A new wave in education? Maybe...
I have noticed a lot more attention being given to parents role in education. In a study conducted by the AP & Stanford University, many adults blame parents over teachers for a student's problems in education. This was somewhat surprising to me. Just this past Friday, I stood in a local store for over 30 minutes listening respectfully to a parent bash our high school. Yet throughout this conversation, I brought up the fact that we have ConnectEd (a phone system that calls parents/students to give reminders of upcoming events...like report cards, open house, etc). She said she didn't know about the Open House events we have each semester. She said she can't discipline her son for not doing his HW (which means she knew about it!) Although I did not teach her son, I know of him (small town) and brought up the fact that he was afraid of his father - to which she responded, "Yeah, I hide a lot of this from his father."
It really bothered me that she blamed us for her son's lack of success in school. I wanted to just blatently say - you're going to have to do something. Everytime I mentioned some way our high school communicated, she had another excuse!
As a parent, I should be ultimately responsible for my child's learning. I understand that. I am glad that the rest of our society is catching on...
I can't agree with you more!! This happens at our school a LOT. We too have a similar communication tool that calls home to deliver important messages, we post things on our big sign out front, mail letters, etc. and somehow there are always those who will say we aren't doing as good as WE should. I'm with ya! Parents have got to take on more responsibility. We can't be parents AND teachers. We need a little help from home....
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