Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I've seen a few different viewpoints about this subject on this forum and I'm curious as to what people think.
A little about myself first. I am a freshman in college. I've considered myself above average when it comes to academics throughout my life. From early on my parents always pushed me into higher up programs. This did sometimes put a strain on our relationship: I knew they only wanted what was best for me, but sometimes it seemed like they were pushing too hard. Now, I'm glad they've pushed me, and since I've started college, they've been better about letting me start to make my own decisions.
I think my parents put the right of stress on me, but this may not be the case for everyone. Some of my other friends had parents who didn't really push at all. Some of my other friends were homeschooled. So, I guess I'm curious what other people's thoughts are on parents role in education?
Oh! To add something I forgot, is it their role to get involved with the school, funding for college, picking colleges, picking majors, picking high school courses (like AP, not general), pushing student to take college classes in high school, etc?
If you ask about parents' role in terms of mentors/guides/career counselors - then yes, a huge yes. Nobody will have your best interest at heart than your own parent who has lived long enough to understand a thing or two about how life works.
Young people often have very little clue about what they want to do, what they would be good at, and what it is worth going for in the first place. It's called lack of life experience and perspective. It's always been like this, it will always be so. Youth is simply not experienced enough.
In addition, the very young experience that "grass is greener" illusion that puts them at risk of trying out 100 majors and giving up as soon as the going gets a little tough thinking X major is not for them.
This is where the parent role comes in - assuming, of course the parent is a not a troglodyte, and Lord knows there are plenty of those going around.
If you ask about parents' role as educators - then no. Parents should not have to be educators. "Pushers" - like you described - why not? From the very beginning, parents should "PUSH" the child to go do homework. Receiving homework from school - to do WITH the child? No. Schools should send homework that the child can approach on his own and would not need parents' assistance every step of the way. But this is NOT what schools do currently - they insist on getting the parent "involved" come H or high water.
I strongly believe parents should not be educators simply because parents do not have similar abilities for being educators. This is what SCHOOLS are for.
The educational establishment has been increasingly abusing the "family-school partnership" paradigm to dump increasingly higher educational/curriculum loads on the shoulders of parents (or the tutors they feel they need to hire). Now any parent who knows a little thing or two about our times, understand that they either have to spend a lot of time with the child doing curriculum at home or must hire tutors.
Else - the school WILL leave your child behind. Guaranteed.
At a certain point a parent needs to let go and have their child take charge of their education and care. High school is too late in my opinion. That needs to start in middle school.
By the time my son was a freshmen in high school, he knew the importance of grades and taking harder classes. I no longer asked him if he had home work, etc. we did talk about school a lot, what was going on, what he was learning.
He did great in in his freshmen year but did say later on he wished he had worked a bit harder. If I had nagged him about that he would never have come to that conclusion himself.
A parent won't be there to push in college so it's something the child needs to be doing themselves before then. It helped that my son knew what he wanted to do and the school he wanted to go to to do it and that it would not be easy getting in. I suppose for kids who have no idea what they might want to study, it might be harder to get motivated.
I have to agree that high school is too late to hand control over the child. That needs to start in late elementary school (4/5 grade) and be completed prior to high school. IMO the stakes have gotten very high for high school students so it makes sense to allow them to stumble a little bit in elementary/middle school so that they are ready for high school.
Some things students need to find out on their own. My oldest did very well in his first semester at college. For his second semester he registered for 19 credits with three math based classes (Calc 3, Statistics, Intermediate Macro Theory). I told him that I thought that was far too many math based classes/overall credits. However, he had to try it. He called me last week and told me that I was right. His school has first year forgiveness so he can drop one class without it showing up on his transcript as a W. Some things you have to learn on your own.
If you ask about parents' role in terms of mentors/guides/career counselors - then yes, a huge yes. Nobody will have your best interest at heart than your own parent who has lived long enough to understand a thing or two about how life works.
Young people often have very little clue about what they want to do, what they would be good at, and what it is worth going for in the first place. It's called lack of life experience and perspective. It's always been like this, it will always be so. Youth is simply not experienced enough.
In addition, the very young experience that "grass is greener" illusion that puts them at risk of trying out 100 majors and giving up as soon as the going gets a little tough thinking X major is not for them.
This is where the parent role comes in - assuming, of course the parent is a not a troglodyte, and Lord knows there are plenty of those going around.
If you ask about parents' role as educators - then no. Parents should not have to be educators. "Pushers" - like you described - why not? From the very beginning, parents should "PUSH" the child to go do homework. Receiving homework from school - to do WITH the child? No. Schools should send homework that the child can approach on his own and would not need parents' assistance every step of the way. But this is NOT what schools do currently - they insist on getting the parent "involved" come H or high water.
I strongly believe parents should not be educators simply because parents do not have similar abilities for being educators. This is what SCHOOLS are for.
The educational establishment has been increasingly abusing the "family-school partnership" paradigm to dump increasingly higher educational/curriculum loads on the shoulders of parents (or the tutors they feel they need to hire). Now any parent who knows a little thing or two about our times, understand that they either have to spend a lot of time with the child doing curriculum at home or must hire tutors.
