Teachers across the country are going back to work after summer vacation. For the first time in twenty years, I won’t be one of them.
At 45, I made the tough decision to leave a job I had once loved, teaching fourth grade in a public Los Angeles school. Leaving was something that had been going through my mind for several years, before the COVID pandemic, but I had always been afraid. How could I give up an extremely secure job that included incredible benefits, good salary, lengthy and paid vacations, and the intangible personal fulfillment and gratitude of children and their parents that had been fueling me for two decades?
I had to answer those “how” questions for myself. I would soon have to answer the “why” question for family, friends, and colleagues. And I think Americans also need to know why teachers like me decide to leave the field.
Rather than get into the details, I told those who asked that I was “ready for a change.” That was vague but true. While I still enjoyed many moments with my students, I didn’t look forward to coming into work the way I once had.
One major reason is that even though I’ve interacted with many supportive, grateful, hardworking parents of my students, an increasing number of parents are not any of those things. Parents, even more than teachers, make all the difference in whether children succeed or fail in school.
Unfortunately, there are far too many parents who take no responsibility when it comes to their children’s education. They figure that it’s all up to the school and the teacher. Their job, they assume, is simply to get the kids to school, and the parent’s responsibility stops there. They don’t check homework, don’t review classwork, don’t make sure assignments are completed correctly or on time, don’t review their children’s days with them, don’t make sure their children are prepared for the following school day, and don’t provide consequences (both positive and negative) for academic performance and behavior in school.
Many of these parents rarely, if ever, spend time with their children during their early years to read to them and with them; many parents neglect teaching their children to treat fellow human beings with kindness, to take responsibility for their actions, and not to make excuses. Kids are often given unrestricted or unsupervised time with electronic devices as their babysitters. No matter how amazing the teacher, classroom instruction is never going to be as exciting and dynamic as videogames and YouTube videos, and then we end up wondering why those children have a hard time sitting still and paying attention in the classroom.
Communication with parents can also be difficult. When parents are contacted by teachers because of missed assignments, poor performance at school, behavioral problems, or something else, they may give some wishy-washy answer such as, “Oh, I’ll have a talk with her.” And then, of course, nothing changes. Worse, many parents blame other students for their children’s behavior problems, or even put the onus on the teacher for their children’s academic problems. Some parents are outright angry, rude, or insulting. My colleagues and I have the letters and e-mails to prove it. Those are the parents we dread getting each year. Their angry missives have kept me up at night. And of course, some parents don’t respond to communication efforts at all. I have colleagues who, try as they might, never once were able to get in contact with certain parents. Of course there are no consequences from school districts for parents that just decide to disappear.
Funny enough, at a high-performing public school where I worked with an active parent volunteer group, it was sometimes some of the very parents showing no desire to help their children at home who made the biggest display of being school volunteers and helping sell pizza at fundraisers. Their presence at these events always made me think of the line, “Where were you when I needed you?”
While these extremes are certainly a minority of what I have experienced from parents, the general apathy and lack of effort in their own role in their children’s education at home has become more and more widespread. When I do notice children who come to school and know their times tables, who consistently go above and beyond in their daily assignments, or who are simply kind and polite toward me and their peers, I know that there is at least one parent at home who understands her essential role in her children’s education.
Then I would wish I could tell the other parents: Do what this parent is doing.
So the decline in parenting is certainly a large contributing factor to my departure from education. However, the fact that great parenting still exists reminds me that the situation is not hopeless. If you’re a parent, you can be one of those great parents who is part of the solution rather than the problem. You can be not only an incredible gift to your children’s teacher, but more importantly, of course, the key to your children’s success in school and in life. While it’s best to start at the earliest stages of your children’s development, it’s never too late to make a change for the better.
Here are seven key ingredients to making a positive impact:
First, read to and with your children as often as you can. When your children learn to read, have them read to you. Ideally your children will enjoy this. Do this even if they don’t. This applies from kindergarten at least through fifth grade. Once they get to the age where they don’t want to read with you anymore, you should still expect them to read on their own (school probably requires it anyway) daily. Make sure to discuss with them what they’re reading and what they’re enjoying (or what troubles them) about the book.
Second, review your children’s day with them. Don’t just ask, “How was your day?” Ask specific questions about what they learned, what their favorite part of the day was, and what challenges they may have had. Teenagers may resist this, so don’t make it feel like a daily inquisition. You can still be a part of their lives without them feeling like you’re prying.
Third, never talk badly about their teachers. Your children’s teachers may make mistakes, or even be bad at their jobs. Keep that to yourself. It serves no purpose to encourage that kind of open negativity in your children’s minds toward the person your children are with all day long. If you blame the teacher for something bad that happens (even if you’re right), that can open up a can of worms where your children have difficulty with authority figures or with taking responsibility for their own mistakes.
Fourth, check your children’s work with them each day. There is probably a place where their homework is written down or where they keep track of it. Cross reference their actual materials with that list of assignments to make sure that the work is being completed according to instructions, written neatly if done by hand or properly formatted if done online, and ready to be turned in the next day or on the due date, organized in their backpack. Make sure your children are working on any long-term assignments, like book reports, science projects, or research papers. Again, with older kids like high schoolers, provided that they’ve demonstrated strong grades recently, you can back off with daily checks, but still stay involved regularly.
Fifth, when you meet or correspond with your children’s teacher, make sure to listen and be polite. Don’t get defensive or make excuses. Give the teacher the benefit of the doubt that she wants what is best for your children and has the experience to know how to best teach them. Don’t ask for special favors, suggest that your children’s teacher is doing something the wrong way, or be afraid of your children being disappointed with what you find out at the conference.
Sixth, provide consequences for your children at home. If grades are poor or you’ve found out that behavior at school has been a concern, don’t just brush it off or act as if problems at school are no big deal. Have a conversation with your children about what needs to change. If changes aren’t made, hold off on those visits to the ice cream store, trips to the amusement park, or new toy or clothing purchases, for instance. Giving rewards to children who are not performing up to basic expectations tells children that what they’re doing is good and commendable, which is sending the wrong message. On the other hand, if your children are doing well or making big improvements, positive consequences are a great incentive.
Seven, limit screen time. Little kids should hardly be on a device at all other than to complete schoolwork. As your children get older, look online for what is recommended for time limits for video games and other online usage. It’s okay for kids to be “bored.” Throwing an electronic device at them is lazy and damaging. It prevents them from developing the critical skills of thinking, reasoning, creating, listening, and simply being able to occupy themselves patiently.
I’m not a psychologist, and I haven’t conducted any studies on child development. But in twenty years, I’ve talked to a lot of parents and kids and observed what works and what doesn’t. You can say this is easy to say but hard to do, and you’re right. But I’ve seen it work time and time again. Parents who follow these steps from when their children are at an early age seem to have kids who do well in and out of school. I’ve seen it regardless of intelligence, socioeconomic factors, ethnic backgrounds, family structure, language barriers, or any other factor. It’s hard work, but raising a human being is the most important job in the world.
I’ll continue to explore other reasons I decided to leave the teaching profession in a future piece.