Your daily reminder that expecting parents to teach their kids at home is super inequitable

[Anonymous]

This is directed towards posters who retort “teach them yourselves!” when parents complain that their school doesn’t teach phonics, handwriting, spelling, grammar, multiplication tables, etc.

The *only* thing parents should be responsible for is ensuring their kids are well fed and rested, and mentally and physically ready to learn at school. If there are not enough hours in the school day to do everything, teachers should be sending explicit instructions to the parents about what to do at home (eg please have your child drill these times tables until they’ve memorized them). This is also known as “homework”.

[Anonymous]

Totally agree. I do a lot of supplementing for my kids, but this is not something everyone can or will do, and it's really unfair. But given that our school system (MCPS) is really failing to challenge my kids at all, I will continue to supplement to make sure they get the education they deserve.

[Anonymous]

Ok. I'm assuming that you don't ever work with your kids and never did something so inequitable as reading to them?

[Anonymous]

No, parenting is also about educating your kids. This may be our easy out for refusing to help your kids but you really should consider not having more kids if its too much to for you. You should not need a teacher to tell you those things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, parenting is also about educating your kids. This may be our easy out for refusing to help your kids but you really should consider not having more kids if its too much to for you. You should not need a teacher to tell you those things.

Is this a typo or are you a teacher who said the quiet part out loud

[Anonymous]

I agree. I'm involved with my kids' education, but I made a decided choice not to homeschool. A child shouldn't be wasting time all day just to they can come home to and put more hours in doing the "real" work. It's very disappointing that that is the kneejerk response to any criticism regarding deficiencies in school curriculum. It was also something regularly used to shame parents during remote school, as if teaching school while homeschooling a child through remote school was in any way feasible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is directed towards posters who retort “teach them yourselves!” when parents complain that their school doesn’t teach phonics, handwriting, spelling, grammar, multiplication tables, etc.

The *only* thing parents should be responsible for is ensuring their kids are well fed and rested, and mentally and physically ready to learn at school. If there are not enough hours in the school day to do everything, teachers should be sending explicit instructions to the parents about what to do at home (eg please have your child drill these times tables until they’ve memorized them). This is also known as “homework”.

So you are in favor of homework that requires parental help? How is that equitable when many kids do not have a parent available to help with homework?

BTW, did you read to your kids when they were not yet school age? Teach them to hold a crayon? Count anything?

Inequitable?

[Anonymous]

Some of the arguments in this thread are nonsensical. Because some parents may voluntarily be doing “inequitable” things like reading to their child, teaching them to hold a crayon - it’s okay to now expect them to fully homeschool as well?

And yes, it’s better to provide homework with explicit instructions for parents, than to make them guess at what the gaps are in their child’s education and search out resources themselves. I mean, how is this even a question.

[Anonymous]

Is it okay for parents to teach their own child/children to count, learn letters, or speak? What about eat their own food, follow the direction, and respect others? Don’t these behaviors provide privileges?

[Anonymous]

I strongly disagree.

What about my husband's WAR REFUGEE parents who came to their host country with nothing, worked hard, and found time to teach their 4 children, all of whom became doctors, bankers or engineers?

We are not wealthy, and until recently didn't have the resources to outsource my son's special needs therapies, executive coaching and tutoring he has needed since he was little. We did 90% of the work ourselves until last year when we put our hard-earned money into great tutors for him, to get him to the next level.

There will always be unfit parents who are not able to parent, absent parents who are not there to help, and all kinds of situations where children are not getting what they need from their families, or lack thereof.

It does NOT mean that the rest of us, rich or poor, should purposefully refrain from helping our children in any way we can.

Schools will provide what governments and society decide they should pay for. It may not be enough for some children. If you, the loving parent, can't make up the difference, nobody will pick up the slack, OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, parenting is also about educating your kids. This may be our easy out for refusing to help your kids but you really should consider not having more kids if its too much to for you. You should not need a teacher to tell you those things.

Is this a typo or are you a teacher who said the quiet part out loud

No, I'm a responsible parent. Something you should try.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I strongly disagree.

What about my husband's WAR REFUGEE parents who came to their host country with nothing, worked hard, and found time to teach their 4 children, all of whom became doctors, bankers or engineers?

