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Last edited by Aconite; 09-10-2011 at 08:46 AM..
Reason: Being mindful of the lovely Ms. Julia, and the poster to whom it's addressed will never get it anyway.
I will step up to say that my son seems to have had good teachers. At least he made good grades and didn't come home complaining that they were yellers or screamers.
I did volunteer at the school but I worked, so I couldn't be one of the mother's that were there every day, making copies, or volunteering in the office. I always felt like their kids benefitted from this though I'm not sure if they would be considered 'hover' parents. I was on the PTA board and got to know many of the teachers ~ most of whom seemd like really good people. So was the principal and I wouldn't EVER want to have his job.
If the teachers and parents could just see each other as people and not the enemy - it would be so helpful to the kids.
A lot of parents try really hard to show their appreciation to the teachers; we would rack our brain for the perfect end of year gift or christmas gift or thank you note for a teacher who went above and beyond. We had special breakfasts and lunches for the teachers.
I had a lot of respect for what the teachers had to say about my son. They got to see him in an environment that I did not. So, yes, I paid great attention to their comments.
That's why I didn't like the article and painting all parents with the same brush.
I've had kids in school since 1987 and at all the various schools the turnout for night meetings whether it was open house, pta, curriculum information, or what ever, has never brought out more than about 20% of the parents.
During my time as an executive PTA board member, we never filled all the vacant positions and we never had full attendance at the executive member meetings, which were all held in the evenings. PTA meetings only brought out parents when the kids were performing or there was food offered. Although I realize it is not the case in many schools, PTA in our schools contribute so much to the benefit of the kids that it's hard to realize it falls on less than 20% of the parents to make sure it all happens.
Anyway, at curriculum night last week, for instance, 8 kids out of 22 were represented in my son's 3rd grade class. That's it. The other classes had even less. The meeting was announced on the first day of school, it was held at 6:30 and yet that's all that showed up.
With all due respect, I've volunteered in the schools extensively (hundreds of hours) every year I had a child enrolled-- and I would allow rabid badgers to chew open my femoral artery before I would join a PTA board.
I wonder if you consider hover parents the ones who try to be involved partners in their children's education.
Apparently I am one of those hovering parents, a badge I wear proudly by the way. I think it's a good thing that I take time to understand what STAR and MAP scores mean, where my children need to improve, and how I can support their growth. I think it's important that I know what is included in the curriculum for each grade and how it all meshes with our state standards.
When my children come home from school with research projects, I love taking them to the library and teaching them how to use the on-line databases to find and print articles about their subjects, something that rarely happens at school, because there simply isn't time. It's not that I don't trust my children's teachers, because I truly believe they are doing a marvelous job, but there is a limit to what can be accomplished in a classroom with 25-35 kids, and if I have the time and energy to expand my children's academic horizons beyond what they can legitimately do at school, I don't think I should be discouraged. I think I should be applauded!
I will always be the parent who arranges vacations to historic sites, takes my kids to museums, and brings home a diverse stack of books from the public library (if I left it completely up to my youngest to obtain his reading material from the school library, it would be graphic novels and nothing else). I will be the parent who takes her kids to science club and math club, and signs her kids up for summer review classes at the community college. I will also be the one requesting MAP scores the day after the tests are completed, the one who actually attends my district's academic accountability meeting, and the one who knows where to go on-line to find the Everyday Math parent letters that never seem to find their way into my youngest's backpack. Furthermore, you can count on seeing me outside the classroom door on Friday afternoon to spend a few minutes gathering up my youngest's completed work, checking for supplies that need replenished, and taking home his workbooks to review over the weekend. You will never find me stapling seasonal cut-outs to bulletin boards, although I'm grateful for those who do.
As I learned yesterday, apparently that makes some educators uncomfortable. So be it!
This afternoon a staff member at the local elementary school told me that I need to focus more on being my child's parent (as opposed to being his "second" teacher), because I wanted access to his most recent reading evaluation.
Somebody is ALWAYS going to think you're doing it wrong!
