To wish parents appreciated their kids’ education more?

[MayasJamas]

Another meet up with middle class parents last night, another inevitable diatribe about how the education system teaches kids nothing but how to pass exams.

As a teacher, I bite my tongue. I truly wish parents could see what young people are actually learning. How the world works (scientifically, sociological, ethically). How to question what they read and hear. How to draw, write, speak, listen. How in English, even in GCSE lessons, we regularly discuss the deepest of human issues: war, love, injustice, misogyny, kindness, religion, prejudice.

I completely agree that the GCSE system is flawed and too much pressure. I have a Y11 child myself and it is too much. But it seems to be a middle class hobby to slag off everything that schools and teachers are trying to do. It’s ironic because, generally speaking, these privileged children are the ones who will benefit most from the education system their parents deride. They’ll go on to study subjects they enjoy at A Level and uni, to have rewarding careers in whatever field they choose. They literally couldn’t do that without education. Generally speaking, teachers and schools are also trying to make those opportinities available to all. I teach underprivileged kids who want to become brain surgeons and journalists and politicians. Education will help them to do that.

But no. ‘It’s just a memory test’. ‘They’re not learning anything relevant to real life’. I don’t want a medal btw, but AIBU to think parents are quick to shit on the system that is actually (on the whole) enriching the lives of their kids?

@PassTheCranberrySauce

I believe a lot of the shit-talking about schools/teachers is feeding into the EBSA crisis. When a child hears, from a young age, adults chatting about ‘my child’s too young to start school/they’re summer born/formal schooling shouldn’t start until later/children in other countries don’t read until they’re 7’, children internalise these messages.

I totally agree. I think a lot of parents are setting children up to feel that school is some awful Soviet style repressive machine and this almost gives kids license to believe they have to push back. Endless talk about how “brutal” GCSEs are. Overreacting to uniform rules. Banging on about how “drained” their kids are. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

There are genuine challenges: poor SEN provision, anxiety, bullying and underfunding. But a lot of parents are medicalising low level anxiety and making children feel school is a hostile force which predisposes them to disengage.

I do have huge sympathy for parents struggling to manage children with neurodiversity and EBSA based issues but I do think that a lot of people are surfing this wave for their own reasons and it’s very damaging.

We highly value education. I’m still allowed to question the value and effect of what they are learning! For example DD is currently studying Pompéi, the transatlantic slave trade and WWI at the same time, in English she’s writing long emotional poems about death! I think they need to give these emo teenagers something that doesn’t involve death and destruction. And they wonder why there’s a mental health crisis and an attendance crisis.

Yet many people I know who are state school teachers send their own kids private.

If they thought the state system is that good then why would they?

This is the opposite of our experience where the schools have totally lacked a behaviour policy, any discipline and enforcement.

I didn’t appreciate the pressure secondary school put on DD. From about Y10 or 11 onwards, all we heard at parents’ evenings was the teachers talking to her, saying along the lines of

“All you need to do, to get an A or A* is….”

DD was a quiet, high achieving perfectionist and the last thing she needed was more pressure - she generated enough of her own! Only one teacher ever talked about her, as a human being. Even when I wrote to the school and asked them to stop pressuring her, four days later, an associate head was going on again to her and me about drawing up a revision time table to get an A.

When she left school, she told me she was burnt out! She had a gap year.

Mostly everyone else doesn't get supported though in this system. Some people feel the same way about exams as you do about coursework and I do think a mix of both would at least attempt to include those who either struggle with exams or aren't as academic because state education should be for everyone, not just those who are academic and enjoy exams.

In this current system, my son doesn't stand a chance and has frankly already given up at 10 years old. It shouldn't be like that.

What’s that got to do with the price of fish?

The initial post by the OP isn’t about teachers thinking they have it harder. You clearly just want to push your own agenda onto the thread.

Yes but how does that get facilitated in a comprehensive system? I’m all for moving towards different types of systems for different types of children but as soon as anyone suggests it then there is outcry.

I strongly disagree.

You say they are taught to think, but only "right think". Say trans men are women or non binary is a pile of rubbish, or Islam is anti women, or anything which is deemed EXTREME RIGHT WING and the kids are suspended or reprimanded.

And, they are taught to pass exams by rote momorisation...no understandingnecessary... They memorise essays. This isn't thinking, this is memorisation only.
They do this in all social subjects. This is why certain subjects at Oxford are getting rid of their exams, as they could be " taught" to pass them.

I don’t think parents would want (or read) multiple emails from different subjects explaining the topics of study. So I guess it’s on parents to find out, or if they don’t want to do that, not make sweeping statements about how their kids aren’t learning anything meaningful

I guess parents don’t know and so can’t always appreciate the extent of work and breadth of learning you/your school covers.
This is probably true for all jobs and professions - no can understand what goes on in the background.

We get a curriculum summary at the start of each academic year - either a zoom meeting or email, listing each subject with topics. English will have the list of text to be studied and perhaps the themes to be covered.
I appreciate this maybe borne out of nature of the of catchment area of our school and families who attend. I suspect the school would have been inundated with queries otherwise.