Else - the school WILL leave your child behind. Guaranteed.
If you are referring to the high school level, I would agree with you. If you are referring to the k-5 level, then I must respectfuly disagree. My son is 6 and in Kindergarten. He has a new book to read about 1-2 times a week. It is up to me and my wife to read it to him the first few times and help him read the next few until he can do it by himself. This forces my wife and I to take an active role in his education. We help him count coins of different denominations. Believe it or not, we use Netflix to help him with sequential numbering - and it works. At that age, he needs my help. And the teacher appreciates it. We don't "do" his homework, but helping allows us to see where he is & how he's doing. We will continue to do this right up to Middle school where we will gradually shift the role from active to passive - observing for progress.
Of course, when he gets to high school, He'll have his old man in the building to remind him of his responsibility.
If you are referring to the high school level, I would agree with you. If you are referring to the k-5 level, then I must respectfuly disagree. My son is 6 and in Kindergarten. He has a new book to read about 1-2 times a week. It is up to me and my wife to read it to him the first few times and help him read the next few until he can do it by himself. This forces my wife and I to take an active role in his education. We help him count coins of different denominations. Believe it or not, we use Netflix to help him with sequential numbering - and it works. At that age, he needs my help.
I am not critiquing what you do.
I am critiquing the fact that you fail to see how the system is taking advantage of you as a parent. I do exactly what you do - probably with cherries on top, because I have no other choice given the system - but I do Bi*ch about it, I don't just side with it. Why? Because the system has gone way too far and is reeking of abuse. Yes, parent abuse, family abuse, and even child abuse.
The fact that your child needs your assistance in K to do "curriculum"...hmmm...could this be the Universe's way of telling us that 5 yo-s are not supposed to do such curriculum in the first place?
There is a reason why schooling (as in academics) used to be initiated at an age when children were capable of keeping ears open enough at school to catch what homework is due next time, and to grab the workbook on their own at home to solve the assigned problems ON THEIR OWN, without parental assistance beyond "go do your homework". If the child had some trouble on the way, sure -they could go ask the parent for a tip or two...but there is a world of difference between a child doing that and the contemporarry homework model in elementary school, which is formulated and packaged in such ways to be initiated and addressed by the "parent-educator", with tons of technology, projects, mess. Never mind that this contributes to a long-term atmosphere that de-responsibilizes the child all while placing more and more burden on the parent. Never mind that not all parents have the pedagogical ability but particularly the time necessary to sit and do intensive curriculum with the child at home. In fact, most parents don't have that.
The parent-school partnership functions based on a family model where the father usually works for pay and the mother stays-at-home to "raise" the children, which "raising" means largely "buzzing around at school all day long, taking full responsibility of curriculum and homework, hauling children to 100 extra-curriculars and virtually quitting all traditional and still highly necessary tasks of keeping the house straight or cooking daily meals from scratch.
The family has slowly become the indentured servant of the schooling system and indirectly of the future labor market. THIS is a problem considering more and more families have less and less ability to function at healthy levels within this model.
Then they wonder why an increasing number of parents are "red-shirting" their children. I just recently attended a presentation by two K teachers who visited my daughter's preschool and who informed parents of future kindergartners of the most recent changes in curriculum standards at the county level and the accompanying expectations. For example, now kindergartners will be expected to count to 50 instead of just 20, and when they do math problems, it will not be enough to say 3+4=7, they will also be expected to reason down on paper, explaining in writing why they solved the problem that way.
Seriously?
Then again, you will always have the desperate parents who just need to push the kid out of the house and into the arms of the public school system for expense or convenience purposes...or those with inflated egoes who believe their darling is more than advanced and could handle brain surgery at 5, let alone these "pathetic standards".
Moreover, children's rest time is being cut down from 30 min to 20 min. Who needs breaks anyway?
The teachers pretty much told us, off the record, that if we have even the slightest doubt about sending or not sending, we should NOT send because they see every day how little ones (almost 4 yos) struggle, fall asleep, drool, whine because of fatigue, cry for mom, etc...all while the system expects them to philosophize in writing why they solved an arithmetic problem the way they did.
Anyway - what is sad is when the mainstream ceases to see how their children are being deprived of a childhood and how their families are increasingly being brutalized by an infernal system designed to produce, produce, and produce some more for the Powers that Be.
To be noted that this is NOT a critique brought to teachers (I feel for them in more ways than one) - but to those from above who make national-level decisions about how the population should be schooled.
In the meantime, all I can do is "red-shirting" my little girl and showing them the finger...at least for just a little while longer.
Parents need to be supporting and informative when it comes to education. I don't feel that they should be making decisions for their children when it comes to choosing areas of study and what university to attend.
If I'm going to be paying part of my childrens' college tuition I'm going to have some input as to what they are studying. There's no way in hell I'm paying for them to pursue ridiculous majors like art therapy, liberal arts, Russian literature or "womens studies."
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
