In the current climate of
school and teacher bashing, I think it’s time we looked at a missing element in
the debate, that of ‘where teacher responsibility ends, and parenting begins.
It seems to me that teachers
are taking the blame for all that is wrong in our schools and yet the odds are
heavily stacked against them being able to do their job well.
Just to be clear and state
the obvious, it is a school’s job to educate and a teacher’s job to teach. At
least, that’s what we used to believe. Nowadays a school is seen as a business,
the teacher as the customer service provider and the parent ‘the customer who
is always right’. If little Johnny is not deliriously happy while getting
straight A's then the company will certainly be taken to task, sued if
necessary. Boards will devise and
deliver new policies to be carried out, politicians will demand new courses be written, screeds of papers
will have to be read, professional development done, reports written and endless meetings held to ‘talk about it’.
This has got to stop if our
schools are going to improve and our children reach their full potential.
Choose any school in the top bracket (Finland, Singapore, Hong Kong) and you
will find that teachers are given great respect by parent, students and the
community (including media). They are trusted by parents to do the job of
educating and make sure their children turn up prepared with the right
attitudes.
It is not the teacher’s job
to ensure each child eats properly and has his fruit for lunch… it is the parents’.
It is not the teacher’s job
to make sure she plays nicely at recess… it is the parents’.
It is not the teacher’s fault
if a child is a bully or bullied at school… it is the parents’ job to teach him
to be kind and empathetic, to know when to ‘use his words’ and ‘walk away’, and
when to be assertive when someone steps into his personal space. (a little
defense tactic from Dad wouldn’t go astray)
It is not the teacher’s job
to check that each child is properly dressed, fed, alert and prepared for a day’s
learning… it is the parents’. The best teacher in the world is going to have a
hard time holding the attention of a child who started the day with 2 hours of
TV and a sugary cereal.
Parents, it is too easy to
pass the difficult job of parenting onto teachers and then blame them for not
properly educating them. They cannot do
both jobs.
If we want better schools,
we have to do our part. Many of today’s teachers can only dream about the
lessons they would love to teach if only they had the time
