As school starts again, here’s some advice for parents

John Hatcher is pastor of Outreach International Center, 1091 South Jeff Davis Drive, Fayetteville, Georgia 30215. 770-719-0303

By John Hatcher
Contributing Writer

There ought to be a law! Picture it: first day of classes in public schools.

As a community leader, I was invited to welcome students and parents as they showed up for first day of class. I spotted a sweet, petite, uncertain K-4 girl whose parent, guardian, or caregiver (whoever) walked her to the school’s covered walkway and told her to “go on, go on” and then left. The little girl, standing alone, seemed as frightened as I would be in Jurassic Park. Another volunteer was quickly dispatched to a truly “left behind” little one and escorted her to the appropriate class. There ought to be a law that parents can’t drop off their children on the first day of school without a little more consideration for the frightened child entering this huge, new alien environment for the very first time.

Of course, many parents were escorting even their fifth graders to the right class and meeting teachers, handing over their most precious possessions on the planet. That’s the way it should be. Parents must be vitally involved in the education of their children. The parental responsibility doesn’t end when the child boards the bus or enters the school building. The parent is responsible for the child’s behavior, comprehension, and attitude in every class. More than ever before.

We need to return to some attitudes and behaviors of my generation. When we were reproved at school, even took a few licks from the “board of education,” upon arrival at home we were further reproved and a few more licks were added. Today, it seems that parents belong to one union and teachers belong to another union and there’s more friction than partnership. Students need to learn that teachers and parents belong to the same union. By the way, it used to be called the Parent-Teacher Association and when it met, the auditorium was full to capacity without having little Johnny or Trisha to be on the program.

I am not suggesting a certain protocol on corporal punishment, but I am suggesting that teachers, principals, and parents forge an alliance that children can’t intimidate and make ineffective. Children should not be in the driver’s seat but should be taken along for the ride of their lives — smelling the salt air as Columbus sailed the sea, becoming a fly on the wall as the founding fathers hammered out a compromise, and even cringing a little as Lewis and Clark wrestled bears — and not in a theatrical “squared circle.”

But children can’t be along for the ride, taking it all in, if they sense they are in control, in the driver’s seat. So, how? How can our children’s educational experienced be enhanced?

First, I suggest that every parent adopt the concept that “school” and “learning” are their child’s jobs. Forgive me, but it is soccer, T-ball, softball and all the other balls that soak up valuable study time and sleep time. Parents, what’s more important: that your child thoroughly understands science and math or spends valuable time on the field of dreams?

I suggest parents have an on-going email or telephone communication with their child’s teachers. You will be amazed: teachers desire the interaction. Then you can get the real scoop on little Al’s class performance and what the teacher is suggesting. With e-mail, text messaging, answer machines there is no excuse for parents and teachers to be out of communication.

Never before have more forces been competing for the hearts and minds of our children. The average child is bombarded with hundreds and hundreds more sensory bombardments than I ever experienced — even in high school. Every new electronic game parents buy for their children bombards their minds with thousands of ideas — ideas that too often become reality even as recent brutal murders show.

Parents, get involved. You bombard your child with the certain truth that you are critically and lovingly interested in his every subject. You want to read over homework assignments. You want to talk to the teacher. You want him to strive for excellence. You refuse to offer your child up on the altar of parental indifference — after all, no one cared for me (as some might reason).