We are not wealthy, and until recently didn't have the resources to outsource my son's special needs therapies, executive coaching and tutoring he has needed since he was little. We did 90% of the work ourselves until last year when we put our hard-earned money into great tutors for him, to get him to the next level.

There will always be unfit parents who are not able to parent, absent parents who are not there to help, and all kinds of situations where children are not getting what they need from their families, or lack thereof.

It does NOT mean that the rest of us, rich or poor, should purposefully refrain from helping our children in any way we can.

Schools will provide what governments and society decide they should pay for. It may not be enough for some children. If you, the loving parent, can't make up the difference, nobody will pick up the slack, OP.

Your husband’s family came here with no debt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I strongly disagree.

What about my husband's WAR REFUGEE parents who came to their host country with nothing, worked hard, and found time to teach their 4 children, all of whom became doctors, bankers or engineers?

We are not wealthy, and until recently didn't have the resources to outsource my son's special needs therapies, executive coaching and tutoring he has needed since he was little. We did 90% of the work ourselves until last year when we put our hard-earned money into great tutors for him, to get him to the next level.

There will always be unfit parents who are not able to parent, absent parents who are not there to help, and all kinds of situations where children are not getting what they need from their families, or lack thereof.

It does NOT mean that the rest of us, rich or poor, should purposefully refrain from helping our children in any way we can.

Schools will provide what governments and society decide they should pay for. It may not be enough for some children. If you, the loving parent, can't make up the difference, nobody will pick up the slack, OP.

Your husband’s family came here with no debt.

??? They came WITH NOTHING but a couple of suitcases. My husband remembers being left in an empty room with his 3 brothers (all under the age of 7), while their mother went to sort out paperwork, and only a bucket to pee in. No furniture. No food. Nothing. He remembers being hungry for years.

What do you mean, no debt?!?!! Are you trying to be funny? Can you even fathom what it means to be a child, hungry and cold and not speak the language? He clawed his way out of poverty and he became a doctor.

Yet his immigrant parents were able to help him and his brothers with homework, teach him math beyond the school's curriculum and get him ahead in most subjects, all while living in a crappy house in a dangerous neighborhood.

So don't give me excuses on why you can't teach your child. It's important to demand great public schools so that all children can be well served. But you need to do your job as a parent too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I strongly disagree.

What about my husband's WAR REFUGEE parents who came to their host country with nothing, worked hard, and found time to teach their 4 children, all of whom became doctors, bankers or engineers?

We are not wealthy, and until recently didn't have the resources to outsource my son's special needs therapies, executive coaching and tutoring he has needed since he was little. We did 90% of the work ourselves until last year when we put our hard-earned money into great tutors for him, to get him to the next level.

There will always be unfit parents who are not able to parent, absent parents who are not there to help, and all kinds of situations where children are not getting what they need from their families, or lack thereof.

It does NOT mean that the rest of us, rich or poor, should purposefully refrain from helping our children in any way we can.

Schools will provide what governments and society decide they should pay for. It may not be enough for some children. If you, the loving parent, can't make up the difference, nobody will pick up the slack, OP.

Your husband’s family came here with no debt.

??? They came WITH NOTHING but a couple of suitcases. My husband remembers being left in an empty room with his 3 brothers (all under the age of 7), while their mother went to sort out paperwork, and only a bucket to pee in. No furniture. No food. Nothing. He remembers being hungry for years.

What do you mean, no debt?!?!! Are you trying to be funny? Can you even fathom what it means to be a child, hungry and cold and not speak the language? He clawed his way out of poverty and he became a doctor.

Yet his immigrant parents were able to help him and his brothers with homework, teach him math beyond the school's curriculum and get him ahead in most subjects, all while living in a crappy house in a dangerous neighborhood.

So don't give me excuses on why you can't teach your child. It's important to demand great public schools so that all children can be well served. But you need to do your job as a parent too.

Amen.
Debt does not prevent one from guiding his/her child. Unsuitability ⁸to the role does.

[Anonymous]

Some of you just argue for the sake of arguing. Are you all frustrated lawyers?

No one said that parents *shouldn’t* supplement, just that they shouldn’t be *expected* to fill in the gaps for school curriculum.

Take your irrelevant stories and shove them up your a**