What most parents want

First I should address this most obvious faux pas of writing and reasonability in the title. Most parents? It is a claim based more on instinct and intuition than evidence. At least I didn’t say all, or every…which would be far worse generalities. How dare I, or anyone, claim to know what most parents want? The credentials I might cite in writing on this question were earned over many years as a parent of two, a grandparent of five, and a surrogate parent for hundreds of boys and girls over a long career as a teacher and administrator in American schools in Pennsylvania and Texas. My comments, therefore, reflect both first-hand experience and observations from both sides of what can be both cooperative and oppositional tandems of home vs. school, teacher vs. parent.

The American family has changed in significant ways since I was birthed into one in 1951. Once it existed in an extended structure wherein several generations of siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins lived within the same neighborhoods. But since World War II at least, it has gone nuclear. Father, mother, one or two children, often on the move and given to vast separations from the places and people that once claimed their affections in a home town—this mobile and transient incarnation of the American family has become more the rule than exception over the past seven decades. And with ties to traditional family structures severed, we’ve witnessed an increase in single parent and blended family forms. Schools now find it quite a common occurrence for their students to have last names that are quite different from one or more of their parents.

Over this same period the American school has also changed in significant ways. Baby Boom growth helped bring on the decline of small neighborhood schools in favor of large consolidations with student bodies now numbering in the thousands. Class sizes enlarged, curricula changed, and technological advancements transformed the implements of learning from pencils, paper, slide rules, notebooks and textbooks, to calculators and online environments accessed on a one-tablet-fits-all toolkit. Students were given more rights and autonomy than what was taken for granted in former eras, and teachers transitioned from respected authority figures to adult friends and counselors who facilitated learning rather than imparted their superior knowledge. The changes in the American school are now so pronounced that any time a mom or dad addresses their child with prefatory comment, “when I was your age,” the reference is both lost and irrelevant. For none of us over 40 were ever their age, nor can our youngsters possibly comprehend what things were like for young people in that long-ago time of our youth.

Having stated what is so very obvious to any of us who grew up long before the millennial turn, I nonetheless believe there is a linkage between then and now that still exerts a powerful influence on schools and education in the present:  parents.  Oh they may not look the same as previous generations, and may be more inclined to wanting to raise their children in bubbles of security than parents once thought good or reasonable. And too many prefer to hover in their helicopters over their children and the in loco parentis adults in schools than did moms and dads from yesteryear. But they still hold many of the same expectations of those academies of learning to which they send their sons and daughters that parents have held for as long as can remember.

What then, do parents of today want from the administrators, teachers, coaches and counselors in the schools that will be their home away from home for 25% of each weekday of 75% of each 12 month period over the 12 to 15 years of institutional learning in which they will be engaged?  Permit me to describe what I believe parents—most parents—really want.   

First, they want their children to be safe. I have never met a parent, even those who seem the most disinterested or nonchalant about school, who doesn’t want the safety of their child their top priority. Specifically parents both hope and expect their children will be safe from…

·      injury due to dangerous conditions in the school or playground, negligence in maintaining a healthy environment, or lack of attention given to ensuring a secure and protected sanctuary from weapons, fire, and assault. In the wake of school shootings over the past 30 years this has become the greatest of parental fears and the most challenging of school and parental preoccupations;

·      intimidation from adults and from other students that can make a child feel belittled, picked on, or fearing physical attacks or emotional abuse;

·      discrimination of the sort that diminishes a child’s chance to compete, be accepted as an equal member of a class, club or team, or enjoy the recognition earned by notable achievement and noteworthy conduct;

·      exploitation by adults or other students who may use their authority or social status to manipulate their child into violating school rules, breaking the law, or otherwise engaging in conduct they would consider immoral, indecent, dishonest or criminal.

Adults working in schools inevitably grow close in their interest and affection for the young people they get to know and love. Yet no matter how strong are their feelings for their students, they can never equal nor replace the concern and commitment a parent has for his or her child, especially when it comes to their safety and well-being.  Schools would do well to remember how true this is.

