Teaching our young people, whether in a public or private setting, is one of the most important jobs a person could commit to.

There is no doubt that considering the importance of the job, teachers are under valued and under paid. One of the reasons that teaching is so important is because teachers end up spending more time with our children then we do as parents. Consequently, the teacher becomes a powerful role-model and example of professionalism; one the students will examine closely and will naturally imitate to some degree.

So, how can parents appropriately raise concerns when they see and hear ineffective teaching and destructive role modeling from their children’s teachers?

One of the issues we all face is the fact that teachers are relatively ‘unsupervised’ from a professional perspective. When our children report what they’ve seen or heard in a classroom there is an issue with how a parent can even begin to address the problem.

First of all, it’s the student’s word against the teacher’s. As a parent, if I choose to step in and advocate for my child, the teacher sits in a position of power and control. The student’s motivation for reporting is instantly questioned, and unless the principal just happened to be in that room at that time, then the parent and the principal are both lacking first hand knowledge of what really happened. Certainly we can all agree that many teachers take their profession and their own professionalism seriously! There are so many great people sharing their genius with our children and performing their job at a high level despite the socioeconomic status afforded them by the lower paying nature of teaching.

Nevertheless, there are also teachers who do not perform at a high level, who do not provide professional role-modeling and a passion for learning and often times make statements that point out their own lack of integrity. Consider the teacher who tells his or her students that the reason their test grades are not available is because, “I don’t do any work past 4:00, they don’t pay me to work at home.” A simple comment with a very legitimate point to be made, however, very poor modeling for the students and the instant detriment to the reputation of the teacher, the school and the profession in general.

As another example, consider the teacher of a class titled, “Healthy Lifestyles.” A student who happens to be on the swim team representing the school has participated in an early morning workout as well as workouts after school each and every day. If you know anything about swimming you know that workouts, especially morning conditioning, are demanding and exhausting. The student then shows less than 100% effort in a first period “Healthy Lifestyles” class. When asked by the teacher, ‘Why are you not putting forth more effort?”, the student replies, “I had an early morning workout in the pool and I’m pretty tired.”

Now you might think that a ‘health and wellness’ teacher would have some appreciation for the incredible fitness benefits that swimming provides. They might suggest a modified workout in class or at least acknowledge the effort being exerted by the student. Or, the teacher can say, “Well, I didn’t tell you to go to that workout.” Now the student athlete trying hard to satisfy the expectations of his parents, coaches and teachers, is made to feel as though he or she has been admonished by the health and wellness teacher for being physically fit! The student goes away feeling exhausted and inadequate, instant destruction of the value that was gained from the swim workout and a poor impression of the health and wellness teacher’s professionalism.

How then does a parent advocate for their child? What can be done to remedy a situation when the teacher can act this way free from supervision and in position to say that the student was not accurate? How can parents ever hope to stand up for their children?

Going to the principal and expressing concern is for now, the only way short of confronting the actual teacher. Most people are not very comfortable taking such action and will choose to try to modify the child’s behavior, “you’ll just have to deal with it,” or “you just have to work harder,” or even worse, the parent has to explain to their child that teachers can do or say whatever they want with no concern for the repercussions of their actions. It is situations like these that then make teaching attractive to the person who wants autonomy and reduced supervision as a way to conceal professional deficiencies and to avoid the performance based assessment model that is in place in most professions outside of teaching. This situation also reinforces the old saying, “those that can: DO, those that can’t: TEACH” and this has always been a thorn in the side of the teaching profession. When parents experience these kind of situations with their own children, the old saying starts to gain validity! We, as educators, must not let this happen!

S0…please, educators of all kind…if your passion is teaching AND learning keep up the incredible work! We are here to help! If it’s not…well, please consider a different career! Our future will benefit greatly!