Recently a cartoon depicting the change of attitudes among parents, students, and teachers has been making the rounds of Facebook. In 1969, the poor grades a student would have was mostly the fault of the student in the eyes of the parents. In 2009, it was the opposite. The poor grades a student would have was mostly the fault of the teacher in the eyes of a parents.
The change of attitudes have coincided with the changing dynamics of the parent-teacher relationships. A long time ago, most parents worked with teachers to help educate their kids. Parents trusted the teachers to provide their kids with the best education possible, and when the kids were not learning properly, they focused their wrath on the kids and would maybe try to work harder with the kids to improve their grades. But there have been changes to that trust. The pressure of gaining scholarships, the increasing revelations of adult relations between kids and teachers (in real life and in Hollywood), the helicoptering parent attitudes around their kids, the pressure schools face in order to not lose government funding, the increase of social issues creeping into schools, and other factors have contributed to such an erosion of trust between parents and teachers that now the parents blame the teachers for the kids poor grades.
Ironically, many of today’s teachers and school administrators were students not that long ago. And let’s be honest: some of those once-students were not the best of the best students. Many of the once-elite students went off to work in Wall Street, at multi-billion dollar companies, become lawyers or politicians that now dictate rules to schools instead of supporting schools, or work for places that would provide more salary to them than teaching. Teachers are over-worked, underpaid, and underappreciated. So why would a once elite student want to go through their adult lives barely living from paycheck to paycheck, deal with regulations that their predecessors did not, and deal with angry students and parents who think they know better than the teachers on what the teachers should teach? Wouldn’t the elite student feel better off going somewhere else making money and not have to deal with hundreds of parents more concerned with their little Johnny or Susie getting an A?
Parents of today also don’t always pay attention to everything going on with their kids. Many parents have two jobs to work in order to afford the best for their kids and can’t always give their kids the love and support they need. They want everything: money, fame, and smart kids who get scholarships. They feel money and things will buy the kids happiness and help them learn to always get A’s. The kids are unhappy and feel they need attention one way or another. So in some situations, the kids invent the issue to help get them attention.
In short, parents and kids contribute to the problems of today. But there are also teachers who cause problems as well. The pressures of being a teacher today (money, hours, support) sometimes get the better of teachers. Some turn to alcoholism, drug use, and, in some cases, having sexual relations with their students. These extreme examples help further erode the trust parents and teachers once have. Even without extreme examples, teachers are human, too. They can possibly show favoritism in some situations to kids of friends, only helping out those who may or may not need the help, while neglecting those who really need help to learn.
So how do we solve the problems? There is no easy answer, unfortunately. It will take years, maybe even generations of hard work to regain that trust, if it can ever be regained. And it has to be hard work on all sides: from parents who take time to help their kids learn, from teachers getting the support from administrators and who avoid the temptations of the world, and from kids willing to do what it takes to become the best they can be. Maybe we never had a perfect world between students and teachers and maybe we never will, but we won’t know if we don’t try.
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