It’s that time of year, everyone. Classes are in full swing and parents breathe a sigh of relief as they get their children, youngsters, middlsters and oldsters in high school, convinced they know it all, off to their respective hallowed halls of learning.
Teachers can’t nor should they be expected to do it alone. Parents PARENT and parents TEACH. Parenting IS teaching, from the first moments of birth; the parents, with mother first, teach the child. The roles of parent and teacher requires a commitment to ‘quality’ and ‘control’, and parents will teach long after their child has left formal schooling. Teach by example.
Teachers enter the fray when the child is delivered to his first formal setting of learning within 4 walls and the requisite ‘time to sit down, sit still and pay attention’ thing is in force. Some children may object and will be in for a bit of a shock if they were not prepared at home beforehand. Lots of parents prepare their children from the very first day they’re brought home from hospital; structure is essential. Formal school is going to a journey with lots of twists and turns for child and parent(s).
I recall reading two online newspaper articles written several years ago about two incidents in the US where Grade One teachers failed their entire class. They both got a lot of flak from parents and the community at large. Both, in the respective cases, were of the opinion that the children had no business being in Grade One at all; they were not remotely ready for the challenges of sitting down, sitting still, attending to task, even in short bursts. The children were ‘all over the place’ because that’s what they did at home. One teacher, with decades of teaching experience, was terminated. A sad commentary on where priorities often are when it comes to early education and education in general.
When my stepson was young, he struggled in school; at a parent-teacher conference when he was in Grade One, I expressed the sentiment that he should not be promoted to Grade Two as he was not emotionally ready — in fact, he wasn’t emotionally ready to be in Grade One in the first place. His teachers disagreed. His father could see my position but felt teachers and administrators knew best, so, my stepson went on to Grade Two and failed. It was downhill from there, with several social promotions peppered with suspensions and at the end, expulsion from school. Today, he’s an adult who still lacks direction and purpose.
“In loco parentis” was the order of the day for children in lower school, where teaching was child centred, with teachers carrying on what the child was taught at home. Wait a minute! What if the child wasn’t really taught? What if the parenting style was such that once children reached the walking and talking stage, they were given free rein with little or no constraints in place. They had the ‘run of the house’. Some may have two working parents and spend from 8a.m. to 5p.m. in a daycare center. Some parents may be able to afford a nanny or housekeeper so their child is able to stay at home, safe and warm, while Mom and Dad work. In how many of those homes is television the real babysitter? Is there structured learning in place on a daily basis, as precursors to the ‘sit down and be still’ that will come with kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and so on?
Recently, a Facebook contact reported in a posting that her grandaughter forgot her lunch bag on the kitchen table. Grandma wasted no time in getting it to her, saying she didn’t want her to go hungry; she needed food to be able to learn. Was Grandma delivering the lunch enabling the child, who was ‘old enough’ to know better? The youngster was not going to fade away into oblivion if she missed a lunch meal. The missed lunch could have become a teaching moment; instead it had potential to set the stage for more enabling. Will grandmother and child own their behaviour?
What a child learns at home, he carries with him into the classroom. Johnny leaves an expensive pair of sneakers at school, finding out the next day that they’ve been stolen. Parents buy a new pair. Sasha leaves a bookbag with a electronic tablet on a chair in the dining hall and it goes missing. Oops! Will the parents replace the bookbag and the contents without question or will they have a conversation with the child and negotiate a repayment scheme? After all, it’s the child who needs the tablet and the books, papers and pens, right?
Always remember and never forget — teaching and learning is a two-way street. Don’t worry, Mom and Dad. Your brains nor your wallets don’t have to explode. You will survive.
Carla MacInnis Rockwell is a freelance writer and disability rights advocate living outside Fredericton, New Brunswick with her aging Australian silky terrier and a rambunctious Maltese. She can be reached at carmacrockwell@xplornet.ca via email.
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