Roles of Teachers  Academic Educators or Social Engineers ?

Stating the obvious, different schools have different emphases and different teachers have different capabilities.  These differences deliver varying standards that may surpass, equal, or fall short of individual expectations.  Therefore, unless you, the parents, are in the rare position of having the time to personally supervise all aspects of your children's education, you have to make a decision.  You have to decide whether you are going to place implicit trust in the children's school and teachers to provide the all-round education desired for your children or whether you are going to endeavor to monitor their performance and contribute where necessary yourself.  While it may appear that all your child-related problems may be solved by sending the child himself, or herself, to a highly-reputed boarding school, even those who can afford it should question whether a higher academic standard is to be achieved at the cost of a loss of family life and values, the loss of broad inter-personal skills, and even the loss of confidence to take on many of life's future responsibilities.  (Those with more money may appear to have more choices but this may not necessarily be a good thing.  For example, if money were not a consideration most responsible caring parents would prefer to tend for the health and welfare of their six-month old baby themselves, than entrust it to a non-medically trained previously unknown nanny or au pair.)

Not all teachers make good parents.  While this statement is not intended to upset the teaching fraternity or to denigrate the important role of teachers in educating our children, it would be naïve to believe that all teachers have ideal family lives and that all of their children will become pillars of society.  If we can't discipline and control two or three of our own children, is it sensible to expect teachers with twenty or more children in their classrooms to perform miracles and have all their wards acting like angels?  As well as both parents putting the time in to develop the appropriate system of rewards and sanctions to positively develop their children at home, both parents have to seek to strike an effective balance between the responsibilities they assume and those they expect their children's teachers to assume.  Basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills are just as important today as they were thirty years ago so it does not make sense to implicitly trust others to ensure that these skills are learned sufficiently.  No matter how deprived, or rich, a family may be, with the sources of information available today there is no excuse for parents not taking a personal interest in the education of their children and assuring that they have the range of learning material that they need.  (Public libraries can generally provide an almost limitless supply.)

Developing the inter-personal skills of children is difficult for teachers and parents alike.  Fostering constructive interaction with other children is the most natural way to have this occur, although some supervision by parents may be required to ensure that any domineering child's attitude in the group is positive and consistent with your own values.  If the reasoning behind your own approach is sound, there is no reason why this logic cannot be explained to the children of others as well as your own.

Most parents recognize that participation in team sports encourages the interaction of children as well as their broader development.  However, when children fall out with their friends they often tend to want to spend less time with other children altogether and therefore must be actively, and in some cases persistently, encouraged to continue to participate in team sports.  As team sports in particular seem to absorb a lot of parents time, it is tempting to give-in to a child's temporary disenchantment, but invariably this would be a mistake in the long term unless your child is truly destined to be a loner in life.  Coaches, like teachers, are not saints, so parents still have to be prepared to convey their views if they feel less desirable aspects of competitive team sports are being emphasized.  However, an hour spent with the poorest coach you can imagine is still probably more productive than an hour spent in front of a non-educational cartoon.  While children must be encouraged to form their own friendships, this does not preclude parents suggesting that other children in the class, perhaps with different personalities, different likes and dislikes, or a different background to your own children, be encouraged to play together from time-to-time.  The greater the number and the more varied the personal friendships of youth, the more likely the achievement of harmony in adulthood, irrespective of where your children decide to settle in our ever-shrinking world.    

In spite of the contrary media-inspired impression, recent surveys indicate that the number of murders committed by strangers has not significantly changed over the last fifty years and that 96% of reported child sexual-abuse cases are carried out by 'non-strangers'.  However whether the paranoia some parents have about letting their children out of their sight is the result of genuine concern or a desire to enshrine their own importance in the lives of their children, unreasonable shepherding can be extremely detrimental to the long-term balanced development of children.  While caution should always be exercised in letting young children stray out of public sight altogether, the sooner they are trained to take a little bit of responsibility for their own welfare the better.  Some parents react to this thinking by using the first problem encountered by a child on its own as evidence to support taking a backward step and closeting the child altogether.  It is hardly surprising though that if children have not been encouraged to take care of themselves in the home and not trained on the appropriate actions to take if alone outside the home, that they will indeed make mistakes, and probably bigger ones the longer such training is delayed.  Therefore, there is all the more reason to push these boundaries of fear very gradually to one side by controlled exposure to the perceived dangers.

