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Honestly, in that classroom I wasn’t thinking much about the parents. I was only thinking about the students, but now that I am a parent, I see how bad we are to teachers. You know what, me included.
I try really hard to make friends with my kids teachers, but sometimes I end up becoming the annoying mom. Not all the time. I got some attitude from my oldest daughter’s teacher this year. Saw an email that probably wasn’t meant for me to see. I stand behind my advocacy for my children always, but if I take a step back from myself and look at things from a teacher’s point of view dealing with students,parents, and administrators might just be enough to make anyone get a little snippy with a parent at times.
At least I can step outside of myself and try to come to an understanding with teachers and work with them. I get so furious when I see other parents make blanket statements like our teachers are not doing their jobs. You know what? I have dealt with a bad teacher or two, but even in that case I think they were doing their job. Just some are better at that job than others.
Your Child Is Failing Because Of The Teacher
I am a firm believer that we as parents are our child’s first and best teacher. It is our job to get the educators to understand our child’s needs. So if we’re going to fault the teacher, then we have to fault ourselves. If a child isn’t learning it’s not because the teacher just isn’t teaching. I mean perhaps you could say that if an entire class was below grade level in reading, but one child struggles does not automatically make it the teacher’s fault.
There are a number of reasons a child can struggle in school, but pointing fingers at teachers does not solve the problem. Again, we have got to be accountable. I know I have been on this accountability kick lately, but really it’s true. That really seems to be the major problem of today in my opinion. The lack of accountability.
If Your Child Is Failing…
Instead of blaming the teacher for not doing her job why not find out what’s going on? Is your child easily distracted? Is it age appropriate, or something that goes beyond that? Maybe your child has a vision problem. A trip to the optometrist can’t hurt. Is there more you can do at home? Because lets face it, while teachers have our kids 6 hours a day learning does not stop at the end of the school day. And it doesn’t mean you have to set up a classroom in your home and teach things.
Just in your normal everyday activities you can point out words for them to read. Throw out random math problems for them to solve. Here are some things you can do at home or while you’re out:
- Take turns writing lines of a story you make up together.
- Practice writing letters. You write a letter, and have them copy it.
- See how many different words you can make out of one word.
- In the car you can point out signs and have them read them.
- Find certain letters in license plates or road signs.
- Sing songs.
- Make up a song to help your child spell his name.
All of this is teaching and can only help and support what the teacher is doing in school.
Talk to the teacher about your concerns. Often times they will have activities they can send home for you to do or tell you websites you can go to. Teachers can’t do this alone. Yes, their job is to teach a certain curriculum. They have to teach it to 20 or more different children. Children which are all at different levels. They have to adjust things for students. They are answering to parents and administration. They are juggling it all. Teachers can only do so much if we as parents aren’t doing our part at home.
Sometimes It’s Just Not Enough
Sometimes no matter how much we work with our children and teachers work with our children, sometimes it’s just not enough. Sometimes they need even more help. Believe me I have been there. My middle daughter has an IEP (Individual Education Plan) for reading. This is one smart girl. I’ll never forget when she was 6 years old, we were in the grocery store and I was buying 3 – 6 packs of soda. She quickly added in her head that it was 18 bottles of soda and proceeded to tell me that it was 9 for me and 9 for daddy. Smart cookie. Great at math. Reading, she struggles with.
No matter how much we went over sight words (which I hate by the way, absolutely hate that we are teaching children to memorize words). She plugs away at things harder than anyone I have ever seen. In Kindergarten there were concerns about her reading. She was behind then. We moved her forward. In 1st grade we still had concerns about her reading. We moved her forward. All this time I was meeting with the teachers and the principal and telling them I don’t want her to stay back. She is too advanced in other areas. We can’t keep her behind. She’ll get bored. We need to do something different.
Onto 2nd grade she went, still behind in reading. I pushed for testing. And testing revealed some interesting things about my daughter. Things that they hadn’t seen before and did not know how to deal with it, but things they weren’t willing to say could put her on an IEP. And I pushed and I pleaded and we finally got her an IEP and they adjust tests for her and they give her more time and they work with her on reading.
She will be going to middle school next year. She knows reading is not her thing. She still likes to read, but you know what? It wasn’t the teachers fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It is what it is. She has a unique brain. She has an amazing brain that I would love to get inside of to see what she sees, but she’s finally making steady gains in reading.
Now there’s my son who’s in Kindergarten. I have been watching him all year making steady gains, but slow gains. It wasn’t like his sisters gains when she was in Kindergarten. This is different. This is a situation where in my mind his age is just showing. He’s younger than his classmates. He doesn’t have the maturity or attention span that his classmates has. But it’s not because of a delay, it’s because he’s young. Give him time and he’ll catch up, I know it. He’s not behind because his teacher isn’t doing her job. Because she absolutely is. He’s not behind because I’m not doing my job, because I work with him everyday. He’s behind because he’s young.
All of my children I believe have the potential to be successful and do great things in life. With the help of teachers who do their job and parents who do theirs we will find a way to get them there.
So remember, teachers are not the reason that children are behind. There are so many other reasons children fall behind in school. Stop blaming teachers and start working with them to find a solution to why your child might be struggling. This isn’t an us versus them, we are a team and we need to work together to help our children succeed. The second you put them on the defensive with statements like, “You’re not doing your job!” is the moment you have split up the team. And that doesn’t help anyone.
Do you think teachers are to blame for children who are behind in their education?
