Most people find it imperative that parents become involved with their child’s education, but can they go overboard at times? The short answer is yes. “Parent empowerment is deemed to introduce uncertainty into teacher’s work and to raise questions concerning their control over their professional discretion”.
“With their different concerns for the children, teachers and parents have often been described as enemies, rivaling over what is best for the children’s education”. If a parent sees something that they don’t like being taught to their children, they are apt to complain to the teacher. The teacher might then get upset because its authority in school is being challenged. Who is right, who is wrong?
I say that the teacher should be the main voice in a student’s schooling. The parent should provide moral support to the child, but maybe less involvement by parents is better. Teachers are trained in providing scholastic aid. If parents find fault in a teacher’s lesson, then they should do their best to come up with a suitable alternative. If in fact a fitting alternative is proposed, then, unless the teacher makes one hell of an argument that states why the lesson is detrimental to a student’s well-being. I may seem to be contradicting myself, having said that the teacher is in charge of the schoolroom, but a student deals with family more than teachers in a lifetime. Teachers should understand this and make a wholehearted effort to not discard parental involvement.
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I agree that teachers do play the main role in a students education and that parents should provide moral support. In regards to a parent not liking what is taught I think it is a case by case thing. There definitely needs to be a strong dialogue between teachers in parents, and both parties need to show up.
ReplyDeleteI agree that teachers should be the ones with the primary authority in developing curriculum. However, parent involvement usually means better educational experiences for the students. When students, teachers, and parents, together develop a sense of ownership over what the kids are learning, they feel more empowered, and are usually more engaged. I think a good solution to this could be developing projects for students that are connected to community, including parental, involvement.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do believe there are some areas that should not be determined by a vocal minority of parents. For example, there was a case on the news this week about a group of parents staging a protest over the inclusion of some books in a high school library that contain homosexual content (I don't know what is considered homosexual content. This was unclear in the news story). One of the mothers was quoted as saying "I just think there should be some books in the library for kids who are trying to get away from that path." I was distressed by this comment. For one, the overwhelming majority of books in high school libraries contain heterosexual content. So, even if you think it is possible or morally acceptable to try to convert someone who is gay to being straight, there are ample books to do this. In this case, I do not believe that a few parents should be able to cater the contents of the school library for their own individual purposes.
A parent needs to be involved in their child's school life, to a certain extent. Parents should not be able to go into a school and change the curriculum to better suit their vision about their child's needs. There needs to be a separation of Parent and School. The parent needs to be able to help the child with homework and if a parent is so inclined to keep their child away from "bad content" then that should extend to their child and their child only. Parents should not be able to push their beliefs onto other people.
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