Today, many parents living in supposedly 'affluent neighborhoods' endeavor to justify driving their children to a school less than half-a-mile away, while many children in so-called 'deprived neighborhoods' think nothing of walking this distance and more.  This perhaps introduces the thought that there may be a certain 'snob value' in taking children in a car, but how many perfectly natural and enriching observations, peer-to-peer meetings and experiences are being denied the occupants of these metal delivery boxes, never mind the number of basic lessons in life?  It is indeed one of life's constant ironies, that the more we try to protect others from personal problems today, the more we invariably create bigger problems to be overcome tomorrow.  Is it surprising that the transformation into adolescence of many of this 'protected species' results in a range of undesirable activities form criminal misdemeanors to furtive use of drugs at even the most reputable schools in the land?  Is it surprising that as the 'nannying' of our children has increased, the divorce rate has increased and the percentage of long-term stable heterosexual relationships has apparently significantly decreased?  Is it surprising that some of us find it difficult to relate to peoples of other countries where arrogance and aloofness are interpreted as contempt?

Some thoughts, which may be helpful to parents seeking to complement the efforts of their children's teachers, are :

Suggestions On Assisting In The Education & Development Of Children

	Encourage Reading, Writing and Arithmetic in the Home - boys who apparently only have an interest in soccer can be encouraged to read through Soccer annuals, newspaper cuttings etc. Writing skills can be encouraged by assisting them to write letters to their favorite football club or players. Asking them what the new league positions will be after the Saturday afternoon results are known can encourage arithmetic skills.  Girls may be encouraged in a similar way via their own sporting interests or popular idols.
	Minimise non-educational time spent in front of a TV or PC - boys and girls who only appear interested in computer games and television can have limited periods of these tied to computer based reading, writing and arithmetic exercises.  (Many of the programs available today can be geared to suit the needs and development of individual children.)  A computer or television set installed in a child's bedroom may help to keep that child quiet and out of the way for hours at a time, but each parent should question whether they are simply seeking an easy 'way out' for themselves at the expense of that child's future.  (While there may in some cases be justification for personal access to computers and television sets among groups such as the mentally or physically impaired, given the diversity of information on the Internet and the increasing number of television channels available, parents would be well advised to still make the effort to impose some control over these activities.  Certainly watching television would appear to be much less harmless than throwing a brick through a near-neighbor's window, but the emphasis must be on learning not simply temporarily occupying the minds of those whose confidence and ability to interact with others is likely to diminish.)   Remember that discipline must begin in the home and if we cannot organize children of primary school age to behave sensibly, it is optimistic in the extreme to believe that they will automatically assume the roles of responsible model citizens in adulthood.
	Discourage use of educational 'substitutes' such as calculators - giving children calculators at an early age only encourages them to be lazy in their mental arithmetic so avoid this until it becomes a requirement of higher education.  Use of dictionary books, as opposed to electronic spell-checkers, is also desirable as it helps children to understand word structure while perhaps prompting further investigation of the meaning of other words that they are not yet familiar with.
	Maximize children's responsibilities for domestic tasks - most domestic correspondence, including bills, can be sources of educational stimulation, particularly if a little inventive imagination is conjured up.  Reading a gas or electricity meter and completing the relevant form is relatively simple but can lead to a domestic atmosphere of trust and mutual responsibility.
	Encourage children to wear school uniforms with pride - owning and looking after each of the elements of a school uniform encourages both pride in one's personal appearance and in the school itself.  It is regrettable that many state schools have followed the 'American model' and dispensed with school uniforms.  Certainly children's clothing today is not cheap, but surely the opportunity to foster some personal pride and a common spirit is worth the extra cost of the uniform over alternative clothing.  While some, may claim this is solely an economic issue, it is perhaps no coincidence that those parents who appear to have problems in appreciating the need for taking pride in oneself and one's environment are often those who seem to be at the center of complaints about the quality of the neighborhood they live in.
	Encourage children to walk to school and to undertake local 'missions', where practical - simple tasks such as posting letters, or other activities which can be carried out under discrete observation, can help parents and children overcome some of their fears, while adding to the overall sense of vigilant security in the neighborhood.
	Make as much time available as possible to engage in the healthy development of your children - silence is not necessarily golden if children are allowed to develop bad habits and bad attitudes.  Every hour you spend in 'training' them while they're young to be good and responsible citizens, is likely to be rewarded many times over when they become young adults you can be proud of.  Children who fail to develop into good and responsible adults may make you, your family, your friends and your neighbors deeply regret the fact that you perhaps devoted more time to your own selfish pursuits or entertainment than committing a little time each day to be with your children while they were growing up.

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