Mom Is Teaching

I was tipped off by Lee that I might be interested in one ofhis more controversial blog posts. How To Turn Your Daughter Into A Whore In Two Easy Steps Now if the name of the post hasn’t shocked you enough you might be interested to know that Lee is a public school teacher himself. That’s right, this damning thought came from someone who works inside the schools themselves. Personally I find that interesting, as most often it has been assumed that those who feel similarly are anti-school. But this is clearly not the case here.

Now ignoring the parts about piercings, says the homeschooling mom with tattoos and piercings ;), he makes a great point at the bottom of the post. Emphasis mine.

This is all part of a larger problem our society has. Parents have shifted their parental responsibilities to the school systems. We’re not only charged with teaching kids how to read and write, but how to act, too. Well, even though I currently work for a school system, I’m not much of a big government person. Nobody’s going to raise your son or daughter as well as you are. Don’t think it’s going to happen by itself. The negative influences available to kids these days are one hundred times as powerful as any of us had to deal with when we were kids.

As I was reading this I found myself nodding. My sister-in-law is a teacher at the local middle school. The stories I have heard often leave me slackjawed. Children who are rude, disrespectful, hateful even because of parents who did not take the time to guide them better. Though, from some of her accounts the parents are not often any better. More than once has she had to dal with students refusing to do their work, only to be told by the same child’s parents that her role was really nothing more than a free babysitter. Usually not in such nice words, of course. While there are many parents who do care about their children’s education, there are still those who do not care. They hand their children over, expect them to get what they need, and do not want to be bothered with it themselves.

It reminded me of a recent post over at Principled Discovery, Is it even possible to fix our education system? Dana always has the most insightful post I have ever read in her blog. Here is an important quote from her post.

We want our education system to take the responsibility for the failure of individuals.

If Johnny cannot read, we want it to be because the school district is using the wrong methodology. Because his teacher isn’t paid enough. Because he doesn’t have access to a computer. Because the text books are out of date. Because the school’s nutrition program isn’t extensive enough. Because the state’s welfare program isn’t large enough. We don’t want to accept the fact that, despite our best efforts, some will fail. Some of those failures may go on to do great things. Many more likely will not.

Unfortunately, no matter what we as a society do, it is unlikely that little Johnny will learn to read until his parents value his education highly enough to get involved. But that is a little difficult to mandate.

No matter how we look at it, we are stuck with treating symptoms. Parents ceased taking responsibility for the education of their children a long time ago. Instead of educating them, they turned them over to the factory or allowed them to run the streets. Organizations developed for the health and safety of these children, creating the beginnings of free and compulsory education. The responsibility for the children was thus handed over to the local school district. It wasn’t up for the task so the state took an increased role. As the states fail, we see increasing federal involvement.

education, public school, parents, parental responsibility, children