The most frequent question I get asked by people who do not work in education is what has changed the most over my 28 years of teaching. The answer usually surprises people.
The answer is NOT the kids. I believe students are very much the same, just with different toys and distractions. Their prefrontal cortex is still not fully developed, and they tend to make decisions based on emotions instead of logic. That is the same as it has always been. Sure, they have phones that are distractions, but the kids themselves are the same at the core.
So what is the correct answer? It’s the parents. The people who are actually in charge of these cherubs are the ones who have changed. Educators get less support from home than ever before, and that has changed the whole dynamic of teaching.
I like to tell the tale of my first year of teaching, when I had four 7th graders that were causing consistent problems. After school one day, I called home for each of them. The response was immediate and effective. The kids were held accountable at home and changed their ways in school.
Today if I had to do that, it would be 50/50 if a parent would actually answer a phone call, even though cell phones make people more accessible than ever. However, I usually try email first, trying to respect people’s workplace, in the event they can’t or shouldn’t answer their phone right then. Regardless, the response rate is less than 50%. Even the ones I do get a chance to visit with, via voice or typing, will sometimes say what they think I want to hear and then never follow up.
And the kids know this. They are rarely threatened by a promise to get ahold of their parents. Some are, but these aren’t often the ones I need to worry about, since they already know their parents will hold them to task if they act foolishly.
Too many parents want to be friends with their kids. They don’t want to take a chance of their kid not liking them, even for a day. I was contemplating a reason for this and wondered if it was because some were part of the “Everyone Gets a Trophy” generation. That was back when everyone was so worried about leaving anyone out of being celebrated that there were literally trophies at sports tournaments for every single entrant.
Life has winners and losers. Telling everyone they are a winner doesn’t do a lot of good for building character and learning to overcome obstacles. So now there are some parents who don’t know how to do that and they want to make sure their kids are always winners too.
Grit is important. You learn more from losing or from doing poorly on a project than you do from always being told you’re the best. Life will slap you when you least expect it; what will you do then?
A follow-up question was asked of me by someone after we discussed this. They asked which was worse: helicopter parents or absentee parents? I paused for a moment and then realized what an easy question that was.
I can handle the helicopter parents, the ones who just hover over their kids and worry about every little part of their lives, rarely letting the child just breathe and explore and take a chance. Again, we learn most from our mistakes. If you don’t get an A on a paper, it’s okay. If you’re generally a good kid but break a rule and get scolded, it’s okay. If you don’t play as much in a game, it’s okay. At least these are parents who are invested in their children, and the reality is that I have encountered very few of these folks.
Absentee parents? Much harder to swallow, especially because one can rarely get in touch with them. When the child acts out or doesn’t do any work and a teacher tries to reach a parent, too many times, the silence is deafening.
I send a weekly email update about my classes. At times, I encourage and remind parents to keep up with their kids’ grades. Our program will even email you when there is a missing assignment or if the grade drops below a certain percentage. Parents also have access to our online learning platform, Schoology. They can be proactive and see when assignments are due and can even see if their student has turned something in.
I’d love it if all parents took a moment a couple times a week to check on those. Some do, but the amount of missing assignments in my classroom was higher than ever this year. Where is the oversight? Where is the care from a parent who should want their child to find some measure of success in school?
They’re absent. They’re not involved. For whatever reason, they just let their child fail. You might allow your child to fail something once to learn that valuable lesson, but then the parent should jump in and take care of business.
A lot has changed in teaching. Every kid has a computer and there are many things that make providing the content easier. But the change in parent attitudes is frustrating. It directly impacts student learning and behavior and is the root cause for why teachers are fleeing the profession. And it’s what makes those of us who are sticking around think about retirement long before we should.
Word of the Week: This week’s word is stan, which means an extremely obsessive fan, as in, “The parent was such a stan of their own child that they went after the teacher who dared give their darling a B.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!