By EK Wills
There is so much pressure on kids to get good results in the final high school grades that it’s little wonder teachers and parents are finding themselves at odds with each other.
Parents know the minefield it is after high school to try to secure a place in tertiary education institutions and teachers are reported to be in the firing line when parents defend their offspring.
It has reached such proportions that articles are being written about lawsuits between parents and principals and newsletters in school communities are going viral about these issues.
It is worth looking at the pressures that drive these situations rather than just wagging fingers at who are behaving badly.
It is clear there are some fringe dwellers causing problems with entitled attitudes about their little Johnny and similarly patronizing teachers telling parents what to instruct their children to do with schooling.
As far back as a decade ago, I was relayed a story about a parent trying to circumnavigate the entry requirements for a prestigious university for their child. They had money but not the grades, which they thought granted them a guaranteed university entry into a top level course such as veterinary science.
The tales now told of mental health issues for teachers due to parental abuse and harassment are escalating rates of bullying by parents over less than a decade according to principals.
As a parent, I have also been on the receiving end of stricter interactions with teachers. We attended an advisory meeting for parents about subject selection for senior high school years. All the parents had to sit with their child next to them and be told by teachers that the kids shouldn’t heed their parents’ advice because they were the teachers and they know better. Granted, the system has changed and the game of subject selection has undergone changes but it was interesting to catch the tone of authority and warning to parents. As a parent who doesn’t kick down doors or shout at teachers, I still felt the hackles rising.
Then there are the legalities involved regarding student subject choices that institutions aim to protect themselves against.
On the last day of term, we received a letter from the Head of Mathematics at our Year 11 daughter’s school. She had done an end of term test and struggled with it, as had the entire class by all accounts, but had been reassured by the teacher that she was in the top half of the class so not to worry.
Why then did we receive a letter that stated she should consider dropping a level of mathematics?
The troubling aspect to it is that it was received at the beginning of the holidays so we as parents had no way of contacting the teacher to discuss or clarify what was going on. We were left unable to advise our daughter, unclear whether to reveal the letter, and no one to talk to about it.
We can only surmise it was an intentional move to buffer the blow from all the parents that received letters. Additionally, it seems that they are protecting themselves by warning parents of their child’s lack of progress in the subject, should they end up with a poor grade and then the parent attempt to blame the school.
Luckily, we have an extensive network of other parents as well as people who have been in the system recently so we have looked at the options in context of balancing university requirements, high school pressure and overall mental health wellbeing to assist us in how to move forward.
This used to be something you could discuss with teachers.
Has it really come to the point where teachers are hiding behind letters and legalities out of fear? Are the fringe dwellers ruining it for the reasonable members of the community or is there really so much pressure that the system and its students are not coping?
When I went through high school there was an immense amount of pressure laid on students to do well because it determined your career prospects. These days, it is expected that you will have three careers (I have!) and there are options available such as bridging courses or applying as a mature aged student or utilizing alternative entry pathways. Why then is there still so much intensity around the final school result?
As in so many areas of conflict it seems to stem from a sense of entitlement, which doesn't appear to be going away in a hurry.
In the meantime, we generally have a good relationship with our daughter’s school. I have written an email to the Head of Mathematics (no shouting) expressing my disappointment around the circumstances and look forward to discussing this further once school is back in.
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