By Melanie Loxton, School Teacher
September 2011 article
This month I would like to touch on parent responsiveness. I think that at photo-money collection time in the year I always muse the same frustrated musings about the lack of responsiveness in some parents. (This will happen again next month when we try to get Sponsor envelopes back for our big walk…)
1. If something is due at school, particularly money, please send it as quickly as possible (or at least within the given time limit)
2. If you do not have the photo money, please either send the photos back (there is no shame in this!) or explain in advance why money will be late, eg. “would it be possible to pay after pay day although it falls after the
due date?” No teacher will think that is an invalid reason and we will appreciate the heads-up.
3. If sponsor money is due and you haven’t collected any, please don’t let us beg until we are beyond frustration. Just send the envelope back empty rather than make empty promises.
My current frustration also comes because we are now in the month of August (at the time of writing this). By now, any interventions and suggested support routes should definitely have been investigated, and should be being implemented if we have a hope of helping with problems during THIS year. I can think of two of my children who are battling so very much, yet resistant parents are optimistically ignoring all previous suggestions and obstinately ‘hoping for the best’. It is worse when a child is in danger of actually failing and parents are resistant, but these two are going to be quieter casualties because they are bright enough to scrape by. However the tragedy is that ‘scraping by’ should never be what these two boys should have to surrender to. One day they will reflect and say “School was so hard for me, it was such a battle and I was always in trouble” as many adults say these days, being from the generation before attention difficulties were diagnosed and treated.
Back to ‘responsiveness’ – the one boy has a problem finishing work, and after months of a lack of support from parents I decided to make incomplete work their problem, seeing as I believe it is fixable. I sent his book home on a Thursday. It came back still untouched, as I was also unable to write a note about finishing the work in his homework book (which was fairly typically missing at the time). We located the homework book on Friday, in which I stapled a sticking-out bookmark type of note asking for photo money and work to be completed. Monday, no one had glimpsed the note or touched the work. Now, fair enough, maybe it is not a habit to check books on weekends, BUT I had put a reminder mark on the boy’s hand (in koki – don’t worry, it washes off, and is a desperate measure!) and had stressed to HIM how he needed to remember to show his parents (he is 8 and capable of remembering, especially when he is landing in hot water each day). But also, with the blatant concerns I have voiced about his progress, which include the words “I am desperate for him and need your support”, one might assume that the mom would pay a little attention to his school bag, ask to see books, ask for extra tips and advice about how to help. It really seems as if he just goes home to his play station every day and no one in the family gives schoolwork a second thought. (Incidentally, when asked to make a sentence with the Phonic word ‘weed’, he is the only child in my 11 years of teaching who used it in a sentence like this : Weed is a bad thing what grown ups smoke…! For real!)
There are two extremes in parents. They are : over-concerned, and on the other side of the spectrum, unsupportive. We teachers take ‘over-concerned’ parents any day of the week, even though they are painful and lots of unnecessary hard work. It is easier to cool down a fanatic than to warm up a corpse, as the church saying goes. Are you being a ‘corpse’ in relation to your child’s progress? I know I spend a fair amount of time asking you to trust the teacher and not over-react to situations, but where a real problem exists, non-responsiveness tells us that you do not have your child’s best interests at heart (whether it is because you are in denial, or opposed to our suggestions, at least remain concerned and in contact.) We can respect a polite difference of opinion if you continue to show interest and strive for ways to improve your child’s progress (even if we believe they are not the most effective ways), but we cannot respect a lack of response.
Perhaps it is time now for you to have an informal check-in with your child’s teacher. And, as a bonus tip, teachers LOVE it when you or your child is responsive to something you have recently taught, for example, by sending a note which says “thank you for that exciting lesson on homophones. Hannah came home and drew up lists of pairs of homophones even though it was not part of homework. She told us about the game you played in class. Thank you for making lessons memorable”. One boy even brought to school an extended list of homophones which his mom had helped him with, and the teacher was the one writing a note of appreciation.
We appreciate responsiveness. It shows we are not striving for nothing and encourages us to go further in our efforts. When ‘comment’ blocks are signed on our children’s booklets, parents mostly compliment their children on neat work or doing well. Few will say “thank you teacher, for compiling, teaching, marking and assessing this work”, but when they do, it makes us happy to keep compiling, teaching, marking and assessing.
