End of Term Blues

Every term, about this time, the e-mails from parents start pouring in, most of them upset because their son or daughter just brought home his/her most recent grade printout. "This will ruin her grade point average," writes one angry mom. "Why do reading points count for so much of the grade?" Or this: "He is missing six assignments. Will you make sure he gets those Monday so he can make them up (by Tuesday)?"

What bothers me the most about these notes is their underlying message: "My child, over the last 45 school days, did not complete the assignments for your class, so now it is your responsibility, Mr. Thompson, to make sure that in the next two days, he can make up for it and not have it hurt his grade."

As a parent, I understand the desire to helicopter in and rescue one's children from some things (like getting run over by cars in the street or hanging around with friends who abuse drugs), but when doing so encourages those kids to continue behaving irresponsibly, I can't abide it. What sorts of discussions must go on in these households?

"Uh, Mom. Here is my end-of-term grade printout for English. Will you sign it?"

"What's this?! B+?! I thought you always got an A in English! Who's the teacher?"

"It's Mr. Thompson, and he is really mean about reading points. We had to read this really long book and write a paper on it, and then we had to pass the AR test! Can you believe it?! And I only missed passing the test by one stinkin' question, but I don't get any of the AR points! It's so unfair, Mom!"

"I'll say! I'm going to call him right now! (She returns from phone five minutes later.) Well, that figures! He's not even there! It's a Saturday afternoon, for Pete's sake! Why isn't anyone at the school answering the phone! It's not like those teachers don't get enough time off over the summer? They take weekends off, too?!"

Allow me to point out two basic injustices with such a scenario. First, the fact that Mom has no idea how her child is doing in the class until the end of the term indicates a problem that has nothing to do with the teacher. Sadly, many parents send their children off to school and expect the school to do everything, including offer special accommodations to their own children even when none are offered to the rest of the students. This is an unreasonable expectation given that the school has over a thousand students and only sixty faculty members. The best teacher in the world cannot (and should not) replace parents. So, in this case, Mom is shirking her parental responsibilities. Second, as well as avoiding her own, Mom never considers the student's responsibility either. There was not only a disclosure that went home on the first day of school that stressed the importance of reading, but also an Accelerated Reader contract that specifically stated students should read within their own reading range to make sure they pass tests. Not only that, but Mom never even asked the student if she actually read the entire book, a book that was not required, mind you, but rather was chosen by the student! The core issue has been completely overlooked: Did the student do what was expected? The answer, most often, is no. Some parents want their students to get high grades that they don't earn. They attack the technicalities of the system or the teachers to make sure that happens, rather than just holding their kids accountable for their own school work.

Public education is frequently criticized for not preparing kids for real life, but many parents don't allow us to do that. In real life, there are deadlines by which work has to get done, and assignments must be finished to the high standards of an often-unforgiving boss or company. If parents leap in to protect children who have not met the requirements of the class in school, they are not only contributing to grade inflation but also to a workforce that believes the rules only apply to others. It's not because schools have failed that people leave high school unready to be part of the workforce; it's because parents have failed.

At what point should a student be expected to take responsibility for his own school work? I suggest that ninth grade is far beyond that time. How long are you going to keep rescuing them from themselves, Dad? It's not the school or the teacher or the horrible Accelerated Reader program that is holding your kid down. It's you...by rescuing him from his responsibility, which is to learn by completing the assignments that the teachers set forth. Look at all the other kids that are doing it successfully! They don't feel cheated. They are just doing what is (and should be) expected. Raise your standards and hold your kid to them!

My Grandma Rose and her eight siblings were schooled in a borrowed church building in North Ogden in the early 1900s. Because her family was so large and her father was so frequently away, her mother had to run a tight ship because she didn't have any free time on her hands. The rules were few, but they were unbreakable. I quote Grandma Rose, quoting her mother:

"I want you all home right after school. Don't make me come looking for you. You can bring your friends here if you want, but I won't have you at someone else's house bugging them. And when you play outside, don't go beyond the sound of my voice. When I call you in, you'd better come."

"As long as you try your best in school, I am not worried about your marks [grades]. But if your mark in deportment [citizenship] is less than perfect, you will be in for it. I better never hear of you causing trouble for your teacher."

Grandma was raised in a household where there were expectations for the children. And the children not only loved their mother dearly, but they respected her word. They knew that school was their job, not hers. Grandma graduated from the 8th grade and never attended another day of school in her life (as was often the case in the early 1900s), but she was as "educated" as any high school graduate of today. So when I hear politicians and angry parents moaning about how the school system is in decay and then demanding the creation of more and more special programs to cater to the various needs of all these special cases, I think of Grandma Rose, who was schooled in a borrowed church building where no accommodations of any kind were offered. She succeeded in school and in life not because of what the school taught her, but because of what her mother taught her.

What lessons are kids learning from many parents today? The grade is more important than the effort it takes to earn it. If you don't get the grade you want, play the victim and complain. The ends always justify the means. You are more special than everyone else. You don't have to play by the rules. It's never your fault. It's never your responsibility.

Don't blame me. I'm just a teacher.

MRT