Bad Teacher or Bad Parent?

The media in recent years, and for some good reasons, has damned educational legislation, educators, unions, teacher prep programs, and the schools, causing great uproar and some positive changes, but many negative ones as well.  Teachers are becoming increasingly dispirited, believing that no matter what they accomplish with kids, that success will be dismissed and discounted, while any slight slip in standardized test scores will result in public flogging.  I have talked to many mid-career professionals who say that if they knew then what they know now, they would have chosen another career.  I have spoken with many senior teachers who are counting the years until they can retire.  I watch new teachers excitedly take their tentative first steps into the classroom, while nervously listening to the conversations going on around them.

Many reasons exist for this flame-throwing in the field of education.  One of those highly charged areas is the relationship between teachers and parents.  I am not sure whether this particular relationship has changed because of the negative attitudes toward education, or whether the change in the relationship is helping shape the negativity.  As in any key relationship, parents and teachers actually need each other.  Since both share the attention of the child to some degree, it surprises me how often teachers paint parents as the foe, and how more often parents attack teachers for something that occurred in school.  The difference is, teachers cannot show up at the home and then proceed to tell a parent what a lousy job he is doing with the child.  Teachers cannot take the child's side against the parents, nor can they stand in the parking lot and talk trash about a mother who ignores her child's needs or a father who is verbally abusive.  Teachers cannot post negative things about a child or parent on Facebook and expect to keep a job, yet there is a hot current debate about "freedom of speech" for students and their rights to slander or otherwise malign teachers publicly, accurately or not.  To assume the teacher intended harm, or to assume that teachers don't occasionally make mistakes in practice or judgment and will attempt to correct that mistake, will continue to frustrate our system and the people who work in it.  I was always surprised to have a parent come to school to demand that a grade be changed.  Unless there was a computational error, that demand appears irresponsible.  The teacher's job is to grade the learning.  In the vast majority of classrooms, the grade is not just pulled out of the air.  It reflects a student's work and learning.  To come in to inquire why a student received a particular grade and what could have been done differently, to come in to design ways to help the student handle responsibilities better, to ask the student what he or she will do differently the next time--those are reasons to come in to discuss grades.

Too often parents and even students see the teachers as "the hired help" who can be told what to do, and when, and why.  Too often parents are disrespectful, hurtful, or rude to a teacher who has done nothing more than hold their child accountable for learning or for behavior.  If teachers reversed those roles and attacked parents when students did not bother to do their work or when they misbehaved, parents would be incensed and frustrated.  In the current environment, teachers among themselves find fault with parents, parents publicly find fault with teachers, and students are lost in the heat.  If I could change one thing for each child and every school, it would be to find ways to help teachers and parents truly see their role as a partnership, much like a marriage of sorts.  There will be good times and bad times for most kids, but if the adults supporting them are aligned, then it will be clear what needs to be done.  If the adults are at odds, then, just like in a marriage, the student will play one adult against the other, and then what happens is a disintegration of the relationship.

Would it be more meaningful to teachers to be told that they are respected for their learning, their skills, their experience than to be given ceramic coffee cups filled with candy once a year in teacher appreciation week?  Would it be helpful if teachers did not feel embattled and did not perceive that every risk they took in developing new ideas and new curriculum would be shot down by some small special interest group?  Would it be more helpful to children if they fully understood that mom and dad and teacher were all in agreement about what was expected and not expected in the classroom?  Would it be more fulfilling and more rewarding to be a teacher in a school where parents did not expect that the child who is the center of their universe would also be knighted the center of the classroom universe.  Would test scores rise and students learn better if they came to school from strong families, well-fed, well-rested, secure in their safety, and encouraged to learn everything they could?

This primary relationship of parents and teachers, crucial to the success of our children, can and must be strong and healthy.  It must be part of the foundation of the school.  I think the many complex and entangled issues facing educators today and parents today demand our attention and our visionary thinking.  But I also think that one thing we can do as adults now that does not cost any money, but does demand maturity and shared goals, is to agree to enter into a respectful relationship.  Thinking respectfully about another does not mean we agree all the time, but that does mean we can "agree to disagree" respectfully and privately, to put ourselves in the others' shoes, and to always be in search of common ground.  The "Golden Rule" feels like a good fit here;  maybe we should give it a try.

Lifetime learning

I am reading a great book by David Brooks called The Social Animal.  The book is written as the story of two individuals. Yet, as the cover says, "This story is told one level down, at the level of emotions, intuitions, biases, and deep inner longings, where character is formed and the seeds of accomplishment grow.  It's possible to tell this story now because over the past thirty years, an array of researchers have peered into the inner mind....you'll come away with a new perspective on who you are, on how we raise our kids, conduct business, teach, love, and practice politics."  Brooks' insights on all these topics make this book a worthy read for parents, teachers, fund-raisers, business people, and anyone who is in a relationship.  I need to process some of his information and research, but I think he has made a strong platform for discussing some of the issues in education that need addressing: the  impact of poverty on both schools and children, the power of the unconscious in our decision-making, effective leadership in the classroom, in schools, and in our homes, and the effects of cultural bias that overemphasizes rationalism, individualism, and IQ.  The questions he raises about happiness and success are intriguing.  I hope many will read the book and enter into a dialogue about some of the issues that are pertinent.

Just what the world needs

Why "An Opener of Doors" as a name for this blog?  For those of us who are over 50, the need for yet another blog appears questionable.  However, after spending 4 decades in the classroom and now having the privilege of working with aspiring teachers at the collegiate level, I think that much wisdom is being lost in the current environment.  Baby boomers are retiring in waves, taking with them complex and in-depth knowledge that can only be acquired in the classroom over time.  Various "accountability" movements threaten to dehumanize the shared work of the teacher and student in the name of data.  I would like to create in this blog a chance for some of those who have been doing this work well for many years to share their insights, their advice, and their encouragement, for those who are just beginning their careers.  The work of the classroom should be joyful, important, and recognize that the life of the mind is far more exciting than the basal reader makes it seem.  If you want to help, please join the conversation and help open some doors--for our current students and for the students who follow. Come be an opener of doors!