PARENT INVOLVEMENT IN SCHOOLS

 

CONSERVATIVES ENVOLVEMENT IN EDUCATION ARE PUSHING US BACKWARDS IN TIME

 

I was substituting for a Physics teacher on three months maternity leave in a small town in Kentucky when a female parent stormed into my classroom in front of my students, got in my face saying I was not grading properly, that her daughter got straight A’s from the regular teacher.

 

I explained to her that her daughter was disruptive, impertinent and not meeting my standard for an A.

 

The woman belligerently said; I’m a parent so don’t tell me what my daughter is capable of.

 

My answer back was: I have a Bachelor of Science and a Masters degree and have had to pass extensive state test and standards in order to certify as a teacher, the only qualification for being a parent is the ability to breed, so get out of my face.

  

She stormed out to the principal.

  

Being retired, I did not need to substitute.  I was likely the only available substitute capable of teaching Physics.  The principal suggested I be more diplomatic with parents, and I suggested he keep irate parents out of my classroom.

 

The problem with education is that it is overseen and controlled by non-educators: parents, school board members and politicians who are held to no standard of education, have passed no test for competency, and have never spent one hour in a classroom other that as a student.

 

Two conservative school board members in Virginia just demanded that books they deemed inappropriate not only be removed from the school library but be burned.   Rabih Abuismail said that allowing one particular book to remain on the shelves even briefly meant the school, “would rather have our kids reading gay pornography than about Crist.” and “I think we should throw those books in a fire.”   Kirk Twigg said he wanted to “see the books before we burn them so we can identify within our community that we are eradication this bad stuff.”

 

If we are going to have non-educators determining what is taught in the classrooms and how it is taught, then they should have to meet the same educational requirements as the teachers, including passing the state teachers examination.  

 

Educational standards and curriculum should be determined by people trained in education.  

 

We wouldn’t want Joe Blow the truck driver or Dear Jane the bank teller determining diagnostic procedures of your family doctor and what he/she is able to prescribe, or what procedures will be used in the Operating Room of your hospital; but it is all right for them to determine what is taught in school and how it is taught. 

 

 

 

 And it is not just about science.  We should teach history, literature, science, math and social studies in a way that challenges the student to think - to reason - to expand.  Not to limit a child's education in order to raise political or religious acceptable clones.   

the Ol'Buzzard