The Scoop: Parents teaching class a bad idea
Here’s a hair-brained bill that’s been proposed by your friends and mine in the Tennessee Legislature. This bill, should it somehow eke through and become law, would make parents volunteer in their child’s school for 12 hours a year.
The law would apply to parents of children in grades K-4. In other words, parents of high school children wouldn’t be required to teach advanced chemistry.
I should start by applauding this bill for its good intentions. Parents should, for the most part, be more involved with their child’s education. Far too often parents lean on public schools like a crutch and don’t do their fair share to help their children learn.
Some think of schools more like a day care. Just drop the kids off in the morning and enjoy a seven-hour babysitter.
But all this only serves to muddy my point. And my point in this argument is it makes no sense to force parents to “volunteer” for 12 hours a year.
For starters, it’s hardly “volunteer” work if state law requires parents to assist teachers in the classroom. That would be called mandatory.
Volunteer work is what people do because they want to. It’s not what people do because state government forces them.
So I’m nit-picking about syntax you say. Perhaps I am. But the more relevant question is why should parents be in the classroom for 12 hours a year? For a class with 20 students, that’s 240 hours a year — or 34 complete school days — with a parent in the room.
While it might give parents warm, fuzzy feelings to think they are making a meaningful contribution to their child’s education, essentially they would be nothing more than a distraction. If you don’t believe me, ask any teacher what he or she thinks about a parent being in their classroom for 34 solid days. My less-than-scientific findings show teachers don’t like the idea of parents peering over their shoulders.
Are these parents going to teach a lesson at the blackboard? Are they going to bolster the quality of instruction?
No. More than likely, they will bring cupcakes or cookies and try to make a party out of their “volunteer” day at school. When the music stops and the last game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey is played, the day has become less productive than if the parent hadn’t been there at all.
I’m also wondering out loud how the state would enforce this “volunteer” law. How about this: Parents who refused to volunteer could be arrested and forced to serve 48 hours in jail. No, that’s absurd.
Parents who didn’t volunteer could get slapped with a $50 fine and their children couldn’t graduate until the fine was paid in full, complete with interest. No, that doesn’t seem reasonable either.
Truth be told, parents wouldn’t have to show up for their mandatory volunteer work and the state, thankfully, would be powerless to enforce any form of punishment. It’s a bill with its heart in the right place, but unfortunately its practicality is in the commode.
It would be nice for parents to take a more active role in the education of their children. Parents could make an effort to know what their child is studying, to reinforce what was learned at school, to help with homework and projects, to read to their children and encourage reading instead of TV and video games whenever possible.
Some parents do this already. Many don’t, and finding a way to get them involved is a tricky predicament. But passing a voluntary law that can’t be enforced is not the way to go.
Even worse, what if the “voluntary” idea worked and parents went to school for 12 hours a year. That would impede the learning process more than it would help.
James Clark is editor of the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at editor@southernstandard.com.