an honor student, and Taylor’s mother worries that putting the children in that environment is tantamount to telling them to “[be] in a gang and do drugs.” The parents have banded together to obtain the services of a lawyer. If the tribunal decides on expulsion and alternative schools, the case could wind up in the courts.

Gerry Weber, an adjunct professor of civil rights at Georgia State University, told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that while online comments are subject to libel laws, they’re also protected under the First Amendment. The schools do not have the jurisdiction to punish students for “off-campus speech,” he said, unless the comments can be proven to have caused an on-campus “disruption.” The principal’s decision to access Sosa’s Facebook account could also play to the students’ favor in court proceedings, as it may be seen as a violation of the child’s privacy.

I know there aren’t many that will agree with me, but falsely accusing a teacher of being a pedophile in a public forum is worthy of expulsion.  I know she is a child and didn’t properly think through her actions, but there is no worse label to give a teacher than that one.  Her parents should stop defending her and let her cop her punishment.  It is about time that kids take responsibility for their actions.  If they are old enough to have a Facebook page, then they are old enough to accept accountability for its misuse.  Her parents need to tell her that while the penalty may seem harsh, it is a fair one.  One that will hopefully get her to think before she slanders another person.

And perhaps, there is a lesson there for all of us with our Facebook pages.  Facebook is there to connect us with others not to divide us.

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Posted in Cyber Bullying | 6 Comments »

Fighting for Our Kids’ Self-Esteem

March 4, 2011

There’s a reason why kids are suffering from body image related problems in greater numbers than ever before.  We let them.  Society has a responsibility to ensure that the same dreadful affliction that has had diabolical effects on our generation, doesn’t torment the next.  We have made the mistake of valuing people for all the wrong reasons, putting too high a price on weight, shade and form and too little emphasis on character, personality and integrity.  We place celebrities on pedestal so high, we barely notice that we don’t know anything about them.

Our young notice our insecurities and base a world view on them.  They see the pressures their parents feel about appearance and weight and base their own self-worth on precisely these factors.  Before you know it, you’ve got kids as young as five with eating disorders:

Children are suffering from eating disorders at younger and younger ages according to disturbing new research.

Media consumption, peer pressure and negative messages from parents are all contributing to the problem of poor self-image in children, which can trigger eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia and binge eating. According to the Eating Disorder Resource Centre of Ireland, children as young as five are displaying signs of poor body image – and some seven and eight year olds have developed eating disorders.

Experts are stressing that such disorders are not confined to girls, with little boys also being susceptible. Psychologist and author Deirdre Ryan told TheJournal.ie that parents can unthinkingly pass on negative messages to their children: “I was speaking with a six-year-old boy who said that he wanted to lose weight – when I asked him why he said: ‘I have a wedding coming up’. That message was more than likely passed on by a parent,” she said, “Parents have to be aware of what they are saying, even in front of boys, and not engage in ‘fat talk’. Children of this age are hypersensitive.”

Parents need to be more aware of their relationship with their own bodies as well, Ryan said: “It is starting younger and younger – but it is also affecting people who are older – spreading across the life span. Now, there is an expectation that even if you’re in your 60s you should conform to a certain image. It’s very damaging.”

Our generation has already let ourselves down by buying in to the media driven lie about what a person should aspire to be like.  We have been fooled into believing that life is about striving to beat aging, keeping a toned figure and withstanding lines and wrinkles.  The beauty industry has made a bundle out of us, and all we are left with in return is confusion, pressure, anxiety and in many cases a battered self-image.  Is this what we want for our children?

It’s great to invest in one’s health and appearance, but it is important that these things don’t take over.  Our children need to see that we place more value in perfecting our character than our figure.  That we consider integrity, honesty, empathy and loyalty on a higher level than six packs or breast size.

As a teacher, there is only so much I can do.  As a parent, I have a big job ahead of me.

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Posted in Body Image | Leave a Comment »

Never Too Young To Learn the Value of a Buck

March 2, 2011

The importance of teaching kids from a young age about the importance of spending money wisely cannot be underestimated:

It’s not easy for us as individuals to do much about financial problems in Washington, but we do have a lot to say about the money that goes through our own bank accounts.

Times of financial stress throw the spotlight on weaknesses in our money management, as many of us are finding out. There’s no time like the present to make the tough decisions that will put us in a better fiscal position in the future.

If we want our children to avoid some of the pitfalls we’ve experienced, we had better start early.

According to a survey by TD Ameritrade, about 45 percent of the people between the ages of 21 and 45 who responded to a survey said they learned about managing money before they were 12.

Only about a third of the older adults who responded to the survey said they learned about money that young.

A TD Ameritrade spokesman speculated that parents may be learning from their financial mistakes, and trying to give their kids a stronger financial foundation.

If that’s the truth, then some good will come from the current tough times.

Kids tend to be very materialistic and cavalier with their money.  In my day, we had very little money at our disposal until we were old enough to earn it ourselves.  Nowadays it’s a different story.  Kids tend to be given a lot of money, without enough interest taken to ensure that it’s used wisely.

I commend any program that teaches kids the value of a dollar and how to  save and spend wisely.

