In a recently updated article from the Huffington Post, a poll of adults found that it’s parents, not teachers, who are most commonly blamed for the failings of the American educational system. One parent shares his “inspiring” story: “‘Nobody is too busy to raise a child for a successful future,’ said Wilfred Luise Vincent, 65, of Coppell, Texas. Vincent worked early or late shifts for Delta Airlines during most of his career so his two daughters would have a parent at home after school.”
Vincent’s daughters were truly fortunate. However, my experience teaching students from urban immigrant populations has taught me that there does, in fact, exist a point where one is too busy. Vincent was lucky to be able to have some say in his schedule; the majority of my students’ parents aren’t so lucky. They are limited by linguistic barriers, cultural barriers, educational barriers…these parents face difficulties that the average American can only wonder at.
Nevertheless, this is not to say that I don’t long to agree with this blanket statement: “parents deserve heavy blame for what’s wrong with the U.S. education system – more than teachers, school administrators, the government or teachers unions.” I have had far too much experience parenting my own students not to see the truth lying buried inside it.
One of my students is from Ethiopia. He only sees his mother for about an hour in the morning, and an hour in the evening. This is actually fortunate for him since his mother is verbally and sometimes physically abusive (never fear, I have exercised my teacherly responsibilities and reported this to the proper authorities). Though he is in high school, she forbids him from leaving the house after school, such that he has to lie to his mother about going to the library to do his homework. Have I mentioned that he’s only been living in the US for less than a year and he has all A’s and B’s? In this situation, he has found a way to thrive despite his parents.
On the other hand, I have one student ( wrote about in the previous post) who describes her mother as “relaxed.” This mother left Mexico when she was a teenager after having had two daughters. She brought the two daughters to America, where the older daughter also became a teenage daughter, and my student is 7 months away from motherhood. Her mother is currently spending the month in another state with her boyfriend, leaving her two teenage daughters at home alone. This student has all F’s. She’s already been in the legal system for truancy. Her life has no structure. For a time, I tried to give her structure, asking her to see me after school to talk about her homework, but she simply didn’t know how to function with structure.
So who’s right? Can I run back to my co-workers and rejoice that the heat might be moving in a different direction? Should we spend lunch time bemoaning our students’ inevitable failures or discussing how best to parent 120 children?
I didn’t realize when I started teaching how much parenting I would have to do. Truth be told, I’m happy to do it, but I’ll need some help.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/13/parents-blamed-education-failures_n_795882.html