I appreciate the teachers, but loath our educational system. I have bright but dyslexic children. I’m bright but dyslexic. I was failed by education, my kids are being failed by our educational system. I’m a much better problem solver and communicator than most of my colleagues, they are always shocked when they find out that my qualifications are lacking. None of them can understand why their seemly intelligent colleague had such lousy academic credentials. I’m older, so academic ability wasn’t such a big thing when I started out in my profession, it was much more ‘on the job training’ and I was skilled up and gained more qualifications with the company, I’m the ‘go to person’ when issues arise. However anyone entering the profession now, needs a degree as a bare minimum. My job will not be accessible to my kids. My kids could do the job, with training, it requires skills but not an academic ’brain’.
my mum trained as a nightingale nurse, it was a diploma not degree when she did it, she would never get into nursing now, despite being an intelligent women. She was a much loved district nurse, who used to cycle to her patients…a bygone era! I think we put far too much emphasis on academic ability, and miss out on other skills to our detriment at a societal level and cause great harm to young people at an individual level. In my kids school the issue isn’t the teachers, they are dedicated, compassionate and inspiring, despite this though, they have an impossible task of trying to get square pegs in round holes, and that ain’t ever gonna end well!

I do find this post a bit unrealistic from real life.... Fantastical.

There aren't many underprileged children who endure tough starts in life who become brain surgeons, certainly not without 100,000 pounds of student loan (debt) , 107,000 pounds with interest next year, 115,000 in 2028, 124,000 in 2029...

The debt will keep them in a cycle of struggling, unless, of course, the more realistic reality is that they went to Eton, Westminster, Harrow, roedean, Cheltenham ladies college, and left uni with no debt due to the bank of mum and dad...

Yes, you may find 1 case study, but I could find 99 on the other end of the argument.

Idealism is good, joyous, but it's not really reality for most people. Teachers live in a bubble sometimes, often influenced too much by politics, ideology, religion and not what is reality

I’m happy to be idealistic when it comes to my wonderful students. I’m happy to have high aspirations for them to be able to pursue their chosen studies and goals. I don’t think that’s a bad quality for a teacher tbh.

They don’t memorise essays in English. It would be impossible as you don’t know what exam topic you’ll get. To get high grades they specifically have to be ‘perceptive’ and ‘conceptualised’ and ‘exploratory’. Have you taught these subjects?

I don’t think parents would want (or read) multiple emails from different subjects explaining the topics of study. So I guess it’s on parents to find out.
We get a curriculum summary at the start of each academic year - either a zoom meeting or email, listing each subject with topics. English will have the list of text to be studied and perhaps the themes to be covered.

I was going to post similar. Curricula, lesson plans and the like already exist. Why can't they just pin these up on the internet for interested parents to look at?

In the opening post OP says, "I truly wish parents could see what young people are actually learning." and then starts saying that it's all too difficult and time-consuming, and blaming disinterested parents (meanwhile ignoring the interested ones).
It is well known that there is a correlation between parents' involvement and their DCs' educational outcomes so the question has to be why on earth do schools keep parents at arm's length - they are a committed, motivated and FREE resource!

I actually agree that the curriculum can be quite dark and gloomy. Would be lovely to teach some joy!

I think our education system is too ‘one size fits all’. People learn in different ways, and it doesn’t cater to that. That is not the fault of teachers though.

Is it worth me giving feedback to school about this? Or is it decided at government level?

it’s really not good for the kids. They need a balance. DD definitely won’t be going GCSE history because of this

But I do think its become a kind of fashionable cri de coeur among certain sections of the MC to fetishize "rest" and "downtime" and I think it's got slightly out of hand. Parents who live very comfortable lives objecting to the amount of homework their kids get set and encouraging them to do nothing during school holidays to "recharge" etc.

I saw this a lot when my DC were struggling in primary- lots of don't do stuff outside school they need downtime and you are ruining their lives making them do anything in school hoildays.

We did little and often and it made a massive difference they stopped struggling and started soaring ahead - and it was small blocks of time so all added up maybe an hour or hour and half and rest of the school hoilday day was fun related stuff. Giving them support to get DS reading made a huge differnce to him seeing his self esteem grow and stop hating school and become a book worm.

While we encounted some poor teachers most were going above and beyond but the systems and with secondary the ever changing petty rules that made the kids lives so much harder - the refusal to make accomodations for kids with needs- and at one point the rules were so strict access toilets or eating and drinking within rules on site where bloody impossible - leading for us to a very stressed child - fortuantely someone made them see sense and it relaxed for her Y11.

It’s government level at KS4 with set GCSE topics and texts . But at KS3, at least in English, there is more scope to study books the school chooses. You could have a conversation with the school maybe?

I agree with this. Its about managing workload. There’s a middle ground between Tiger Mother style parenting with wall to wall tutoring and completely opting out. But some people seem to take an “all or nothing” approach.

Burnout is real, particularly when there is ND at play and school can be stressful but off-rolling kids, encouraging them to do nothing except play Minecraft after school and instilling the language of anxiety into every interaction isn’t helping the vast majority of kids who are able to regulate their commitments.

I was talking to my daughter about my A' Level English this morning and our study of The Dubliners. Our teacher would not let us write any other opinion than it was about 'death and decay'. No open discussion or alternative allowed. Everything we took from it had to be through that view. It was the most miserable I have ever been studying English which I always loved! Put me off doing it as a degree!

Here's the science behind why handwriting is better than typing for developing higher order cognitive skills: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11943480/

This has been known for a while. It's not just about writing exams, it's about tickling parts of your brain and unlocking parts of your cognitive skills.

Yes to more joy! This is one of the many reasons drama and music is so valuable. I get sad when I hear parents say they aren’t encouraging their kids to do drama gcse or a level when they are so good at it. Parents often push the sciences etc - not always suiting the young person

I don't teach English but I know how they do their revision. I'm in Scotland, maybe it is different. We have the same questions every year