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Posted in Money Matters | 2 Comments »

Homeschooling is Not the Enemy

February 25, 2011

Whilst I am not a proponent of homeschooling and I see the virtues of the traditional school system, I am very frustrated by the lack of tolerance given to parents who decide that homeschooling is their prefered option.  To knock homeschooling is to ignore the many serious flaws inherent in the traditional school system.  Even though I think these flaws can be corrected and better practice can be implemented, until that is the case, parents will always look at their options.

That’s why I was particularly disappointed to read a recent article regarding the 12,000 children, aged 16 or under who are classed as “missing” from school in England.

The figures prompted warnings about the safety of those allowed to slip through the net. Children allowed to drop out of school could be at “serious risk” of physical, sexual or mental harm, charities said.

A Commons Education Select Committee inquiry in October reported that thousands of children as young as 11 who were “lost” to the education system may be turning to lives of crime, drugs and prostitution.

At this pont of the article I was naturally concerned about these kids who are so young, yet are not receiving education.  Then I read the following sentence:

Children may go “missing” due to being forced to wait for a school place or being kept at home by their parents…

How are those scenarios considered “missing?”  What if a child is being homeschooled?  Are they missing then?  Surely children waiting for a school place and being kept home by their parents aren’t necessarily “missing”.

Luckily I read another article which focussed on ending home-school stereotypes:

Despite successes with the ACT, spelling bees and math contests, home-schooled children battle a stereotype that they’re social misfits leading sheltered lives that fail to prepare them for the real world. Or worse yet, home schooling is depicted as brainwashing by parents pursuing a narrow political or religious agenda.

Nebraska law is friendly to home-schoolers, requiring basically that parents submit a form affirming their intent to home-school and provide a copy of their curriculum. The state doesn’t require state testing or home visits by state personnel.

Several parents interviewed said they cope with public misconceptions about home schooling even as the Internet and creative teaching arrangements give parents new ways to broaden their children’s education and further challenge the stereotypes.

Home-schooled students play on Little League teams, join Boy Scouts, perform in public school bands, participate in cooperative academic classes and, when necessary, take classes at local high schools and colleges, parents say. Students participate live in classes via the Internet.

Mike and Tricia Croushorn of Omaha home-schooled their children, Abi, 22, Tyler, 20, and Sam, 16, to give them a well-rounded education that included a religious component.

The Croushorns got interested after getting to know parents who home-schooled.

“We would meet these other children and they were always polite and respectful, and they could carry on a conversation with adults,” Tricia Croushorn said.

Homeschooling is not the enemy of education.  Bad teaching and poorly run schools are the enemy of education.  Until traditional schools really do offer the kind of support, care and safety that they claim to, then loving parents will always explore their options.  Because ultimately it’s not about tradition, it’s about the best needs of our children.  The only people who should be making that call are the parents.

I love being a school teacher and I see great value and potential in traditional school education, but I admire the selflessness and sacrifice that homeschooling parents make and the intentions behind their decision.  Instead of picking on the unconventional, make the conventional much better than it currently is.

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Posted in Homeschooling | 2 Comments »

Losing the Control of Your Class and Sanity

February 25, 2011

One of the most important qualities of a good teacher is patience.  Teachers, no matter how experienced or adept they may be, struggle at times with behaviour management issues in the classroom.  The loss of control at the hands of cheeky and disobedient students happens to the best of us.  It’s just a matter of how well we deal with it.

The trick is to keep your emotions settled, think calmly and find an appropriate way to address the issue as well as administer a consequence that fits the infringement.  Unfortunately, for some, all clarity and common sense goes out the window when faced with classroom management stresses.  Take this unfortunate case for example:

A TEACHER at a primary school was sacked after ordering pupils to wear a picture of a child with a noose around its neck as a punishment.

Ama Bankah, 31, had been working as a supply teacher in class of children – many with special educational needs – at Shaw Primary School, South Ockendon, Essex, England, when the practice came to light.

The General Teaching Council‘s professional conduct committee heard Ms Bankah claimed the placard was used as a “behaviour management technique”.

Every time she rang a bell, all the children had to sit quietly and those who didn’t would be “caught” by the “hangman” which was the name of the picture on the placard.

The GTC heard the image on the placard was of a child dressed in the colours of the school uniform. When Ms Bankah did this to one of the boys on February 1, 2008 he burst into tears and the matter was brought to the attention of the headteacher Linzi Roberts-Egan.

She then quizzed Ms Bankah, who had been in the post for three months, before asking her leave the school.

“Ms Bankah’s behaviour on 21 February 2008 was demeaning to the pupil concerned, caused him some harm, and had the potential to harm other pupils,” GTC committee chair Sashi Sivaloganathan said.

The committee also heard that some parents were so concerned about what had happened that they considered taking their children out of the school.

Whilst a story like this illustrates a teacher using terribly bad judgement, I can’t help but consider the difficulties she must have been facing to come up with such a desperate and inappropriate response.  Teaching is a difficult profession, and no formal training prepares you for unruly and disrespectful students.

Structures need to be put in place to support the teacher well and truly before they lose their mind and make terrible judgement calls like this one.

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Posted in Classroom Management | 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 »

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