6 Teacher Complaints to Modern Parents

Parents know best how to teach

I was made a teacher by my student’s grandmother and my grandmother, who brought me to my senses after the absolute inability to cope with children. They loved me, as, indeed, most of the parents of my students, although I could not do anything, could not cope with discipline, suffered, it was very difficult.

But I became a teacher because I knew: these parents love me, they look at me supportively, they don’t expect me to teach everyone right now. They were assistants, but they did not get into the essence of the pedagogical process, which I did not have then. And the relationship with parents at the school that I graduated from and where I came to work was friendly and benevolent.

We had a lot of children, they studied in two shifts, and the fingers of one hand are enough for me to count those parents with whom there were unresolved issues and cases when I felt guilty, inferior, incompetent or hurt. It was the same even when I was studying: my parents were extremely rare at school, it was not customary to call the teacher, and my parents did not know the phone numbers of teachers. The parents worked.

Today, parents have changed, they began to go to school more and more often. There were mothers whom I see at school every other day.

Today, parents want to know what and how it was in the lesson, they want to check — more precisely, I don’t know if they really want and can do it, but they broadcast it.

“And in that class the program went like this, and here it is like this. They changed places there, but not here. Why? How many hours do numerals pass according to the program? We open the magazine, we answer: 14 hours. It seems to the questioner that it’s not enough … I can’t imagine that my mother knew how many lessons I studied numerals.

Parents, of course, have the right to any question, but they often ask them unkindly, not in order to understand, but to control whether the teacher does everything from his parent’s point of view. But often the parent himself does not know how to complete this or that task, for example, in literature, and therefore considers it incomprehensible, incorrect, difficult. And in the lesson, each stage of solving this problem was spoken out.

He does not understand, not because he is stupid, this parent, but he was simply taught differently, and modern education makes other demands. Therefore, sometimes when he interferes in the child’s educational life and in the curriculum, an incident occurs.

Parents believe that the school owes them

Many parents believe that the school owes them, but they do not know what they owe. And many have no desire to understand and accept the requirements of the school. They know what the teacher should, how he should, why he should, why. Of course, this is not about all parents, but about a third are now, to a lesser extent than before, ready for friendly interaction with the school, especially at the middle level, because by the senior classes they calm down, begin to understand a lot, listen and look in the same direction with us.

Rude behavior of parents also became frequent. Even their appearance has changed when they come to the director’s office. Previously, I could not imagine that on a hot day someone would come to the director for an appointment in shorts or in a tracksuit at home. Behind the style, behind the manner of speaking, there is often a certainty: «I have the right.»

I never say it out loud and I don’t think that we provide educational services: no matter what anyone calls us, no matter how Rosobrnadzor supervises us, we are who we are — teachers. But maybe parents think differently. I will never forget a young father who, cross-legged, explained to the headmaster that he lives next door and therefore is not even going to look for another school. Despite the fact that they calmly talked with him, they explained that it can be difficult for a child at school, there is another school nearby where his child will be more comfortable.

Modern parents, as taxpayers, believe that the school should provide them with a set of educational services, and the state supports them in this. And what should they? Do they realize how well their child is prepared for life in high school through their efforts? Does he know how to follow the rules of the general routine, hear the voice of the elder, work independently? Can he do anything on his own at all, or is his family prone to overprotection? And most importantly, this is the problem of motivation, which teachers are now struggling to cope with if there is no ground prepared in the family.

Parents want to run the school

Many of them strive to delve into all school affairs and certainly take part in them — this is another feature of modern parents, especially non-working mothers.

I am convinced that parents’ help is needed when a school or a teacher asks for it.

The experience of our school shows that the joint activities of parents, children and teachers are successful and productive in preparation for the holidays, on community work days at school, in the design of classrooms in creative workshops, in the organization of complex creative affairs of the class.

The work of parents in the governing and trustee councils can and should be fruitful, but now there is a persistent desire of parents to lead the school, to tell it what it should do — including outside the activities of the governing council.

Parents communicate their attitude to school to their child

There are frequent cases when a parent is dissatisfied with something and can say in front of a child about his teacher: “Well, you are a fool.” I can’t imagine my parents and the parents of my friends would say that. It is not necessary to absolutize the place and role of a teacher in a child’s life — although it is often very important, but if you chose a school, you wanted to get into it, then it is probably impossible to go to it without respect for those who created it and who works in it. And respect comes in different forms.

