Amid the heated discussion about school safety consuming the nation, a veteran teacher from Rome, Georgia, redirected the conversation from gun control to parenting in a moving viral post.
Amie DiPrima Brown detailed the quantifiable changes she’s personally witnessed in parents’ level of engagement with their children’s academic life throughout her 15-year career in the classroom. Parents are becoming increasingly disengaged and are offering little help to teachers who might be able to help identify potentially problematic students. Without such identification, students cannot get the help they need and their classmates might be consequently victimized.
Brown initially penned the post in February, but it has since resurfaced in the aftermath of the Santa Fe High School shooting, last week.
“With all of the talk about guns in schools, why it’s happening, and how to solve the issue let me offer a little different perspective. I’ve been teaching since 2003. This marks my 15th year in the classroom. Everybody always talks about how schools have changed, and it’s true, they have,” begins Brown, adding that the changes, however, might not be the one most people are aware of.
The educator then explains how parents’ participation in an “assignment” concerning their children has dramatically declined.
“Every year for 15 years I have sent home the same assignment on the first day of school. I send a letter home asking parents to tell me about their child in a million words or less. I go on to explain that I want to learn the child’s hopes, dreams, fears, challenges,” writes Brown. “These letters have been so beneficial to me as a teacher and getting to know my students on a personal level. I have learned about eating disorders, seizures, jealousy issues between twins, depression, adoption, abuse…just to name a few things. These letters give me a huge head start on getting to truly know my students. I often pull them out when a child has a sudden change in behavior or issue that comes up.”
Brown says the number of parents participating in the helpful assignment has gone from roughly 98% of parents to just 22% since her start in the classroom. She’s noticed a similar drop in students completely simple homework assignments, which she also linked to disengaged parents.
As I was putting the folders back in the file cabinet I noticed something. I know that the percentage of parents that complete this assignment each year has gotten lower and lower, but looking at the size of the folders shocked me. That first year I had 98% of the parents send back some type of letter on their child. This year… 22%. That’s a lot of opportunities lost for me to get to know students. Sadly, more parents have access to an electronic device that makes this task even easier and less time consuming.
On another note, this year’s average for homework turned in is riding at 67%. I’m talking a twice monthly 5 sentence summary of what the student is reading in their own time. I remind students daily, I send text messages through Remind, it’s on my website. The only other thing I could do is do it for them. Parents continue to let their child rack up zero after zero. But then again, that average used to be around 98% as well. It was rare for more than 1-2 students to not have their homework 15 years ago. Now, it’s just frustrating.
“With all of our other responsibilities in our profession, how are we supposed to get to know students so that we can identify the ones with the mentality and disposition to become a school shooter if parents are checking out of the academic process?” she asks. “How are we supposed to educate children when their parents don’t require, expect and demand their child complete their homework?”
Brown implores, “Don’t wait until your child is the school shooter to let us know your child is struggling mentally. Don’t wait until your child is ineligible for sports or the day before report cards to check grades and question the teacher on why your child is failing.”
“Be a parent,” she states. “Be involved in your child’s life so that you can help them through the issues with friends, the possible suicidal thoughts, and problems academically. I promise you, if parents spent more time with their children and got involved in their lives, we would see drastic improvements in our schools and our society.”
“As parents, our job is to grow the most amazing humans possible. It’s the most important job in the world. The education and emotional stability a parent provides is priceless,” she concludes.
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