This morning I was eating my Special K and scrolling through Facebook posts when I came across a status update that made me want to hurl. It was from a parent of a middle-schooler who was clearly frustrated and downright exhausted from all of the homework and expectations piled on her child just a month or so into the school year. Her comment was typical and not unlike what I hear all the time as a high school teacher, but the replies and detailed comments that followed? That's what really drove home how bad our educational partnership has become.
"I don't remember school ever being this ridiculous," replied one mom, followed by another, "You think 6th grade is bad, wait until 7th. All my kid does is homework, from the second he walks in the door." One dad grudgingly admitted, "I can't even figure out how the online program works. Am I the only one who can't access the assignments?" Then, from a resigned mom, "I finally pulled my kid out and put her in private school, so she could actually be a kid and enjoy life a little. Her new school cares about learning and doesn't spend the whole year preparing for standardized tests."
And these were just the first few comments. They continued, many with heavy use of collective personal pronouns: our project, our time, our exhaustion. "We have four hours of homework every night!" one parent lamented. I couldn't help but notice her use of the word we. What is this we she spoke of? We shouldn't have anything, right? After all, it's not the parents' homework, nor is it their responsibility. Or is it?
Who is to blame for the shared frustration students and parents have toward schools? Well, I think I might have the answer.
As the author of a book on parenting teens, I spend a good bit of time talking to parents, and the questions they ask of me are as insightful as the advice I offer them. The other night, I was speaking to a group of parents about helping their children become more responsible and prepared for life after high school. A middle school parent raised her hand and said,
I hear what you're saying, and I agree wholeheartedly. The problem is that the school doesn't let me live out what you're saying and what I know is best for my kid. They EXPECT me to check my kids' homework every night. They even make me sign to prove that I did it! They TELL me to sign up for grade book alerts and call the minute I have a concern. I want to give my kids responsibility, but the school makes me feel guilty if I'm not involved in every aspect of my kids' education.
My advice to this mom was to follow her instincts. She knows her kids better than anyone else in the world, and she instinctively knows that parents aren't supposed to hold their kids' hands forever. Doing what is right for your kids is more important than letting a school guilt you into becoming over-involved and enabling.
Parents are being made to feel that they must be the pivotal force in all of their kids' decisions and responsibilities, and if they're not, well, they must not be good parents. So as a natural consequence, parents now view school as just as much their domain as their kids'. And why not? They've been given instantaneous access to every grade their kids earn. They get lessons on how to navigate the grade book system and set their phones to alert them each time a grade is entered. Nightly, they check assignments online, access school calendars, and receive notifications about homework expectations and due dates, tests, and quizzes. They can download the course syllabus, study guides, teacher notes, and handouts that their kids dropped on the floor or stuffed in a folder. The parents really are doing school. No wonder they refer to homework and projects as ours rather than theirs.
Oh, the hypocrisy. We chastise and poke fun at parents who won't loosen the reigns, dubbing them Helicopter Parents. But when they try to step back, try to let their kids learn and stumble and even face failure and learn to overcome it, they're blamed and shamed for being uninvolved. No wonder everyone feels as if they're in a no-win situation.
So again I ask, who's really to blame? And the answer is all of us. Involved parents make for successful kids and all the data supports that. But the minute parents start referring to schoolwork and grades as ours, they've stepped over the line. Schools, quit asking the impossible of parents. Quit asking them to attend school all over again. Quit making projects so intense that parents take them on in order to have just a few minutes in the day to relax a little with their kids, and quit expecting them to know every little thing their kids are doing at school. They have their own lives! Let them live them!
And parents, quit letting schools pressure you into conforming to a philosophy to which you do not subscribe. If your kids have four hours of homework every night, call the principal and ask him or her why that's necessary. Question the validity and value of the assignments. Ask why eight hours of desk work a day isn't enough. Insist that your child have downtime, time to play and be involved in extracurricular activities that are healthy and balanced. And don't fold to the pressure to be hyper-involved. Do what feels right.
If I sound upset -- about to hurl as I read another Facebook post about the insanity that has become our educational expectations -- it's because this nonsense that has evolved over the years has taken hold of our common sense -- all of the things we used to know to be true - and we are now allowing others to dictate our levels of parenting. Our own parents never would have stood for that.
The fact of the matter is that it is time to push back. It's time for parents and school administrators to form a united front against a well-intentioned but woefully misinformed government that is forcing curriculum and standardized testing on our kids. It's time to halt testing companies and other educational dictators from making money off our kids' -- and our own -- exhaustion.
Rebecca Deurlein is the author of Teenagers 101 and her own blog, A Teacher's Guide to Understanding Teenagers. You can also find her on Facebook and Twitter.