Thursday, December 18, 2014

An open letter to a parent who doesn't get it

When my daughter was small, she kept getting in trouble for talking in class. She would finish her projects or exercises before most of the others in her class, get bored, and then start conversations with her friends. During a conference, her teacher informed me that I needed to get it through my child's head how important it was to sit quietly and avoid disturbing others. After assuring her I would remind my child to respect her classmates' work space, I suggested that the teacher also allow my daughter to pull out a book and read when she finished class work. But the teacher said this wasn't a good idea because if my child was reading while other kids were working, the other kids would have their feelings hurt. 

You might be wondering what this has to do with your son's assignment to read a book. Well, I suspect that you would have preferred the kind of teacher my daughter had. Let me tell you, this woman often showed movies to her students, not as a reward, but to keep from stressing them out, or to keep from grading too much when she had a headache. When I complained to the principal, who thought I was objecting to the content of the movies, he was surprised I actually wanted to see my kid doing some sort of work that required critical thinking.

Noting that your son had to read a book, you said, out loud for anyone to hear, "That sounds like a copout to me. That's not teaching him English!" I'd like to know what you think teaching English is, and why reading a book is not part of that education? Perhaps you are like so many other people who see one fraction of the process and think you know the whole system. As a college teacher, I am baffled by how many students have never read a whole book. Have you any idea what a burden that absence puts on the student starting college, let alone the instructors who try to teach them?

You also said, "They complain about how much they get paid. Maybe it's because you're not teaching anything!" Do you realize how many teachers have to use their own money to buy those books and other supplies for students? Do you realize the kind of stress that teachers at all levels are under just to keep classes under control, let alone to get a single nugget of information into their heads, especially when they have parents like you at home who take a crap on every good idea they ever come up with? Teachers in public schools don't just have to deal with their time in the classroom, but address every concern of every parent and guardian who comes along, parents who don't show up to conferences, parents who ignore or can't read the notes sent home, parents who have time to complain, but no time to volunteer.

Teachers fight a losing battle every day to do something they love, and if part of that battle is getting your son to read one book, you should not be on the side of ignorance. I often hear people complain about how they have a right to complain about my job because their tax dollars "pay my salary." You chose a public place, a place where you get paid by my tax dollars and where you have a captive audience, to spew your venom.
Lady, you should be grateful. You should be glad God allowed the miracle of birth for you, because if I was in charge of the universe, people like you would not have the privilege of procreating. You see, I get the result of work you raise in my classes: people who hate reading because their parents hated reading and because their culture has informed them that any reading except Facebook posts is to be avoided. Perhaps if you knew what education is actually about, and what it takes to actually teach a child about a book, you wouldn't open your mouth and say such vile things. And they are vile. 

I would love to easily pass your remarks off as ignorance, but you speak the sort of ignorance that has become legion this country and particularly in this state. This is the ignorance which has fueled legislators to put their fingers in the places they don't belong. It's this kind of ignorance that has elevated athletes and reality TV "stars" and the Donald Trumps of this world to status and riches that I'm sure your kid dreams of.
I am proud of my daughter. Yesterday was her birthday, and I thought of how good she has grown up to be. She had the foresight to marry a man who loved reading, and she has a son who loves his books as much as he loves his toys, for whom books are as integral a part of life as food and affection. When that boy grows up, he will still love reading. He will learn things and he will become someone who is, in my estimation, better than the glob of jelly you aspire for your teenager. What will your son to come become, after you have finished showing him that reading is not valuable? What will your son do when he goes to college – and he will go to college if you wants a job that pays any kind of wage he can live on – and finds that his textbooks are difficult, and that he can't pass his classes by googling or asking Wikipedia to do his homework for him? Will you be there to berate his professors? Will you complain that your poor kid is 30 and living at home because he has not been given the education he is supposed to get? People like you often ask where the parents were when something goes wrong with other people's kids. People like you often say that education begins at home. Where are you? At the DMV bitching. 

One piece of advice: Should your child come to my school, be sure to keep him from enrolling in my class. Because I want him to succeed, and as part of the process he will have to read a book.

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