A parent is a child's first teacher. And that secretary or office person or classroom teacher would have gotten an earful about legal issues had s/he said that to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cav Scout wife
The kiddo is/was afraid she would look stupid if she asked the teacher to repeat herself, so she never spoke up in class to get additional help, so she's failing. HER FAULT TOTALLY! Well I get a phone call Wed (didn't answer, cause I was in class myself) and a fairly brief curt voicemail. She only gave 2 times to call her back (in class both times), so I called around 4pm. Also sent note with multiple email addresses to contact me with. I am fully ready to address this and get the brat back on track.
What does she do? Sends home "master copies" of the homework assignments, and then gives the brat a 0 for ruining her master copies, then tells her in class she doesn't care what I am doing during those times, if I gave a damn (yes she said it in the middle of a class full of 6th graders) about my child, I would ditch my classes to talk to her.
A parent is a child's first teacher. And that secretary or office person or classroom teacher would have gotten an earful about legal issues had s/he said that to me.
Fortunately, it was not my child's teacher, but another staff member who knows me from a previous volunteer position and has answered my questions about MAP and STAR tests in the past. She has very limited exposure to my child. I think she thought she was being helpful by counseling me. It wasn't worth pursuing, but I will give her a wide berth from now on. Nonetheless, that she even considered making such statements to me makes me wonder if she was parrotting a wider perception that I am over-stepping. I do think some educators are threatened when a parent's interest in their child's education goes beyond attending the monthly PTO meeting and volunteering to provide snacks for holiday parties.
Last edited by formercalifornian; 09-10-2011 at 09:05 AM..
I wonder if you consider hover parents the ones who try to be involved partners in their children's education.
I consider them to be the ones OVER involved with their child's education.
I teach 16 year olds. On the second day of school I had one child's parent call me to ask why there were no grades in the portal (our online grading program). I have also had another parent ask me to email her my lesson plans two weeks before I send them into my district, she was baffled when I said no. I have also had a parent ask me to email them daily all of the homework I assign. I have a class website where it is listed, it is on the homework board, and the kids are all given homework planners but it was more convenient for this person to make me email them instead of holding their child remotely responsible for anything.
A particular set of parents from last year come screaming to mind, their daughter got a 92 on the midterm when they felt she should have gotten a 100. They demanded I give them my midterm so they could go over it. When I explained to them that the midterm and final belong to the school district not me and that they are welcome to come look at it but not have it, they then expected me to sit with them everyday during my lunch and go over it line by line with them.
I refused and they spent their own time looking at it. There were no mistakes grading it to be found. When this happened again at the final, I also had to refuse to spend hours solving every problem on the exam for them. Meanwhile their child completely understood the mistakes she had made since we went over them in class and was completely mortified that her parents did this. All of the seniors are required to do outside research as part of their graduation requirements and I frequently act as mentor due to my own research conducted at a local university. These parents were surprised when I refused (as all mentors are allowed to) to mentor their child. Part of mentorship is about students learning how to cope in the world and I was not going to put myself back into any position voluntarily where I would have to deal with those parents ever again. Its a shame because the child was obviously over protected but not a bad child at all.
Hover parents are in for a shock when their children get into college and the professors will not even talk to them.
Hover parents are in for a shock when their children get into college and the professors will not even talk to them.
Funny. At my son's college, there is a sign at the academic advisors entrance: Students Only! Actually, it's more detailed than that and makes it clear that parents are not welcome. I just can't remember the exact wording.
I did have to email one of his professors once though. He failed my son when he had a 4.0. The reason was because my son's name had been changed during the term. When he saw the new name on his grade roster, he thought, "I don't have any grades for that kid" and failed him. It was an easy fix.
There is tremendous change in a child's capabilities between elementary school and high school. I think we can all agree that a nine-year-old requires much more academic supervision than a sixteen-year-old. It is not a given that a parent who closely monitors her young child's progress will be unable to loosen the reins as he advances.
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I wonder if you consider hover parents the ones who try to be involved partners in their children's education.