For example, we have children at school who live far away, and when their parents take them to school, they are late every day. For several years, this attitude towards school as a place where one can be late has been passed on to children, and when they go on their own, they are also constantly late, and we have many of them. But the teacher does not have mechanisms of influence, he cannot even refuse to let him go to the lesson — he can only call his mother and ask: how long?

Or the appearance of children. We do not have a school uniform and there are no strict requirements for clothing, but sometimes one gets the impression that no one has seen the child since the morning, that he does not understand where he is going and why. And clothing is also an attitude to school, to the learning process, to teachers. The same attitude is evidenced by the more frequent departures of parents with children for vacations during school hours, despite the number of vacation days accepted in our country. Children grow up very quickly and adopt the position adopted in the family: «so that the world does not exist, but I have to drink tea.»

Respect for the school, for the teacher begins in childhood with reverence for the authority of parents, and, naturally, love is dissolved in it: “You can’t do this, because it will upset your mother.” For a believer, this then becomes part of the commandments, when at first he unconsciously, and then with his mind and heart, understands what is possible and what is not. But every family, even non-believers, has its own system of values ​​and commandments, and their child must be consistently instilled.

Behind reverence, says the philosopher Solovyov, fear appears — not fear as a fear of something, but what a religious person calls the fear of God, and for an unbeliever it is the fear of offending, offending, the fear of doing something wrong. And this fear then becomes what is called shame. And then something happens that, in fact, makes a person a person: he has a conscience. Conscience is the true message to you about yourself. And somehow you either immediately understand where the real is and where the imaginary is, or your conscience catches up with you and torments you. Everyone knows this feeling.

Parents Complain

Modern parents suddenly opened a channel of communication with high authorities, Rosobrnadzor, the prosecutor’s office appeared. Now, as soon as one of the parents is not satisfied with the school, these terrible words immediately sound. And denunciation is becoming the norm, we have come to this. This is the last point in the history of school control. And the intention to install cameras in the offices? Supervisory authorities believe that every classroom should have a camera. Imagine a live teacher working with children who is constantly being watched by a camera.

What will be the name of this school? Are we at school or in a secure institution? Orwell is resting by comparison. Complaints, calls to superiors, claims. This is not a common story at our school, but colleagues tell terrible things. We all learned something, and not somehow, we have been working in the same school for many years, we understand that we need to take everything calmly, but, nevertheless, we are living people, and when our parents pester us, it becomes very difficult to have a dialogue. I am grateful for both good and bad life experiences, but now an unmeasured amount of energy is spent on absolutely not what I would like to spend it on. In our situation, we spend almost a year trying to make the parents of new children our allies.

Parents Raise Consumers

Another aspect of modern parenthood: many quite often try to provide children with the maximum level of comfort, the best conditions in everything: if the excursion, parents are categorically against the metro — only a bus, only a comfortable one and preferably a new one, which is much more tiring in Moscow traffic jams. Our children do not take the subway, some of them have never been there at all.

When we recently organized an educational trip abroad — and in our school teachers usually go to the place in advance at their own expense to choose accommodation and think over the program — one mother was very indignant at what an inconvenient flight was chosen as a result (we try to find the cheapest option so everyone can go).

This is not very clear to me: I slept on mats for half my life during our school trips, on motor ships we always swam in the hold, and these were wonderful, most beautiful of our trips. And now there is an exaggerated concern for the comfort of children, parents are raising capricious consumers who are completely unadapted to real life, unable to take care not only of others, but also of themselves. But this is not the topic of the relationship between parents and the school — it seems to me that this is a common problem.

But there are parents who become friends

But we also have amazing parents who become lifelong friends. People who understand us perfectly, take a hearty part in everything we do, you can consult with them, discuss something, they can look at it with a friendly look, they can tell the truth, point out a mistake, but at the same time they try to understand do not take the position of an accuser, they know how to take our place.

In our school, a good tradition is the parental speech at the graduation party: a parental performance, a film, a creative gift from parents to teachers and graduates. And parents who are ready to look in the same direction with us often regret that they themselves did not study at our school. They invest in our graduation parties not so much material as creative forces, and this, it seems to me, is the most important and best result of our interaction, which can be achieved in any school with a mutual desire to hear each other.

Article published on the website Pravmir.ru and reprinted with permission from the copyright holder.