Parents Who Fail the Schools

Published in Outlooks, The Washington Post (November 3, 1991)

I became a teacher in 1976 because I wanted to change students’ lives. I'd had plenty of lousy teachers in high school, and I thought I could do the job better. For more than 10 years, I convinced myself and presumably some of my students that one person's philosophy and dedication —my own—could make a difference.

But this September, as my two children boarded the bus for the first day of school with smiling eager faces, I stayed home. In 1989, I had resigned as a teacher of English speech and drama in Montgomery County. I couldn't return to the classroom, because I had lost the energy, the ambition, and the will to try to make the difference. I am not sure if it was the system or myself that failed the students, but in either case their own parents may also be partially to blame.

The most critical problem in the public school system is parents’ own failure or unwillingness to control their child's behavior. The Washington Post’s Saundra Evans recently wrote: “Nearly 500 of the 6000 children in foster care in Maryland were placed there voluntarily by parents or guardians, in addition to the more than 700 who were abandoned by their parents. Virginia has 726 children in foster care as a result of relief-of- custody petitions.”

Those kids are only the tip of a very big iceberg. They are the victims of a society of parents who just can't say no, who never did say no when their child got out of hand. Many, many parents have failed to discipline their own children (and probably to love them) and have given up trying. Teachers are expected to know how to control students’ behavior in the classroom even if no parent can control them at home. One year I listened to three mothers in three different 9th grade parent conferences breakdown and cry.  What can they do, they implored, when their sons leave the house at 9:00 pm at night and won't tell them where they are going? Why ask me? My oldest child was only four, and I wouldn't let her cross the street without an adult yet.

The truth was that those students had had discipline problems since the third grade; their latest rebellious stages didn't surface overnight but had simply reached a climax. Of course, ninth grade report cards count more with parents than third-grade report cards, so all the sudden their lack of discipline became more critical.

A headline in a Cincinnati paper last month said, “Parents Need to Take More Active Role in Their Children's Education.” True enough, but many of my students complained to me that they wished their parents would take an interest in them--- period. One year, at a back-to school night, there were so many parents present for my third-period honors class that we had standing room only. My sixth period class, however, was a low-level 7th grade English course, and the students were reading at third grade level. Not one parent entered my classroom to talk to me about their child's education.

Last year my daughter, then in third grade, said, “Mommy, my teacher is a great teacher, but Jimmy just won't sit in his seat and he bothers everyone else and she said we can't go on any field trips because she can't trust Jimmy.” Six years later the school system will still be trying to understand why Jimmy is truant and failing his academic subjects.

In the Montgomery County school system, which I consider a good one despite my criticism, there will be countless attempts to help Jimmy---- administrative procedures known as EMT, SARD, ARD, and the like. But there is no OUT. My daughter's teacher and principal can't ask Jimmy to leave the classroom permanently even if he never learns to behave properly, because this is public education. Jimmy may eventually end up in alternative programs, but for years his teacher will be exasperated, and other students will suffer, because he will require more of the teacher's attention. I don't advocate that we give up on Jimmy, but I feel like telling his parents, “If he can't behave himself in my classroom, if he can't stop bothering other students, then maybe you, not the school system, should have the responsibility for educating him!” 

I know that parents are only one piece of the puzzle, but aren't they the most important piece? Think back to your own youth. If you loved and respected your parents, didn't you want to please them? Sadly, many of my students did not have good role models within their own home, so it's small wonder that they have no respect for authority. Within the first few weeks of this school year, I can recognize those students who do not have a good family life. They look at me with distrust, with smug defiance, and sometimes with open hostility. And I wonder when the last time was that someone hugged them or listened to them or talked to them about the reasons why they aren't happy. Many, many, many of my students simply needed a parent to believe in them.

I used to think idealistically that I could save such students. But in 1988, three students in one of my classes were sent to a psychiatric institute, one of my 10th graders dropped out of school and one11th grader whom I still worry about ran away from home. His parents had sent him to the area to live with his grandmother because they “couldn't deal with him.” His grandmother told me, “I can't cope with him either.”

Just as there is no way to move a Jimmy out of the system, there's no reliable way to fire a teacher who is not effective maybe that's because we can't define effective. When I was studying to become a teacher, I was assigned to read a book titled “Those Who Can, Teach.” Since then I've learned that those who can't, teach anyway. Along with many excellent educators and administrators, we have, like every profession, individuals who are not pulling their weight. They hang on year after year, complaining about poor pay and lack of student motivation and just wait for retirement. The same is true for administrators. I respected most of those I worked with, but there were some you should have never been given authority to manage a school. And before becoming ineffective administrators, most had been ineffective teachers.

Everyone, of course, has ideas about how to improve the educational system in America. But we parents rarely see our own role. What, for example, can we do to help motivate young people, and keep them motivated? My son couldn't wait to start school this fall. He was so enthusiastic, so ready to learn how to make sentences, to read, to add numbers. He had a new backpack and his ninja turtle lunchbox, and two sharpened pencils. But my 4th grader was far less enthusiastic. She had already faced the frustrating fact that her school, like our society, must make restrictive rules because there are “bad children” who won't behave, and that this is unfair to the ones who do behave.

I was saddened, but it reminded me of another reason I quit teaching: I felt my 9th graders were getting all of my attention and I had nothing left to give my own children. I began to feel that I was neglecting their chances of being well adjusted and happy and that I must stop parenting and trying to rescue so many others. I began to see myself as no longer compassionate and understanding but angry and disillusioned.

I recently reread the cards and letters that my students at Magruder and Rockville high schools sent me when I retired. They substantiate my feelings that perhaps I did make some difference, and I am grateful to them. Thank you for telling me that I was a good teacher and that you'll miss me. I miss you too, but I don't know if I have the courage to come back yet. For now, I want to greet my own children at the bus stop and ask them about their day and help them with their homework. I hope they like their teachers, and that their teachers like them.