Second, parents want their children to grow up and grow well in school.  And in the eyes of a mom or dad, this growth will depend on how effectively the school provides their children with…

·      opportunities to discover their potentials while affording them the chance to explore those things that stimulate their interest, their curiosity and their creative impulses;  

·      instruction from interested and qualified teachers and coaches that will inspire them to develop their intelligence and advance their aptitude from which they can build a resume of skills and competencies that will serve them the rest of their lives;

·      encouragement to do their best, to overcome frustrations that are so essential to learning, and to persevere when things don’t come easily or when their best efforts fall short of their, their teachers’, and their parents’ expectations;

·      guidance in making decisions that reflect good judgment and an informed, honest weighing of choices and alternatives;

·      recognition for their efforts in meeting their responsibilities to their class, the teams and ensembles in which they belong. Nothing deflates a young person and infuriates a parent more than when deserved acknowledgement is overlooked or wrongly attributed to another. It boils down to being noticed and appreciated when a job is done well and a contribution to the greater good is made. How many disengaged students and irate parents do we create each year because we fail to meet this one life-affirming need.

And third, parents want their family’s values to be supported and reinforced. This last expectation often throws parents and school officials into that caldron of conflict where passions are stirred so vigorously that cooperation and compromise seem impossible to attain. Yet home and school, almost universally, do see eye to eye on their shared agenda in reinforcing such values as initiative and effort, respect, responsibility, and accountability, honesty and decency.

I know, there are folks who subscribe to winning at all costs, reaping praise and attention whether earned or not, and lying as a tool in keeping up appearances and protecting one’s name—but I sincerely believe these are motives that live in the hearts of only a minority of parents. For while moms and dads are quick to beam with pride at their children’s accomplishments, their hearts are more deeply moved when they know their children are good, honest, and happy people. In this respect most parents and most teachers tend to read off of the same page in their book of values.

Where school boards, PTAs, school administrators and teachers now seem to be coming to blows is over what beliefs and personal convictions they can agree are appropriate and right for their children. Look at the contentious points that have, in both past and present, set parents and schools at odds:

·      Scientific, naturalistic vs. religious, supernatural views about creation;

·      Expressions of religious faith, such as prayer, vs. an agnostic indifference for or atheistic antagonism towards religion;

·      When and how human sexuality should be presented to children, and for what end—instruction, counsel, or proselytization of non-traditional forms and lifestyles;

·      What historical recollections and points of view should be emphasized or ignored when it comes to race, once venerated figures, America’s place in the world, and the merits and shortcomings of different economic and political systems.

I’ve described three broad expectations that I believe all, or most parents hold schools accountable for meeting. I don’t believe most parents want to dictate in detail what schools do or how they go about doing it. They are more than happy and relieved that their children are out of the house and someone else’s primary responsibility during the workweek. But being out of sight for six to eight hours a day doesn’t put them out of their parent’s thoughts or concerns. What I suspect most parents want is to be heard, included, considered, and given the chance to play a role in the schools to whom they are entrusting their most precious gift. When lines of communication remain open, when decisions affecting children are shared, schools can and do work, satisfying both parents and faculty. But when either or both are stymied, a hostile climate is sure to produce dysfunctional schools in which children become unwilling hostages.  And when this happens, battle lines are drawn and grownups on both sides not only lose the possibility of civil dialogue. They become diminished in the eyes of those who most look to them as role models of decency and cooperation:  their children. 

A few year’s ago a presidential candidate used an African proverb as one of her  campaign slogans. I had never heard it before, and, aside from whatever negativities it may conjure in hearing it once again, it does ring with a truthfulness that belongs to this discussion of what most parents want. For every mom and dad, and every teacher and school administrator, understands that no child is ever reared as a one-man or one-woman enterprise. It takes parents, family, friends, neighbors and those in the wider community who, directly and indirectly, raise each and every child. To the degree that each one in this connection of care respects and supports the others, the child has a chance, indeed the best chance, to grow up and grow well.