It has been almost two years since Covid-19 and children have been attending online classes. One would feel that everyone would finally understand the efforts teachers put in every day and how they never get their due but it is anything but that.
Parents are now sitting in classes monitoring lectures and pushing their children to do better. Teachers have the added burden of coping up with technology and dealing with parents who sit and judge them and help children with tests. The poor children have two teachers now -one is their school teacher and the other is their mother, and they are sandwiched between both.
The teacher will be asking the question and the mother will be prompting the answers or reprimanding the child, ”Why did you not answer properly, you missed a point”. Imagine the pressure that falls on children.
They are already stuck at home for two years with no outside play. Some have to attend up to five hours of online class; their mental health is jeopardized.
Last week, my son was attending his online classes. We have the laptop connected to the speakers so we can hear the class from the adjacent room as well. What I heard disturbed me and I feel the need to speak out and voice my concern.
How Parents Intervene In Classes
It was the English lecture and the children were copying notes on conjunctions. A parent interrupted the teacher in the middle of the lecture and said that what was being taught is incorrect. The notes mentioned that a comma is used in a sentence before the conjunction. The parent insisted that it is wrong and she never used a comma before conjunction ever and the children were being taught incorrect grammar.
The teacher was polite enough to explain the rule to the parent. The lady still kept arguing, the teacher finally told her that she will have it checked despite knowing that she was correct and she also asked the children not to write that particular line.
We all know how a primary class functions, one change, and the questions start pouring- “Why ma’am?”, “I already wrote, now what do I do”, “I don’t understand”. It was chaos. The teacher patiently handled each child.
However the parent didn’t stop interfering, she interrupted the lecture a couple of more times pointing out mistakes in the notes. She started accusing the teacher while the lecture was on. It was shocking to hear her arguments-“I never use a comma before a conjunction so I am sure what you are teaching is wrong”,” You have many errors in your notes”,” I think you should give another example to the children instead of the one mentioned so that they grasp it better” and the best one was,” “I am helping you to make your job easier, let me tell you how to do it”.
The children were all distracted by then, there was chaos in class and the teacher seemed disturbed. I cannot begin to explain how wrong this is at so many levels.
Would you go to a hospital and tell the doctor, “This is not how you operate, let me help you” or to a court and tell a lawyer,” Your arguments are all wrong, you are not fighting the case correctly” then why is it okay to interrupt a class and tell the teacher that what she is teaching is not correct? Why is that that we feel that a teacher needs to be taught?
Why We Shouldn’t Do This
I agree there could be mistakes in the presentation or notes but can’t we wait to have that conversation after the class is over? Why is it important to point out mistakes in the middle of an ongoing class? There are around thirty students in my child’s class, sometimes the parents are around and sometimes they are not. We do walk in many a time to check on our kids (many of them daydream and play with things on the table). The younger ones need to be reminded to concentrate.
I could hear the conversation from the adjacent room as it was pretty loud and I am sure many other parents would have heard it too. Try to be a courteous human being and have your doubts cleared the right way.
How embarrassing and how humiliating it is for the teacher. You are questioning her expertise, her craft, and her credentials. She knows what she is doing, why do parents need to intervene? There are mediums to escalate if there are issues, and concerns can be voiced in private after the class is over.
It is not easy to handle a class of small children while you are constantly in the spotlight and the parents sit and judge you. It’s difficult for me to make my son write one page of his homework without arguing with him for twenty minutes.
Imagine thirty such kids in the class; can anyone of us handle them? Do we think we are capable enough? It drives me crazy when there are five children gathered together to play in my house, it is chaos, things are scattered, there is running and shouting and sometimes arguing. In short, it is a recipe to drive you nuts!
The teachers are doing such a great job. We can’t thank them enough. They adapted themselves so well and continued to teach our kids. We should be thankful to them for all that they do; they are the architects of our future and our children’s lives!
The last thing they need is criticism and judgments. They are doing their best, let us help them, stop judging them and not make it any more difficult for them.
Let’s Stop Teaching the Teachers!