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Education Opinion

‘No Substitute for a Parent in the Classroom’

By Jim Lenfestey — September 28, 1989 6 min read
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On the first day of kindergarten last year, my wife sat alone in the back of the classroom. She was there with the consent of the teacher to offer support to the youngest of our four children, who was suffering a monumental case of separation anxiety.

One hour through the half-day class, my wife was pleased, for our daughter was participating in the group with only a few terrified glances over her shoulder for reassurance.

Suddenly a boy looked up from the group. After glancing swiftly around the classroom, he stood up and bolted. Right into my wife’s lap.

For the rest of the class, he stayed in her arms. ''My father,” he sobbed, “my father told me my brother would be here.”

My wife reassured him that he probably had misunderstood, that his father probably had meant that his brother was in the same school, not the same classroom. No doubt he would be there when school was over. As the class proceeded, he lay in her arms. His crying subsided, and he fell asleep.

Never mind that they had never seen each other before. The child recognized a presence in that classroom that he needed: a parent.

In this situation, a parent could offer the child what his teacher by definition could not provide-a nonobligatory caring. The teacher had a job to do, and that made her different from the parent.

And the teacher’s job that first day would have been that much more difficult with a sobbing child in her arms. Sometimes there is no substitute for a parent in the classroom.

My wife’s experiences as a volunteer-and my own-illustrate the benefits of parental participation in classrooms not simply for children and teachers but also for the involved parents themselves. Programs designed to promote volunteering among parents deserve the support of educators and policymakers.

Her positive feelings about the classroom encouraged my wife to return when her first task-getting our child over the hump of starting school-was accomplished; she stayed on to help in a weekly journal-writing program for which the teacher sought volunteers.

And I finally volunteered myself.

Over the past 17 years as a parent of school-age children, I had occasionally volunteered in the schools, but rarely participated in daytime activities. I had never been involved in regular classroom work.

Part of the explanation was that I work during the day. And, because my wife was not at the time “employed outside of the home,” as the jargon has it, I figured it was her job.

A key reason I was not making time for daytime involvement in class was that I somehow viewed it as inappropriate. My ego as a man was threatened by what I perceived as a woman’s job.

But I finally did it. One Thursday my wife couldn’t attend and asked me to go. One hour on one Thursday? O.K., I could manage that.

I loved it.

Early in the year, the kindergartners had been asked to bring to school a spiral notebook to serve as their journal.

Every Thursday, three or four parents arrived at 9 A.M. The teacher and students would already be discussing the week’s theme-Thanksgiving, for example, or Martin Luther King Jr., or beauty, or love. The teacher then dispatched the students in groups to small tables where the volunteers sat on diminutive chairs like giants with knees for chins.

The volunteers helped the children develop their ideas into words or sentences. Then the volunteer would write the sentence at the top of the left-hand page in D’Nealian handwriting, a cursive script for beginners.

How did the parents know D’Nealian? They didn’t. They had to learn it fast by searching for the correct letters from the sample alphabet above the blackboard. This necessity taught them a pedagogical lesson all teachers understand: You need only be a few seconds ahead of the students to be effective.

With the volunteers’ help and support, the students copied the text, then illustrated their ideas on the facing page.

Indeed, I was the only man among the volunteers. Indeed, I scrambled as a new volunteer to learn D’Nealian one second ahead of the kids. But one hour of participation taught me more about the classroom, the teacher, the other children, and the school than I had learned in years of after-school volunteering.

After my first visit, I went back as many Thursdays as possible.

As a volunteer, I learned to better understand the objectives of the classroom and to appreciate all the papers my daughter brought home.

I also came to realize that the teacher was a genius. She handled the classroom with consummate authority and discipline, and yet clearly understood each of her charges as an individual for whom she established distinct goals. By inference from her performance, the teaching profession gained a greater respect and luster.

I experienced firsthand the effectiveness of carefully planned lessons: The journal-writing program-which I found to be a brilliant pedagogical technique-provided not only strong writing exercises, but also an important sense of achievement for all the children.

And I learned that young children can do more than adults often think. The teacher challenged them in class discussions. She would not let them get away with easy thoughts or sentences. She insisted they could do more than the minimum. And they did.

I was so impressed that I wrote an article about my experience for our local newspaper. I wanted to spread the word.

But my involvement-and that of other volunteers--could occur only through the conjunction of several factors:

• The teacher was confident of her skills.

• The teacher was flexible.

• The teacher’s program precisely defined tasks appropriate for volunteers.

• The program stipulated a regular time commitment: one hour of one day each week.

• Parents’ time commitments were flexible enough to allow such participation.

While I was at the school, I asked around. The principal wanted more volunteers. Other teachers wanted more volunteers.

And current debate about reforming education suggests that the need is national.

Where are schools to find more volunteers-particularly in an era when, in increasing numbers of families, both parents work outside the home and have little extra time available?

In this regard, I support an idea I first heard articulated by George J. McKenna 3rd, principal of George Washington Preparatory High School in Los Angeles. Why not offer tax credits to businesses that allow working parents time off to visit their children’s schools on a regular basis?

As a precedent for such a policy, Mr. McKenna points out that we support the criminal-justice system by requiring leave for jury duty. “What about the educational-justice system?” he asks. A good question.

Obstacles to the implementation of such a policy include the cost to the government of the tax breaks and the inflexibility of employers and work schedules-not to mention foolish macho prejudices like my own.

But freeing parents to participate in their children’s education would have enormous benefits-for the child, the teacher, the school, the parents, and the community. I strongly suspect that the advantages of a policy like that proposed by Mr. McKenna would far outweigh the costs.

Even without such a policy, my experience shows that teachers and school systems can do a great deal to encourage parental volunteers.

And I just encountered another method educators might employ.

A few days before classes began this fall, our daughter’s 1st-grade teacher called my wife and me. She introduced herself and solicited our involvement: We would be welcome in the classroom, and our contribution would be helpful. That’s good politics.

No doubt she also knows that sometimes there is no substitute for a parent in the classroom.

A version of this article appeared in the September 28, 1988 edition of Education Week as ‘No Substitute for a Parent in the Classroom’

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